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Three Months to Scale NewsBlur

blog.newsblur.com

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Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur

#81

Post by thefuturewasnow »

jpwagner wrote: post #26
jpwagner wrote: post #19

So far I am not a user of ANY reader. Between googlenews, twitter, and HN I get my daily digest. I would like to try Newsblur but it seems that to get immediate value I have to have been some reader user: I can migrate my googlereader account or upload an OPML file. What I would like to see are different versions of OOTB "skins". I can sign up as an "HN-lover" and it seeds my account with 50 blogs I should follow. Th…

In other words: does anyone with a reader setup they love want to share their OPML file so I can try out Newsblur? Thanks!

here is a link to mine: https://www.dropbox.com/s/afksdrwxc1f0thq/subscriptions.xml

Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur

#82

Post by boyter »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #24
recuter wrote: post #3

I'd just like to point out that '$24/yr * high four-figures of paying costumers' with only one employee ensures NewsBlur will be around for a long time. :) This is the kind of single founder "life style" startup that VC's would paw-paw that is Doing It Right that many of us aspire to. The other ones I can think of are Pinboard and Instapaper. I'd rather go this route, personally, here's to more like these. Cheers.

Indeed. If one were wise, you could stalk Google/Yahoo/BigCo properties that are being neglected, launch a paid competitor and reap the reward when they shut down. Pinboard and now Newsblur.

Thats actually a really good idea.

I wonder what would be next? Most of Yahoo's properties seem be be neglected at the moment, but what about Google? Google News perhaps?

Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur

#83

Post by DuskStar »

klox wrote: post #28
amix wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With currently only 3400 paying users it's only 80K pr. year of revenues (and the profits are probably much lower). It's still far from a good business and this kind of money does not have any kind of guarantees.

3400 is only the number of new paying users in the last 24 hours. The amount of annual income from this product will now end with "million".

Oh, wow. I had not realized that number was the DAILY signups...

Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur

#84

Post by tmzt »

btipling wrote: post #76
mynegation wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to install NewsBlur, but instructions were not very helpful. I tried to get as far as I can, editing fabfile and installing gajillions of new python modules, but still failed. Don't get me wrong, it is wonderful and very commendable of you to open source NewsBlur! Nor do I feel entitled to the source code or free ride (I will probably end up paying for the hosted solution). Just providing some feedback, given…

> I am not a web developer so that can partially explain my struggle with fabric, Django and multitude of webdev and devops modules that you use. GitHub is not an app store. You can't expect to "install" a software as a service's code base. Open sourcing a project is opening it up to engineers, providing a self-hosted option on the other hand should be an easy to install alternative that probably requires another ful…

Seems like there's a need for a cloud infrastructure/language independent packaging format, to build a "github of installable applications"

Maybe container images that can also be used as bootable images?

Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur

#85

Post by DuskStar »

Maven911 wrote: post #6

Hi, So i have noticed that you are very forthcoming with data, such as providing the number of premium users on your webpage, and I hope you continue this - I really hope you become more succesful with this Google Reader debacle going on. 1) Why are you open about the number of users ? (personally I think its great) 2) How do the real-time stats work, I notice that the amount of regular users was over 20k a few days…

From another comment, those numbers appear to be the new signups in the last 24 hours - and as the free option became much harder to find recently, I would expect the number of free signups to decrease dramatically.

Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur

#86

Post by tmzt »

rssident wrote: post #75
lazugod wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I briefly tried both. * Feedly has a simple interface which is much more like Google Reader. But it depends on a plugin (or an app) rather than being an allwhere accessible website. Their Kindle Fire app seemed to load content extremely slowly, and its interface wasn't a simple list. And it's free, so I can't be a customer and I don't know how they earn money. * NewsBlur is complicated and unresponsive. There are a l…

Try http://rssident.com I am working on making the UI more user friendly and adding OPML import/export. It's going to be supported by advertising with a subscription service for premium features and no ads.

I like the predictive aspect Personally, I'm looking for something with a GR atom API, possibly to even run the existing GR frontend against, not a new UI with a different focus (I would prefer one focusing on curation and workflow over social or sharing).

Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur

#88

Post by bsg75 »

korg250 wrote: post #74
lazugod wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I briefly tried both. * Feedly has a simple interface which is much more like Google Reader. But it depends on a plugin (or an app) rather than being an allwhere accessible website. Their Kindle Fire app seemed to load content extremely slowly, and its interface wasn't a simple list. And it's free, so I can't be a customer and I don't know how they earn money. * NewsBlur is complicated and unresponsive. There are a l…

"and I don't understand why an arrow follows the mouse." Really? It is a feature for better reading, so you can can easily see which line you are.

Make sense now that someone points it out! For those who mouse click to mark reading point.

Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur

#89

Post by overshard »

recuter wrote: post #3

I'd just like to point out that '$24/yr * high four-figures of paying costumers' with only one employee ensures NewsBlur will be around for a long time. :) This is the kind of single founder "life style" startup that VC's would paw-paw that is Doing It Right that many of us aspire to. The other ones I can think of are Pinboard and Instapaper. I'd rather go this route, personally, here's to more like these. Cheers.

I agree, this is a great model. To shameless plug myself I plan on doing the same with Pinry: http://getpinry.com/

Re: Three Months to Scale NewsBlur

#90

Post by ryen »

tmzt wrote: post #84
btipling wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not a web developer so that can partially explain my struggle with fabric, Django and multitude of webdev and devops modules that you use. GitHub is not an app store. You can't expect to "install" a software as a service's code base. Open sourcing a project is opening it up to engineers, providing a self-hosted option on the other hand should be an easy to install alternative that probably requires another ful…

Seems like there's a need for a cloud infrastructure/language independent packaging format, to build a "github of installable applications" Maybe container images that can also be used as bootable images?

> Seems like there's a need for a cloud infrastructure/language independent packaging format, to build a "github of installable applications"

I think Chef and Puppet try to fill that role, somewhat

Edit: actually, this recent HN discussion looks promising https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5392041

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