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Google Reader shutting down

googleblog.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Reader shutting down

#471

Post by johns »

sigil wrote: post #446
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…

Based on your must-have list, a good low-tech solution might be an RSS to email gateway. Then your mail client becomes your RSS client. Gmail has j/k key bindings, is relatively unadorned, and facilitates your skim / skip workflow. Excerpts might require some work, but perhaps you could coerce them into the subject line. Aaron Swartz wrote a nice RSS to email gateway btw: http://www.allthingsrss.com/rss2email/ I have…

IFTTT will let you easily do RSS to email too: ifttt.com/feed

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#472

Post by bbayer »

They could offer paid version. I guess lots of people will want to throw a few bucks for that kind of product. For me Google Reader is one of the few software that I use every day.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#474

Post by ayushgta »

NewsBlur may have a solution for end users but there seems to be no recourse for the huge impact this has to the dev community.

With Google Reader as an API devs had a way to get historical data on practically any RSS feed going back many years. That ability will be lost/gone forever. Even if Google sunsets the reader app, I wish they'd keep this data source open. Its hugely valuable and I don't think there is any alternative to it.

I think that having cached all this data on their server over the years of their own free will, they've put themselves to be in a position where they have a somewhat fiduciary responsibility of keeping this data alive and open.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#476

Post by alex_doom »

crucialfelix wrote: post #373

bastards. they never seem to realize how much they damage our trust with these actions. it effects all of their future products. I don't trust them anymore. anyway feedly has a replacement coming soon: http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/google-reader/ > We have been working on a project called Normandy which is a feedly clone of the Google Reader API – running on Google App Engine. When Google Reader shuts down, feedl…

Their site is getting crushed right now. I can't even login.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#477

Post by karpathy »

sethish wrote: post #214
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/

It's worse than that. The google plus era redesign of all google sites ate up a massive fraction of the vertical space in Google Reader. And some social sharing features that made google reader an awesome place, were disabled in favor of sharing via google plus.

Agreed with this, most notable example of this for me was when they took away recommendations within Google Reader. That was a great place to go to see what blog posts my friends like.

Now it's all multiplexed into their G+ timelines and I happen to catch about a third of it in between their useless updates about being in a park with their kids or a new funny meme.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#478

Post by notdang »

vacipr wrote: post #308
notdang wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can I register to theoldreader if I don't have a facebook/google account?

No.But you should already have a google account since you used google reader I suppose.

I have, but I don't feel comfortable with this: "The Old Reader is requesting permission to: View and manage your Google Contacts"

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#479

Post by pauljonas »

ayushgta wrote: post #474

NewsBlur may have a solution for end users but there seems to be no recourse for the huge impact this has to the dev community. With Google Reader as an API devs had a way to get historical data on practically any RSS feed going back many years. That ability will be lost/gone forever. Even if Google sunsets the reader app, I wish they'd keep this data source open. Its hugely valuable and I don't think there is any al…

^^This.

Any new application starts in a state of tabula rasa -- all history, prior to some point in 2013 (or late 2012) will not be accessible, considering that a typical site/blog feed contains only 10 to a few dozen most recent items. Presently, in Google Reader, I can click on a feed and flip through items all the way back to 2005 (for those sites with that long of a history).

I know that Google Reader search has been flaky as the product has languished, but it still the most powerful way to search a select group you sites you care about (incidentally, the Google Labs custom search engine product is on life support too, if not set to sunset soon) and search for a topical phrase of interest and get a set of results with that matching text.

Re: Google Reader shutting down

#480

Post by mieses »

voochuk wrote: post #413
ryfm wrote: post #240

sign the petition http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Ask_Google_to_keep_Google_R...

How about another petition to atleast open source the code so maybe the community can host it on google apps/ec3 or users can run a private instance

The problem is the historical data of all the feeds they've archived, not the interface. Google, a large number of almost-evil moves eventually adds up to evil.
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