Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2804734

by tnorthcutt • 15 years ago

309 238 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

chrmaury5• 15 years ago

Thanks for creating: http://twitter.com/#!/cmaury/status/95607756299571200

Ronkdar• 15 years ago

I use Reader on a nearly hourly basis. I suppose I should stop that...

smhinsey7• 15 years ago

It's been basically my primary portal to the internet since it came out. Other than HN and reddit, which don't really produce super useful feeds, I don't really browse any sites directly anymore. I have always been looking for the next big thing to replace it, since there hasn't been a tremendous amount of effort put into it lately, but nothing has compared.

The feature that I have been sort of daydreaming about is the ability to use your subscriptions to weight your search results so that sites you've subscribed to are ranked higher.

tbh• 15 years ago

You may prefer a modified reddit feed [1] where the article URL is the main RSS item URL, which makes the RSS feed much more useful.

[1] http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=bnYqwjiA3RGJxTckBR...

smhinsey7• 15 years ago

Thanks, that does look useful. It might be a good way to follow some low traffic subreddits without subscribing to them.

My main beef, however, is less with the content of the feed per se and more with the fact that they are in a fixed order, so you lose the curation aspect of voting.

chrmaury5• 15 years ago

That would be a very interesting feature. My Reader search results are by far more useful than google.com results.

I'm also waiting for post to G+ from reader.

Read Later would also be very useful.

smhinsey7• 15 years ago

Yeah, I'd settle for a high quality search within reader itself, realizing that integration into the main search might be impossible.

I find it really confusing that the "Share" link in Reader still goes to Buzz, which is sort of associated with my G+ profile but not quite, in that it doesn't seem that people who are in my circles are necessarily able to see them.

PierreTouzet• 15 years ago

The Instapaper bookmarklet works great in Google Reader :)

cpeterso• 15 years ago

"Hacker news Overload" has HN RSS feeds for posts rated >= 20, 50, 100, or 150:

http://talkfast.org/2010/07/23/a-cure-for-hacker-news-overlo...

smhinsey7• 15 years ago

Hm, thanks, I'll check that out. I'll probably still hit the site directly, but it'd be nice to have that archive in my account.

sraquo• 15 years ago

Shameless plug for more useful HN feeds: http://hnapp.com - filter posts by points, keywords, etc. and subscribe to the results by RSS.

karussell• 15 years ago

Hey, then I can also put a link for http://jetsli.de here ;)

The next version will contain the possibility to include any rss feed and rank them to your personal needs. At the moment the first ten of your searches are used to boost articles if your are logged in.

brg• 15 years ago

Why? Is this market research for a new reader, or is this tool next on the Google chopping block and your looking for demographics.

chrmaury5• 15 years ago

I was just curious. I'm addicted, and I wanted to see if other people felt the same way.

When they dropped Reader from the global nav. I was very upset, but was glad to see there was enough of a ruckus to get it put back.

I don't know that I would pay to keep Google from axing it, but I would consider it, and thats saying something.

realgt2• 15 years ago

i would definitely pay to manage my rss feeds via its UI or at least through an API

wslh2• 15 years ago

Yes, one of the main advantages is having all the historical posts there, since RSS is used only for latest posts.

Another feature is automatic translation, I follow a blog from Ukraine there.

abraham4• 15 years ago

In my experience Reader doesn't store all historic posts. Posts older then a month or two start disappearing.

carterschonwald2• 15 years ago

What is an example you have? It seems that it has historic posts as long as anyone else every has followed the feed via Reader previously. Likewise, it won't display old posts in the list, but will dynamically load them as you "try" to scroll down. Perhaps one of these is what would happen for you?

wslh2• 15 years ago

I think you catched a glitch for some specific blog, I just subscribed to an interesting blog and can go back many years ago.

abeisgreat• 15 years ago

I pretty much leave reader open my whole work day and jump over to it whenever I get some down time.

parweb• 15 years ago

yes

lftl• 15 years ago

I generally use Feedly (http://www.feedly.com/home#my) now, mostly because their Android client is much faster, at least for the way I read. They sync subs, and status with Reader so you can bounce back and forth. Their web client really isn't any better than Google Reader's but it's somewhat habitual now to go there instead of Google Reader.

gorm• 15 years ago

I really don't like their android client too much and prefer the native google reader client on android. Btw. here is a small tips with Feedly that I enjoy (for Firefox):

You can also install this plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-homep...

