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Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

#121

Post by jdietrich »

No, it's a skinner box [1]. The mere existence of a URL with a limitless amount of relevant, interesting content is toxic to my productivity. Even if I have it blacklisted, the temptation plays on my mind, my dopamine receptors dancing at the prospect of a slot machine that dispenses pure novelty. I use a cron job to e-mail me a daily digest of the RSS feeds I can't do without, which decouples cause from effect - I know what time I'll get my daily fix, so I feel no urge to ^r^r^r.

I also have HN on maxvisit:20, minaway:300 and have blocked Reddit, BoingBoing and other skinner boxes on a router which I can't control.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

Re: Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

#122

Post by athst »

I have never been able to get RSS to work for me - I'd always subscribe to a bunch of feeds, then they'd pile up into hundreds of unread posts, and then I'd just go numb to it and end up visiting the site itself like I did before.

But now, Twitter has filled this hole for me - most every site or writer of significance has a Twitter feed, and it's easy to follow them. I don't feel obligated to read down this huge stack of accumulated posts, so there aren't any mental barriers to use it. In addition, you read the content on the site itself, in the format that it was meant for (or you add it to Instapaper). Twitter is sorta like RSS for normal humans.

Re: Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

#123

Post by conesus »

ojilles wrote: post #119
conesus wrote: post #76

I used to use Google Reader, but I found that I missed seeing the original site and that I couldn't easily filter out stories I didn't want to read. So I built NewsBlur -- http://www.newsblur.com . It's open-source and I'd love if more folks followed my development: http://github.com/samuelclay . It's been a weekend project but it's been a wild ride so far. One of my main goals is to have much of the functionality of…

Wow! This is a _weekend_ project? It looks very slick! How many weekends if I may ask?

Been working on it for 2 years now. But only as a side-project. I also worked on it on the A train in NYC for a year, about 30 minutes each direction. And I now get to work on it for an hour and a half a day when on Caltrain (SF -> Mountain View).

Check the git history on GitHub. This has been by no means an easy feat, but little by little, you can build a 6-server service (and learn about every single component in the meantime).

Re: Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

#125

Post by smhinsey »

conesus wrote: post #113
smhinsey wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this is pretty excellent. Is there an easy way to subscribe to things similar to how Reader works?

You mean like a bookmarklet? Manage > Goodies has a bunch of browser-specific hacks to make the RSS button go to NewsBlur. There's also a bookmarklet that lets you add a site to a folder (and create a folder if you want) from the site itself.

Hah, now all you're missing is a feature to erase 6 years of muscle memory and habit to always immediately check Reader.

Re: Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

#127

Post by Dramatize »

conesus wrote: post #76

I used to use Google Reader, but I found that I missed seeing the original site and that I couldn't easily filter out stories I didn't want to read. So I built NewsBlur -- http://www.newsblur.com . It's open-source and I'd love if more folks followed my development: http://github.com/samuelclay . It's been a weekend project but it's been a wild ride so far. One of my main goals is to have much of the functionality of…

I'll give it a go. I'm in the process of setting up a large number of feeds to help filter content for our product websites.

Re: Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

#128

Post by realgt »

chrmaury wrote: post #18
brg wrote: post #5

Why? Is this market research for a new reader, or is this tool next on the Google chopping block and your looking for demographics.

I was just curious. I'm addicted, and I wanted to see if other people felt the same way. When they dropped Reader from the global nav. I was very upset, but was glad to see there was enough of a ruckus to get it put back. I don't know that I would pay to keep Google from axing it, but I would consider it, and thats saying something.

i would definitely pay to manage my rss feeds via its UI or at least through an API

Re: Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

#129

Post by gmartres »

Wow, that's unexpected. I'd have thought the HN crowd would be keen not to depend on Google for too many services. Especially when there's a lot of open source alternatives and when it appears that Reader does not even support something as basic and important as offline reading: https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/reader/thread?tid=5fc...

Personally I use Akregator(http://userbase.kde.org/Akregator/fr)

What's so great about Reader?

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