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Ask HN: Why do RSS Readers (mostly) suck?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do RSS Readers (mostly) suck?

#41
post #5

Check out Yahoo Pipes. This under-appreciated tool can help you be more selective in the news you actually look at. http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/

I used it to make an RSS feed which only shows stories that make it into the top 10 on HN. http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=91d82e993e4607b9f...

Re: Ask HN: Why do RSS Readers (mostly) suck?

#43
RSS readers are fine, Google Reader is better. The problem is in user experience and how they use it. If you do not prioritize and constantly worry about missed or unread items, you will only end up blaming your reader. The trick is in organizing, prioritizing and ignoring the unread/missed items. With these three strategies, you can effectively absorb unbelievable amount of data on daily basis.

Re: Ask HN: Why do RSS Readers (mostly) suck?

#44
I'm not sure if the question is aimed at geeks (ie HN crowd) or in general, but my own observations from previously working at a leading news website indicates that people find the lack of visual aesthetic disappointing in News Readers.

Images are often not included in RSS feeds, and if they are are then they are only shown once you are viewing an item.

When we are triaging which stories to read on a news/blog site, imagery plays an important as we scroll and select - and I don't think I've seen any RSS readers which show you a feed item's images at the story selection level.

The lack of site aesthetic/look and feel maybe less important to geeks but end-consumers also miss that when they are viewing news stories in a reader. In other-words, when I read CNN's feed in my reader I don't get any of CNN's site aesthetic.

Finally, don't forget comments and also the serendipity of suggested related content -- both of which are also missed out when we read stories in a news reader.

Re: Ask HN: Why do RSS Readers (mostly) suck?

#45

I use and love Google Reader. I use the List mode (as opposed to Expanded) and my work flow is the same whether I'm at my desktop, iPhone, iPad, or Blackberry. A handful of feeds I insist on reading everything, which means I hit J-J-J-J to get through them all. But most I merely skim the unread titles for things that look interesting, and when I'm done I hit Mark As Read to clean up the rest. I like how I can do this…

The other advantage to Google Reader is that the processing is offloaded. I have many active feeds, and when performing an update my local client on my 8GB quad-core raid-0 system would grind away - no matter what client I used. With Google Reader, it's Google that is doing the data collection and processing, making it light-weight enough for anything that can run a browser.

Re: Ask HN: Why do RSS Readers (mostly) suck?

#46
post #23

A friend recently launched http://feedingo.com/ which basically tries to make the user experience as friendly as possible. Pricing is the only problem, but after getting feedback he plans on trying to address that promptly (like $5/yr or something, for a non-free version)

I'm that friend! I had the same feelings about RSS as the OP, so I created http://feedingo.com.

Most RSS readers try to be something they're not: "it's like reading email", "it's like reading a magazine" etc. Feedingo is a web app with an interface that makes reading RSS as easy as possible.

It's true that the current pricing that I launched with needs to be changed, but sign up for the free version and try it out while im working on that.

Re: Ask HN: Why do RSS Readers (mostly) suck?

#47

I would say it's a combination of a number of reasons, some -- if not all -- relate to the technologies encapsulated in RSS. First, because RSS by design is meant to just be metadata, and because it's really hard to render HTML (especially those that are not well-formed) the readers typically have to jump through so many hoops to get things just working. Second, I think it's also because the RSS readers are typically…

Hey dean, give my reader http://feedingo.com a look. As an example of an RSS reader created by a designer.

Re: Ask HN: Why do RSS Readers (mostly) suck?

#48
post #7

I think I created a very nice feed reading experience with NewsBlur: http://www.newsblur.com . It shows the original site, allows you to read as you normally would, but keeps track of the stories you're scrolling past. It also allows you to filter stories based on what you like and dislike about them: words/phrases in the title, tags and categories, authors, and the publisher themselves. There is a slider that allows…

Awesome reader, first one I've actually liked.

Only major problem so far is that I can't delete a feed (the link isn't working) or edit details.

Other than that, awesome job.

Re: Ask HN: Why do RSS Readers (mostly) suck?

#49
I think there's an issue with people's expectations of their Feed Readers. If you add 100+ feeds then expect the reader to make it easy to read every single post, that will never happen.

Feed Readers work best, and are much more realistic when you treat them like Twitter. You can follow 100+ people, but you don't expect to read every single tweet that they send out. If you miss a post, oh well, it's yesterday's news.

Just log into your reader of choice when you have free time, read the latest news, then go about your day guilt free.

plug: http://feedingo.com

Re: Ask HN: Why do RSS Readers (mostly) suck?

#50
I wrote myself an RSS reader that does exactly what I want...which is aggregate links for me.

It's here: http://newsyndicated.com if anybody is interested.

The only real "feature" of it is the ability to make a sort of "meta rss" feed so that you can share links that you have "liked" with your friends.

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