Then you set feedly as your default tab open page. I see it everythere I do a Ctrl-T and because I quick-peek it many times a day, I can keep up with a large number of feeds.

jahmed• 15 years ago

I've abandoned the native app and just use the web version of reader bookmarked onto my home screen. Its works great and saves precious space on my Nexus One.

Sephr• 15 years ago

If you're looking for a good Android client for Google Reader, I'd recommend Reader HD (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ageofmobile.reader), which is vastly superior to the official app.

swah2• 15 years ago

Missing option: Yes, but would use something better.

estel• 15 years ago

Given the subjectivity of "better", who wouldn't?

swah2• 15 years ago

Exactly. But I mean, some folks might be 99% happy with it, I'm 60%.

tshtf• 15 years ago

I ssh into my server and run Newsbeuter (http://newsbeuter.org/). I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a console based RSS reader.

mstjern• 15 years ago

Yes

bentruyman• 15 years ago

I've been using Fever for (what I think is) a few years now and haven't looked back: http://feedafever.com/

warp• 15 years ago

Do you use the Hot / Sparks feature at all?

I also use fever, but that particular aspect of it doesn't seem to work for me -- so I just use it as a regular rss reader.

fendmark• 15 years ago

I am also a big fan of Fever. I actually use the Sparks feature a lot. It has completely changed how I use RSS, from attempting to read all my feeds to just reading what is "hot." The key is finding RSS feeds of sites that are link aggregators on topics of interest to you. The Hacker News RSS feed is actually a classic example of a great site to add as a spark in Fever.

jbui• 15 years ago

Yes, although I rarely ever use their web interface to view the feeds. (I use reeder, if your curious)

ugh• 15 years ago

Do you mean Reader as a service or Reader as a web app? I use Reader clients across all my devices daily, I wouldn’t be caught dead using the Reader web app daily. It’s horrific. (I will use it if I happen to be in front of a device where I cannot install anything and only have access to a web browser.)

The service is great, the web app is not.

shinratdr2• 15 years ago

> I will use it if I happen to be in front of a device where I cannot install anything and only have access to a web browser.

Really? Usually in situations like that I either pull out my phone and use Reeder for iOS or visit the websites directly. Google Reeder's web client might as well not exist, it's just so bad. I'm actually kind of surprised there isn't a Google Reader web app replacement that is popular or well known. I would be interested in a "Reeder in the browser" solution like that occasionally.

anigbrowl2• 15 years ago

Yes, but I find it very frustrating in some respects. It essentially performs a similar function to Gmail, but using an interface that feels 5 years out of date. I really hope that G+ is the beginning of a more integrated approach to input stream classification and management. It drives me nuts that Reader doesn't provide any method for construction of tagging rules, trackback analysis, or filtering.

jinushaun• 15 years ago

As far as I'm concerned, Google Reader is the internet. I rarely interact with websites directly.

jbk• 15 years ago

I use Tiny Tiny RSS (http://tt-rss.org/). Open source, with a correct mobile web version and an Android application.

p4bl0• 15 years ago

Ah! I have to try that! I a heavy Google Reader user but I would prefer something installed on my server that I can completely control. I tried a few ones but none were even close to Google Reader in term of usability, but I never tried Tiny Tiny RSS. Thanks for the link :-).

bernardcornet• 15 years ago

losvedir• 15 years ago

Yes, but basically only on my phone.

rjd• 15 years ago

You are missing the option "Yes, but via a third party client"

As I normally use net newswire and reeder, both tying into google reader, but I hate the web site interface.

Dysiode• 15 years ago

I tried Reader but it's not in my face enough to remember it, instead I use Opera's built-in RSS reader which has notifications (I imagine Chrome + Reader could have notifications like Gmail Chat).

riceadam• 15 years ago

No, but I use Reeder.

YooLi• 15 years ago

Ditto. I used Google Reader until I found Reeder for Mac and iOS. Reeder syncs with Google Reader so technically I do still use it, just not the web interface.

siddhant• 15 years ago

I use NetNewsWire (http://netnewswireapp.com/). I usually open up a lot of tabs in my browser, so I try and move things away from it as much as I can. Plus, native apps look better than web apps, at least for now (and at least on Macs).

forkrulassail• 15 years ago

A bit of an addict, frankly.

