Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Reader is dead

google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 215 posts

Re: Google Reader is dead

#171

Post by jdechko »

roberthahn wrote: post #120

On the topic of Google Reader alternatives: most of the popular alternatives involve a central online storage. I may be unique, but I'd be quite happy for an iOS app that allows me to import my OPML file of feeds and sync it locally. Given those constraints, could anyone suggest an app that would fit the bill? I've been looking, and the only app I could find that fit the criteria so far is RSSRunner by golden-apps.co…

There are tons of RSS apps with little or no syncing.

My app of choice is Reeder, which can be used with or without a syncing service.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#173

Post by petercooper »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #144
petercooper wrote: post #48

It'll be less important now than it was 3-6 years ago, but get ready for all those FeedBurner subscriber count widgets to show huge subscriber # crashes as Reader no longer checks in. Back in the day, they were a sort of informal auditing system and definitely helped me land advertisers for my blog (simply because I could "prove" I had 20,000 readers or whatever). Thankfully I ditched the Web and moved to e-mail and…

This is going to sound antagonistic, but I'm genuinely curious: How many subscribers did you lose when you switched from RSS to email, and how do you know that all of them are receiving and reading your dispatches? Personally, getting an e-mail instead of an RSS feed is sub-optimal - I can't easily add things to pocket from e-mail. I'm also wondering how many people trained their clients to re-route to spam.

I didn't do a like for like switch from the Web to e-mail, it was more specific for the format, so I can't make a direct comparison sadly. Because e-mail proved way more successful for me, I've basically let the Web properties die but that was not the original intent.

With e-mail, the engagement and revenue are way higher, and it's possible to get an accurate feel for how big the audience is (as in, I know I have 123k subscribers or whatever) and how many of those are engaged, reading, and clicking on stuff.

I was very skeptical at the start and just tried it out because of all the e-mail newsletter hoopla on HN 3-4 years ago but it's now my main business and growing more rapidly than my Web publications ever did.

There are, of course, many who are not fans of e-mail but like Facebook oriented businesses can make good money even though not everyone likes Facebook.. so too can e-mail companies do very well off the majority who are still using e-mail.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#174

Post by pohl »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #172

Google lost a lot of trust and goodwill from a lot of its power users with this move. I hope for them they had a good reason.

Of course it's a good reason: they needed create company-wide, laser-like focus on making it possible for rich pervs to shoot amateur POV hands-free.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#175

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

lmg643 wrote: post #122
johnchristopher wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understanding the position you are explaining doesn't make the shutdown of Google reader any less regrettable or irritating. It's my impression that it's a little bit cliché and borderline to trolling: every time a "free" product is shutdown and people complain or discuss about it there is a good free-market capitalist soul coming with condescending comments about how people shouldn't expect anything when given somet…

For the users who valued it, google reader had the ability to keep them hooked into the google website for long periods of time, dozens of visits per day per person. I would think those characteristics would allow some kind of monetization via ads etc. I assume google looked at the numbers and saw that is not the case, and not simply at user growth. Cash cow vs growth vehicle kind of thing. If i had to guess, it seem…

I agree, but its not (directly) about the ads, its about the profiling. The benefits of profiling infovores should not be underestimated, especially when they are Google's core users (and the ones who spread the word).

Ultimately, if people log in less, and contribute less to the Knowledge Graph (crowd sourcing production of meta-data had to be worth something, after all) then its a net loss.

Google's experiments may cause them to believe this not to be the case, but the trouble with ruthless, consistent optimisation of individual features is that it tends to land you in a local minimum, which may not be the best end game for them.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#176

Post by jvdh »

dredmorbius wrote: post #155
jvdh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, keeping a webservice running takes time. Especially one that's being hit millions of times a day.

The way Google runs its services, much of the infrastructure is an existing back-end (yay, map reduce, also an inherent front-side CDN). There's some application-specific hosting, but it's a relatively thin layer. So the hosting costs aren't all that huge. My read: the stated rationale for killing Google Reader, especially in light of the huge cry of protest and impacts on blog traffic (Rob Malda posted web traffic r…

I was being a bit too sarcastic perhaps. My point was that I hope that everyone who regularly visits this site knows that keeping any kind of webservice up and running takes time. No matter how automated it is.

But I completely agree that there is probably an alternate force at work here.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#177

Post by roberthahn »

jdechko wrote: post #171
roberthahn wrote: post #120

On the topic of Google Reader alternatives: most of the popular alternatives involve a central online storage. I may be unique, but I'd be quite happy for an iOS app that allows me to import my OPML file of feeds and sync it locally. Given those constraints, could anyone suggest an app that would fit the bill? I've been looking, and the only app I could find that fit the criteria so far is RSSRunner by golden-apps.co…

There are tons of RSS apps with little or no syncing. My app of choice is Reeder, which can be used with or without a syncing service.

the problem when you have 'tons of RSS apps with little or no syncing is that it becomes hard to find the ones that work in standalone mode from the rest. Thanks for the tip on Reeder. It looks great but I can't figure out where the OPML import is.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#178

Post by roberthahn »

johnminter wrote: post #127
roberthahn wrote: post #120

On the topic of Google Reader alternatives: most of the popular alternatives involve a central online storage. I may be unique, but I'd be quite happy for an iOS app that allows me to import my OPML file of feeds and sync it locally. Given those constraints, could anyone suggest an app that would fit the bill? I've been looking, and the only app I could find that fit the criteria so far is RSSRunner by golden-apps.co…

Sounds like Vienna would interest you... Not sure you could import your feeds directly, but it is not hard to set them up...

unless I missed something, Vienna looks like a Mac OS X app… I was looking for an iPhone/iPad app

Re: Google Reader is dead

#179

Post by rocky1138 »

pohl wrote: post #174
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #172

Google lost a lot of trust and goodwill from a lot of its power users with this move. I hope for them they had a good reason.

Of course it's a good reason: they needed create company-wide, laser-like focus on making it possible for rich pervs to shoot amateur POV hands-free.

I want to think this is funny. What's it referencing?

Re: Google Reader is dead

#180

Post by ims »

rocky1138 wrote: post #179
pohl wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's a good reason: they needed create company-wide, laser-like focus on making it possible for rich pervs to shoot amateur POV hands-free.

I want to think this is funny. What's it referencing?

Google Glass, it looks like.
Post reply on HN