61–70 of 72 posts
"We want to experiment with and add value to the sources of information that are increasingly important, but difficult to surface and organize in most reader applications — like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, LinkedIn, or Hacker News."[1]
I think this is a bad decision as the market has moved to other things. And others such as Feedly or NewsBlur already serve this niche well. For the record I haven't used Google Reader for years (and I have over 500 feeds in it as I used it a lot at some point). Why? Because I find my news elsewhere (on Hacker News, Twitter, Google Plus, /r/python, reddit/r/programming etc.) - - And not to say the awesome mobile serv…
NewsBlur has been unusably slow since the Reader shutdown notice, so I disagree that the niche is being served already, it's anyone's ball game at this point.
Can somebody explain the appeal of Google Reader and why people are making such a big deal of it shutting down? I've tried it a few times, and I just don't see the appeal. RSS readers are a dime a dozen, and Google Reader is mediocre, at best. The interface isn't great, it's tied to a Google+/GMail account, and there's no way to subscribe to RSS feeds on an internal network. I feel like I must be missing something.
I'm currently subscribed to NewsBlur and I have to wait for my feeds to load. It's not such a big deal as the UI is brilliant, but it's still annoying.
I'm trying out Feedly but I'm concerned about the behavior when Google Reader goes away since that's just a UI on top of what Google provides.
I'm still waiting in the import queue in The Old Reader.
Can somebody explain the appeal of Google Reader and why people are making such a big deal of it shutting down? I've tried it a few times, and I just don't see the appeal. RSS readers are a dime a dozen, and Google Reader is mediocre, at best. The interface isn't great, it's tied to a Google+/GMail account, and there's no way to subscribe to RSS feeds on an internal network. I feel like I must be missing something.
The UI kept mostly out of the way. I could read it at any computer (and I read my feeds at at least 3 different machines). And the "killer feature" is/was that my feeds loaded instantly. I did not have to wait for every one of my 250+ feeds to open when I opened my "RSS reader". I'm currently subscribed to NewsBlur and I have to wait for my feeds to load. It's not such a big deal as the UI is brilliant, but it's stil…
It was less than half a second before a huge influx of users. Hopefully it will be down to what it was before when the scaling gets set up better.
Can somebody explain the appeal of Google Reader and why people are making such a big deal of it shutting down? I've tried it a few times, and I just don't see the appeal. RSS readers are a dime a dozen, and Google Reader is mediocre, at best. The interface isn't great, it's tied to a Google+/GMail account, and there's no way to subscribe to RSS feeds on an internal network. I feel like I must be missing something.
The UI kept mostly out of the way. I could read it at any computer (and I read my feeds at at least 3 different machines). And the "killer feature" is/was that my feeds loaded instantly. I did not have to wait for every one of my 250+ feeds to open when I opened my "RSS reader". I'm currently subscribed to NewsBlur and I have to wait for my feeds to load. It's not such a big deal as the UI is brilliant, but it's stil…
If you use the work social whilst creating a RSS reader you have already failed.
Sincerely, People who actually used Google Reader
P.S. A point-and-click html scraper to rss would be nice too.
It sounds like they want to add specific features to integrate with Hacker News: "We want to experiment with and add value to the sources of information that are increasingly important, but difficult to surface and organize in most reader applications — like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, LinkedIn, or Hacker News." [1] [1] http://blog.digg.com/post/46251309499/whats-next
I've always had this "problem" of reconciling my consumption of RSS feeds (of items I will read every single one of, like an inbox, until the queue is empty) with that of massive streams of information like those mentioned above (where the best I can do is cull a little bit here and there from what's on the front page right now). The standard feeds from these sources don't really fit well within the normal RSS workflow since there's too much content to read exhaustively (and it's all sequential, removing the value of voting mechanisms). People sometimes use tools like Yahoo Pipes to make feeds that only allow content over a certain karma threshold, but these have their own set of problems (and you can't customize the results without spinning up your very own version).
1) This article has no new information 2) The linked "Follow Our Progress" form is for email updates 3) Their tumblr blog has no rss link That's not what I call serious. I use their site all the time, but it's no substitute for GR, and I don't want their curation to overpower my feeds. Reader was all about the RSS. At this rate they are sounding like a tardy Prismatic.
1) Correct 2) Also correct, not sure why this is an issue 3) Their blog does have an RSS feed - http://blog.digg.com/rss do you mean an anchor link for subscribing? I can't recall I used one of those instead of the RSS icon in the address bar. Additionally, Digg - the product, like HN, Reddit etc was never going to be a substitute for Reader. The product they are currently working on sounds like a direct replacement…
When Prismatic came out with an opportunistic spiel, even though they had nothing anything like Reader, it really rubbed me the wrong way. This hype piece feels the same, almost like a car commercial (bare bones! ultra fast!) or an Onion piece about how every co-founder in the Valley is starting a social news sharing service.
I think the key ingredients to a GR replacement are an open API so it is not beholden and can be on all your devices -- as mindcrime notes -- a focus on RSS, basic and friendly sharing, and then surely a little curation magic that Digg must know already. It's probably fine if Digg gets there in a few months. But for example theoldreader is there already.