Trying to avert the damage with instapaper and my Kindle.

ajpatel• 15 years ago

I used to use Reader religiously...then I finally spent the time to find all those sites' Twitter feeds and shifted everything over to Twitter...it took forever but it's infinitely easier to share things now.

panacea• 15 years ago

Does via a widget on iGoogle count?

davidwparker• 15 years ago

I'm in the same boat. I use Google Reader, but pretty much (99%) of the time via iGoogle.

zmanian• 15 years ago

yes

mhd2• 15 years ago

Yes, and one of my few wishes for chrome would be something like Firefox' (hidden) "open new windows as background tabs" preference, then using the 'v' key would become an order of magnitude more productive. That's my usual response for TL;DR blog posts. Browse through the whole list with your vi-keys, pick the ones that don't fit (or lose too much essential formatting) for other tabs, skim through the rest within the reader.

As opposed to gmail, I could probably switch to something else if it had a half-way decent mobile version. Reeder isn't that essential to me.

abrowne• 15 years ago

Try the Chrome extension "Google Reader Open entry in background tab": https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lcimnckjiicikfpppc...

mhd2• 15 years ago

Thanks, much appreciated.

adyus• 15 years ago

Another option I find myself using more and more often is Newsblur.

Adaptive2• 15 years ago

Reader is also great for managing podcasts via "Listen" (Google's Android Podcast app). Nice because they show up with the rest of my RSS feeds.

orofino2• 15 years ago

This actually annoys me, if I mark a new podcast read in reader it never downloads and queues on the phone if it hasn't already polled and seen the new item. I end up marking them unread over and over until I check to see if my phone has actually downloaded them.

Adaptive2• 15 years ago

I use the Android interface most of the time and only occasionally use embedded player via reader. I do subscribe and manage my subscriptions a lot via the reader interface, however.

I am not surprised if you've had trouble with the Listen app, however. It's really languished. Podcasts seem to me one of the still killer content features of our smart phones, yet we're still waiting for a rev on this app. For a while I was reading that the dev team behind it was focusing on the next gen "Listen and Watch" app, but who knows where that is.

Love android, but some core apps are really half finished.

tomislaw• 15 years ago

wccrawford• 15 years ago

Yes. I found this post with it.

neilbowers• 15 years ago

Yes, but via Reeder. I gave up on using Google Reader directly.

shinratdr2• 15 years ago

Does that include Google Reader clients? I have used the web interface maybe twice in two years, but I use Reeder on my phone & Mac every day.

there2• 15 years ago

i used bloglines for a long time until they started having problems with feeds not consistently updating. i was comfortable with their interface, so i just duplicated it (http://den.im/ - http://i.imgur.com/0e8jc.png) and created all of the code underneath to fetch feeds.

i added twitter oauth support so that twitter streams look and update just like rss feeds (but with posting/replying support). i added voting so that there could be a frontpage full of popular stories, and a mobile version that looks decent on android/iphone.

but by then google reader had taken off and my few beta users had switched to that, so now i'm the only one still using it and the voting is useless. i'd probably just abandon it for something else but i haven't seen anything that integrates rss feeds, twitter, package tracking, and has a decent mobile interface. so for now it just remains a side project.

sygeek• 15 years ago

I would love to try out den.im. I will appreciate if you share an invitation with me. (email address is in profile details)

there2• 15 years ago

sent.

zephyrfalcon• 15 years ago

It seems Bloglines is back, sort of... I'm trying it out as we speak. For some reason I really dislike Google Reader's user interface. :-/

btcoal• 15 years ago

Yep.

thom• 15 years ago

I store my blogroll on Google Reader, and sync it to NetNewsWire on my Mac and Reeder on iOS. It often makes me wish Twitter tracked read/unread information across devices.

Never use the web interface though.

whatgoodisaroad• 15 years ago

Yes. I have it open 100% of the time.

quintinsykes• 15 years ago

Just gave up Reader after using for a couple of years. I found I could get the same benefit following the same people/blogs/publications in Twitter and using Instapaper for stuff I wanted to read later. For me, it's one less thing to keep up with.

aurynn• 15 years ago

Yes, but I'm in the process of moving off google-hosted things, so I'll need to figure out a new topology for this...

aorshan• 15 years ago

I just use rockmelt as my browser and have all the news websites I care about on my edge. That way its all there when I want to see it and can see whenever anything is updated.

ahmetalpbalkan• 15 years ago

I use Reeder for Mac, which is an app for Google Reader. it uses Google Reader, but I don't use its web interface.

_delirium• 15 years ago

Currently not too often. I go back and forth on RSS overall, and am sort of undecided.

Pro, versus normal webbrowsing: I don't end up doing the nervous-tic "reload to see if there's anything new on site A, then site B, then site C..." procrastination dance.

