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RIP Google Reader

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Re: RIP Google Reader

#291

Post by llampx »

ufmace wrote: post #194
ChrisSD wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In retrospect Reader's death marked a turning point in how Google was perceived. There were grumblings before that but Google was still the darling of the web. As you say, Google+ was consuming Google at that time. So when they killed Reader it was not just killing a beloved service. It also acted like a lightning rod for the discontent that had started to swell. A lot of people would never again view Google through…

Interesting perspective. I had long tended towards the viewpoint of, "Jeez guys, it's just an RSS reader, there's 50 better ones now, why do we have to whine about Reader getting cancelled every 5 minutes?". This is the first good explanation I've found for why it could be considered a bigger deal.

Yes, for me that's when I started to develop a negative opinion if Google. I still use Android but aside from that my life has drastically been de-googled since then.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#292

Post by pradn »

ChrisSD wrote: post #47
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.

In retrospect Reader's death marked a turning point in how Google was perceived. There were grumblings before that but Google was still the darling of the web. As you say, Google+ was consuming Google at that time. So when they killed Reader it was not just killing a beloved service. It also acted like a lightning rod for the discontent that had started to swell. A lot of people would never again view Google through…

Is there evidence that Google+ caused the demise of Google Reader? Couldn't a simpler explanation be that the VP in charge of this product wanted to put headcount toward something more profitable? One problem with talking about a large company is that decisions, even major ones, are often made without other functions having much of a say, and yet every decision is attributed to the company as a whole. And just because Google+ was happening at the same time as the Reader shutdown doesn't mean you can create a causal link between the two.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#293

Post by Semiapies »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #122
ChrisSD wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In retrospect Reader's death marked a turning point in how Google was perceived. There were grumblings before that but Google was still the darling of the web. As you say, Google+ was consuming Google at that time. So when they killed Reader it was not just killing a beloved service. It also acted like a lightning rod for the discontent that had started to swell. A lot of people would never again view Google through…

Yeah, I noticed this too: I think Google Reader was heavily used by the right sort of people (devs, bloggers and media types) that, when Google killed it, it created a lot of bad will with the people who shape opinions.

Who then went and told everyone else that RSS was dead because Reader was gone.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#294

Post by davchana »

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.

True. My first internet enabled phone was Nokia 7210 (or 6210 i think). A tiny one, with half screen & lower half keyboard. Sharp crispy colors. Opera mini & Google Reader had all of my feeds lined up. Some philosophical posts, some technical, some funny, a bit of everything I liked. Pure Author Contents. No comments on the feed atleast. I miss it.

I would check it in the morning, while in washroom, in bus, waiting & any time.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#295

Post by harha »

politelemon wrote: post #144
harha wrote: post #24

Let us also remember Inbox, haven’t been able to manage day through my calendar, tasks and email in one place as seamlessly since that one was sunset.

I am still holding out naive, idiotic hope that someone will build an Inbox replacement. And not the box-ticking feature-parity that they still haven't delivered on, but the actual intelligent workflows, while maintaining a clean uncluttered experience, that Inbox was so good at. I do understand though, that a lot of people who didn't "get" Inbox will not understand this sentiment either. But there are dozens of us!…

Having To-dos and Calendar entries pop up at the right time, eliminating the need to switch apps in the daily flow, it was all such a work of genius.

I never got used to Outlook, though I don't recall why, and now I'm back to what macOS has, even though it feels so basic and I sometimes end up unprepared for meetings or have them in the wrong time zone because I add them through Mail but can't edit them in Calendar.

Inbox without Google would be such a great product, if I had a team to work with I would take on this problem (I'm a PM happy to contribute what I can if anyone is interested):

- The main useful features don't have that many "smart" parts, I think it would take some translation layer into all the different protocols to appear seamless. That's probably the hardest part to implement given how ancient e-mail, calendar, tasks are (at least from a user perspective, I must admit, I don't know much about the protocols).

- The "smart" features, such as trips could be implemented as plugins.

- Add an interface for custom plug-ins and this would integrate so well both in individual workflows of power users and teams.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#296

Post by sweden »

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 agree that HN goes overboard with Google Reader but I can also share the sentiment.

You are right when you say that there are many alternatives to Google Reader, even better ones you could say. I am fond not just of Google Reader but also I am fond of the times of better news consumption of back then.

When Google Reader disappeared, it left some sort of hole in news consumption that got filled up with Google+, Twitter and Facebook. The media outlets became obsessed about sharing news articles in social media, fighting for "likes", "+1s" and "retweets".

Google Reader provided a simple of way of having your news centralized on a snappy service, with good UI, without any ads or "smart suggestions" and without all of your social graph embedded in there. It was the way of consuming news for people that actually wanted to be informed.

And the best part, you could actually subscribe to other's people favorite feeds. It was kind of hidden, there was no dedicated "find friends" button or anything like that, you had to go out of your way and ask to someone "Can I have the link to you RSS feed for your saved items?" in order to "add them" to Google Read. And you could actually comment on their saved items.

I miss these times, I was actually a news junky back then because of Google Reader. I was shown what I wanted to be shown with no social crap or "hot articles" thrown to my face. I slowly lost interest in consuming news after that.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#297

Post by jolux »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #265
jolux wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter still supports the chronological timeline. It's no Google Reader, but I refuse to submit to The Algorithm.

Yes, and how often are you having to switch it back? I've read several stories that Twitter will flip it back for you every couple of weeks.

Weirdly I feel like they used to switch me back to "Home" constantly but it doesn't seem to happen anymore. It only changes when I change it now.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#298

Post by pfd1986 »

conesus wrote: post #109
ecliptik wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for Newsblur, it's one of my essential apps and I use it for almost everything; RSS feeds, reddit, youtube, twitter, newsletters, even gemini:// via proxy. It's a solid product, and the amount of work you've put into it shows and I plan to remain a customer for years to come.

Then you'll be excited to see the upcoming redesign that I have yet to publicly launch (but want a few users on to test the waters early): https://beta.newsblur.com

Is there (plan for) a "read it later" feature? Sometimes I find a good link that I just want to be able to find and read at a later time.

Thanks!

Re: RIP Google Reader

#299

Post by 45ure »

crucialfelix wrote: post #277
45ure wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope they don't kill it. Although, I never really recovered from the Red Wedding of Reader. However, I recently convinced myself to use Google Keep; it has a neat implementation of grabbing text from an image and works fairly well. I realise that I will be training the algorithms, and appending data to the already vast collection. It is a trade-off I am willing to accept. I have generally been using it to gr…

I have a sync script that fetches all my google Keep notes and saves as markdown. I was using it to sync into Roam for a while, but now I have it syncing into my markdown folder. My current note taker is iA Writer. On the go markdown authoring, syncs with dropbox.

Thanks for the tip on iA Writer ─ like the aesthetics, and features. I will definitely give it a shot.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#300

Post by naravara »

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…

This seems expensive to do for the host. Maybe specifically snapshotting pages for "Read it later" purposes but I can't imagine having to load up every web-page from every site you follow whether you're going to read it or not.
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