RIP Google Reader • Hacker News Board

Re: RIP Google Reader

#211

Post by twobitshifter » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #157

yreg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too don't get this. I also used Google Reader back then. When iPhone was novel and WiFi spots were rare, so people had to preload a part of the web to get through the day. When they killed it I switched to NetNewsWire and didn't miss the previous product. What was so special about Google Reader?

Since you brought up NetNewsWire, Google Reader had a critical feature back in 2005 that most RSS readers today still lack: you could configure feeds to not just store the RSS but also visit the website to save the full article. I just opened up NetNewsWire and, yup, 99% of my subscriptions are a few sentences and then a "Read more" link which kinda defeats some of the major upsides of an RSS reader. I don't just wan…

When you see just a blurb, you can click the paper/text icon to read the whole article. NetNewsWire downloads the feed and you don’t have to exit the app and load the full page. This works for me on kinja sites which have the read more link.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#212

Post by cromka » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

waterhouse wrote: post #93

vanderZwan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newsblur also lets you subscribe to YT channels, which is much nicer experience than YT's own way of handling subscriptions

Hmm, interesting. Is it based on Youtube's raw RSS features? Because you can use RSS for an entire channel, or for a playlist, but the latter doesn't work if there are more than 15 (IIRC) videos in the playlist. Does Newsblur do something specific to Youtube to work around that? Also, does any RSS reader have some kind of regex filtering option? "I want all the items from this RSS feed that match the following regex"…

Tiny Tiny RSS has regex filtering. Use it extensively and works as expected.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#213

Post by treesknees » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

blakesterz wrote: post #74

dbrereton wrote: post #58

As someone who was born too late for Google Reader, I genuinely don't understand why people bring it up every 5 minutes. There are 1000 feed reader apps that exist right now, some of which have the branding of "it's just like Google Reader", so what am I missing here?

I guess you had to be there? "it's just like Google Reader" means it's NOT as good, but close enough. GR was solid and we LOVED it, especially the search. I think RSS readers are one of those things that some of us LOVE and we're still bitter that Google took it away. Maybe it was the first big thing Google cancelled? I know for me it was, and I've not trusted anything new from Google since. Maybe that's it... before…

As others have said, it marked a turning point for how Google is perceived. It's not as though GR had 100k beta users like Stadia, it had nearly 5 million active users when it shut down. The closing marked the end of Google doing cool things because they're cool, and showed their true colors as a major corporation looking after profits first. Something that is pretty much a given opinion of them today.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#214

Post by Andrew_nenakhov » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

pantalaimon wrote: post #196

macintux wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly that was Google's intention. Thank goodness they failed.

But they didn't even try very hard. G+ didn't event have a way to create events. Google Calendar was on every Android device, it would have been so seamless if you could have create a birthday party or attend a rave in the park and it would be right in your calendar. But no, you could only post stories and pictures. That made for a rather bare-bones social network.

First iteration was rather nice, clean interface without many distractions. However, then they got all cardy with that material design, and it all was very confusing

Re: RIP Google Reader

#215

Post by twobitshifter » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

webscout wrote: post #207

Not an RSS reader by design, but I'm with https://upstract.com — Made by the original Popurls inventor.

Wow, that’s a bold default color scheme. If you sign up can it be changed?

Re: RIP Google Reader

#216

Post by aasasd » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #173

aasasd wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you'd come upon it sooner if you used alternativeto.net, which is pretty good among software listings.

But also could apparently use some marketing.

Eh, it's likewise seemingly maintained by two guys, so it has some of the homely feel, and is not spammed to death like a widely popular service would be.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#217

Post by kdmytro » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #30

cletus wrote: post #11

Whatever was said at the time, I’m convinced Google Reader was collateral damage from the Bay of Pigs Google Plus effort. It had social features (which I honestly never used) and anything social had to be G+. Still, I honestly don’t understand why this is the hill people want to die on, what they feel most betrayed about. Like I haven’t seen some people this upset since Firefly was canceled.

Because Google Reader was the social network for people who don't like talking about themselves but about things on the web that they find interesting, and nothing since has ever come close to it.

Isn't Pinterest basically what you describe?

Re: RIP Google Reader

#218

Post by egypturnash » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

conesus wrote: post #35

It was in the summer of 2008, three years after Google launched Reader and had at least 5 million users, when I decided to write my own RSS reader. There were just so many features I wanted that I knew Google would never build and for some strange reason I thought I could make money with my own opinionated take on a news reader. Then at 4pm on March 13th, 2013, I got an email from Nilay at The Verge asking if I'd hea…

oh man I love the last item on the table comparing Free Newsblur to Paid Newsblur. Free version: My dog goes hungry! Paid version: Tiny photo of happy dog and a note about what a nice meal you'll cook for her.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#219

Post by ColinHayhurst » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

slgeorge wrote: post #141

conesus wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing is hard for me because I've hired a few folks to do targeted ads and it ended up being a big cost sink. Beyond that, I try to blog regularly and use big screenshots for new features, which helps a bit with SEO and discoverability. But getting NB onto lists? I'm not sure what that requires.

I'm a subscriber so I have self-interest in you being successful and I've paid money to help support that. If there's one thing I would encourage/plead you to do, it's to hire one person who will do "advocacy marketing". You said "Marketing is hard" and there's no doubt. But you'll know the right person, because they'll be __more__ excited about talking about your product and how it can be used, and who can use it ..…

Nothing much to add. Roy-less? Seriously, why not follow this great advice?

Re: RIP Google Reader

#220

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #149

dpeck wrote: post #114

Those of you who don’t understand why people were attached to Reader: Please keep in mind that it’s generally not the death of the tool that we lament after all these years. It is the destruction of our communities there that we’re still sad about. Imagine your favorite coffee shop, bar, church or social club ceased to be. You’d still see some of the previous members at other places, but the community as it existed i…

Wait, what was the community? I thought it was just an RSS reader. This is the first I've ever heard of a Reader "community". I'm looking it up and it doesn't appear there were forums or anything. What was the community aspect?

Not forums, but it did have social features.