Cons, versus normal webbrowsing: 1) Everything gets put into a standardized layout, while I like the different kinds of design around the web, some of which aren't just aesthetic but include different paradigms (magazine-type versus forum-type versus link-sharing-type site layouts); 2) I end up feeling like I have this constant backlog of stuff to read, as if it were another email inbox, while it's easier to ignore old content when loading up a website.

My compromise is that for now I have only 4 blogs in my RSS feed, which update infrequently--- some of them not even more often than one post every 1-2 months. I have them there because they update infrequently enough that I'd forget to check, but I do want to see new posts when they arrive. Other sites I either check regularly in a browser, or I read whenever someone shares an interesting link to them, or whenever I remember, depending on the site.

tlrobinson3• 15 years ago

I used to go through cycles reading RSS feeds and declaring RSS bankruptcy, but I've given up.

I need a priority queue RSS reader. Show me the N most "important" posts across all my feeds since I last visited. Importance would be calculated a number of ways:

* Prioritize posts from low volume feeds. I probably want to see every post from a friend who blogs once a month, but not every post from Engadget.

* Most favorited/liked/whatever, especially among my friends.

* Similar posts to things I've favorited/liked/whatever in the past.

* Manually tagging certain feeds as important.

Also, I have this problem other "streams" of information, like Twitter, and email (Gmail's Priority Inbox is a good start). Some people I follow post a lot of useless stuff, but I still follow them because they're friends or sometimes say interesting things.

Is there anything remotely like this out there?

qcassidy• 15 years ago

Google Reader's "sort by magic" (under "View settings") might work for you:

""" A third option, Sort by magic will rank items by "magic." Personalized magic ranking is automatically generated, taking into account your past reading behavior (including liking and starring) and global signals. We'll do our best to display items in the most relevant and interesting order -- click the Like button on things you think are important or enjoy reading, and we'll learn to put items like that first. """

http://www.google.com/support/reader/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...

tlrobinson3• 15 years ago

Looks promising, I'll try it.

Ideally it would hide all but the top 10 or 50 or 100 posts, and if I finish reading those I could see more. Opening up an RSS reader and seeing hundreds or thousands of unread posts is discouraging.

RossP• 15 years ago

Shaun Inman's Fever[1] tries to do some of this. Items that are linked to from multiple feeds float to the top of your reading list. You can also add "sparks", which you will never get to see the contents of however they will be used to help figure out which other items to float up to the top of your list.

Self-hosted, PHP, $30. Works on Desktop and has an iPhone skin as well.

[1] http://feedafever.com/

pkandathil• 15 years ago

There are a couple ways to achieve this: Sites like: Lynk.ly, Summify.com or thesharedweb.com rank your twitter and facebook feeds and give you top links across them.

I follow digg, techcrunch and mashable ... on twtter and get the links across these sites ranked for me.

BTW, disclaimer, I did write lynk.ly with a friend hence I also provided some of the alternatives.

sigil• 15 years ago

We're building a "Priority Inbox for News" that's the opposite of sort by magic: all the factors that determine priority (you mention some of the key ones) can be exposed and tweaked.

Sign on up! We're close to alpha.

http://signup.linktamer.com/

jpendry• 15 years ago

isn't that HN?

and please don't downvote, I'm being serious.

tlrobinson3• 15 years ago

HN has essentially been my replacement, but it only covers certain topics, not the long tail. For example my friends' blog posts might not be popular enough for HN (or at all related) but I still want to see them.

Also, if everyone just read HN where would the submissions come from?

nopassrecover• 15 years ago

NewsBlur (big comment thread above) does this to some degree at least.

joelhaus• 15 years ago

HackerNews is easy to include in your Google Reader Send to menu (just like the bookmarklets functionality).

Go to settings: http://www.google.com/reader/settings?display=edit-extras, click the "Send to" tab, click "Create a custom link" and add these strings:

  Name     ~ HackerNews
  URL      ~ http://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=${url}&t=${title}
  Icon URL ~ http://ycombinator.com/images/y18.gif

jaxn• 15 years ago

I use NetNewsWire every morning on my iPad. However, it is pulling from Google Reader.

