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Google Reader shutting down

googleblog.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Reader shutting down

#191

Post by mgkimsal »

karpathy wrote: post #83

"over the years usage has declined" That's because there was almost ZERO innovation done on this product. Very few (mostly visual) improvements, and very few new features. The latest posts on Google Reader blog are from 2011 http://googlereader.blogspot.com/

Was thinking the same thing - usage has declined in part because Google doesn't promote it.

Google shapes the way many people discover, use and keep information (google search, maps, news, finance, gmail, etc). To let Reader languish then kill it because "usage has declined" is rather self-fulfilling. I bet if they didn't update their satellite images and road data, Maps usage would decline as well.

They could have been working with the community to define new standards - tags, markup, etc - to allow richer interaction between rss readers and sites (thinking geoloc micro format work, and other semantic markup work in recent years). Making 'reader' a first-class citizen in its suite of services, then using interaction data as more relevance signaling seems like an evolutionary step that only a handful of players the size of google can make good use of, but apparently in their infinite wisdom, they'll just shutter it.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#192

Post by aheilbut »

icebraining wrote: post #151
aheilbut wrote: post #32

Are there any alternative sources of archival RSS feeds like those that Google Reader (unofficially) provides?

What's an archival RSS feed?

You can get an RSS file (well, Atom) for any feed that includes all posts going back to whenever google reader started following it. Normally if you get the RSS from the originating site it'll only have the latest 20 or so posts, and there isn't a standardized way to get the history.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#193

Post by jjsz »

See. The thing is. I haven't found ONE solution that imports starred items, unread items, and feeds properly besides Reeder. And it doesn't work on Android or on the web. :(.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#194

Post by vacipr »

SpoonMeiser wrote: post #111
vacipr wrote: post #4

What the fuck. Later edit: Like many other will most likely do in their replies I'm also going to suggest an alternative that I've tried in the past. http://theoldreader.com/ Later edit 2: They even added a nice pop-up now. https://s3.amazonaws.com/i.imm.io/Zg6A.png

theoldreader.com looks like a good alternative

It actually is pretty decent.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#195

Post by karsonenns »

kmfrk wrote: post #180
klausa wrote: post #2

That's the first Google service shutdown that I'm affected by. Sad to see it go. What do you guys recommend for replacement? I know about NewsBlur [1], but I never liked it that much. I think I'm just looking for something that would emulate Reader's full-screen view as close as possible. [1] http://newsblur.com edit: Here's what I consider an absolute must-have in RSS app: - complete navigation with keyboard (j/k pr…

I just Fever ( http://www.feedafever.com/ ). You host it yourself, and it does the job perfectly.

Is this any good? Do you have the ability to customize it yourself?

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#196

Post by anigbrowl »

While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined.

That will happen if you stop developing it and ignore requests for new features. Conesus has done a good job with Newsblur and I'll try going back to that, but I really wanted to have Gmail-style filtering of my RSS feeds in Google Reader, to to mention being able to maintain my sharing/tracking data within the Google ecosystem.

This is a major failure on Google's part. Complaining about a declining user base when the product was left to stagnate amounts to blaming the users for the company's lack of vision. Why Google would want to abandon this extremely rich source of behavorial data and trend emergence is beyond me; it suggests a loss of direction, for which short-term reactivity is no substitute. Put another way, you can't lead the herd by following it faster. I am shocked.

As I say, I've used Newsblur before and thought it OK - at the time I just somewhat preferred Reader's cosmetics. So the above is not just a reaction to the necessity to switch platforms.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#197

Post by zanny »

ececconi wrote: post #19

I guess they couldn't monetize RSS. I would have taken an ad-supported version. Nobody would probably click the ads though.

You can easily monetize RSS, you can get some of the best information about a person about the content they consistently subscribe to. All their targeted advertising would have been all the better targeted at people if they intelligently used their subscription information.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#200

Post by pauljonas »

Spittie wrote: post #73

This is a sad news, one of my favourite RSS reader is closing. Google Reader is likely the site I browse the most, and I always have one tab open on it. Also, my phone sync with RSS with it. I guess it's time to start searching for a new RSS reader. Too bad that I already did it a while ago, and every time I went back to Google Reader. The biggest problem for me with other feed reader is that they try to add too many…

I have, over the years, experimented with all of the RSS reader alternatives and found them to be lacking. Especially in handling the volume of feeds I subscribe to (I subscribe to thousands of feeds, see it as a stream to dip into, not zealously sop up every item, and browse through).
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