My feed reading has changed drastically though. I used to subscribe to over 200 feeds, now I try to keep it under 20 (and not every feed has updates every day).

barik• 15 years ago

I actually use a version of FeedDemon (http://www.feeddemon.com/) which is essentially a desktop application that can integrate with Google Reader. So technically, the answer is between "Yes", and "No, but I do use another RSS reader on a daily basis".

jonmulholland• 15 years ago

Not anymore, Twitter lists + Flipboard have totally replaced Google Reader for me.

conesus7• 15 years ago

I used to use Google Reader, but I found that I missed seeing the original site and that I couldn't easily filter out stories I didn't want to read.

So I built NewsBlur -- http://www.newsblur.com. It's open-source and I'd love if more folks followed my development: http://github.com/samuelclay.

It's been a weekend project but it's been a wild ride so far. One of my main goals is to have much of the functionality of Google Reader, most of which has slowly made its way into NewsBlur. I'm currently working on a free iOS app for NewsBlur. I also put out an API so that others could also make their own feed reader.

But really, I missed seeing the original site more than anything. It looks like a security hole, but NewsBlur actually just proxies the site and displays it back to the user. And the intelligence slider keeps me sane, since I slide it towards green and my unread count comes down to a manageable level.

gst• 15 years ago

Wow... One of the few websites for which I immediately bought a premium account.

micampe2• 15 years ago

Hey, not my thing but the way you detect the current post and synchronize the list and content is really slick.

Also, no offense, but you should ask some designer friend to polish the UI because this looks very good already and it can be even better.

conesus7• 15 years ago

I'm a hacker, what can I say? The design I think makes a lot of intuitive sense. The visual layout leaves a little something to be desired. But then again, that's how you know NewsBlur is legit and not some fly-by-night.

hackernews2• 15 years ago

That's pretty cool. GReader does leave a lot to be desired... I imported my feeds and here are a few initial thoughts (I realize this is a weekend project but it is a huge want of mine):

+ I prefer to see the RSS text before I see the original site. Easier reading (no nav or ads) and I'll click through if the content catches my interest. So it would be nice if I clicked the feed tab that tab would stay selected as I browsed my other feeds (rather than switching back to the default original tab)

+ I use folders in GReader to group my feeds. I have a ton of feeds and a lot of them are not updated often. One of my favorite features of GReader is the ability to click on a folder and see that folder's feed. Saves a ton of individual feed reading and the folder mark as read is a time saver (I read the headlines and don't want to read the individual topics)

+ I need better marked as read (a button). The context menu is nice but requires two clicks (give me a hot key).

+ The config icons in the bottom sidebar get lost behind chrome's stupid appearing status bar making it frustrating to use these when the feed is loading.

+ Minor - I'd like to see the feed list above the site or rss txt body (more like a email client) Is there a way to configure the layout of the panes?

In all this is pretty exciting!

conesus7• 15 years ago

Yup, everything's already there, just a bit disguised:

* Feed before original site? No problem, set Feed as the default in Preferences. Also, if you like one view or another, it saves per-site.

* To read all stories in a folder, just click the River of News icon next to the folder. It's exactly the same. You can also right-click the folder (or click the little arrow) and mark the folder as read.

* Plenty of Keyboard Shortcuts. Type `?`

* I'm working on more customization of the interface as we speak. You'll be able to move panes around, change sort order, etc.

smhinsey7• 15 years ago

Wow, this is pretty excellent. Is there an easy way to subscribe to things similar to how Reader works?

conesus7• 15 years ago

You mean like a bookmarklet? Manage > Goodies has a bunch of browser-specific hacks to make the RSS button go to NewsBlur. There's also a bookmarklet that lets you add a site to a folder (and create a folder if you want) from the site itself.

rufugee• 15 years ago

Wow....this is EXACTLY what I've been looking for. Awesome work. Followed!

ojilles2• 15 years ago

Wow! This is a _weekend_ project? It looks very slick! How many weekends if I may ask?

conesus7• 15 years ago

Been working on it for 2 years now. But only as a side-project. I also worked on it on the A train in NYC for a year, about 30 minutes each direction. And I now get to work on it for an hour and a half a day when on Caltrain (SF -> Mountain View).

Check the git history on GitHub. This has been by no means an easy feat, but little by little, you can build a 6-server service (and learn about every single component in the meantime).

Dramatize• 15 years ago

I'll give it a go. I'm in the process of setting up a large number of feeds to help filter content for our product websites.

imaverickk2• 15 years ago

Good work there! Just wanted to point out that if you cycle through the feeds quickly on Chrome, the memory footprint keeps increasing and drags the system. Worked fine on IE though.

orofino2• 15 years ago

Didn't cause me any problems Chrome 13.0.782.99 beta, Mac OS X

josscrowcroft• 15 years ago

Fab!

famousactress• 15 years ago

If nothing else, Google's recent rework of the way they do apps accounts makes this an instant win for me. It's no longer been possible for me to have my reader open (logged into personal account) and my work email open in the same browser. I'm a new customer for that alone.. and it looks like there are plenty of other things to be excited about here. Thanks!

yummyfajitas• 15 years ago

Unless the administrator of your work gmail has disallowed it, you should be able to stay logged in to both work email and google reader.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/08/google-multiple-sig...

pyre• 15 years ago

Some people at work have had luck with using Chrome private browsing for their home account. Since the cookies are not shared with the 'main' session, you shouldn't run into any conflicts.

anigbrowl2• 15 years ago

That's funny because I was planning to set up on documentcloud this week. This is beyond awesome, and if you do not become insanely rich from it then there is no justice. I had grown to dread the Reader page, and you've made it enjoyable again.

stopro• 15 years ago

awesome~ The style is nice.

dantle• 15 years ago

When I first saw this was open source, I downloaded it immediately. Was pretty sure you were gonna take it to become a billionaire, so I wanted to have it as a reference for my own projects. Glad to see I can still get the updates. :)

voidfiles2• 15 years ago

NewsBlur is awesome. I think it's the visual refresh that google reader needs. It also has a public documented API which is awesome. Google readers API users have to cobble together documentation of a private API. After a public API was promised years ago.

But one gripe, when is newsblur going to get google reader sync. As many have mentioned on this thread they like using google reader as the backend sync between many clients. There is already a issue in github.

https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur/issues/19

conesus7• 15 years ago

About two-way sync: it wouldn't make sense. Since NewsBlur hides stories below your intelligence threshold, many stories would be unread in Reader but simply hidden in NewsBlur. That, and the whole story sync problem would be a huge bear. It comes down to NewsBlur being its own reader. The import from Google Reader is the only time NewsBlur talks to Reader.

I'm thinking about further integration with Google using Google Contacts (for a Email Story feature), but that's about it.

joshfraser• 15 years ago

I love the concept, but I find it's slow to use in practice. Any plans to preload pages to improve the speed? For example, you could preload upcoming posts in hidden iframes so they're cached locally by the time you visit them.

conesus7• 15 years ago

It depends on the site. It can be slow on ridiculously huge sites (ahem, TechCrunch, Gothamist, Macrumors, etc), but in that case you can just switch them to the Feed view instead of the Original view. The Feed view is instantaneous and it's how you get the speed back on those sites.

It's not ideal, but that means you can still use Original view for the 90% of sites that you still want to see. Plus you can set the Feed view as the default and just switch to the Original view on a per-site basis.

dongsheng• 15 years ago

Woo, it looks awesome

crocowhile• 15 years ago

Do you know if there is a way to export all my data from google reader (including stars and likes) and import'em in newsblur? I know google would let me export the list of my subscriptions but what about the rest?

copper• 15 years ago

The API does offer an import OPML option, so I assume the website does too. Unfortunately, I've gone and forgotten my newsblur login/password combo, and so can't verify that for you.

Arxiss• 15 years ago

Very nice! NewsBlur looks way better then Google Reader and I will use it from now on.

wlievens• 15 years ago

Very, very clean looking site. Progress bars and stuff. Nice job.

nrbafna• 15 years ago

Wow. I am blown away just in the first 10 minutes of using it. It is perfectly designed. You have a good collection of reads when someone comes in, that makes people want to stay on and explore a bit more.

The tiny things w.r.t to the UX are subtle and yet there. And there the option to view the content in the original site design.

You just inspired me again!

bobds• 15 years ago

I'm a premium user on Newsblur and higly recommend it. I've tried about a dozen RSS readers and it's the one I like best so far.

I'm not a big fan of the original-site-view myself but I suppose it can come in handy sometimes. The addition of the API is quite welcome, opens up a lot of new possibilities.

Anyway, give Samuel some money so he can keep working on Newsblur, it's awesome.

basrur• 15 years ago

Frickin' awesome site. It takes a lot to move folks like me from Google Reader. But you cracked it

Roridge• 15 years ago

I just tried this, it is awesome! Gratz. and to think I was just about to launch into my very own weekend project for the same reasons :) Now I don't have to, keep up the good work.

One thing, I can't see an obvious way to become a premium member. I think you might get more conversions if it was way more obvious on the front page.

moteur-diesel• 15 years ago

Great tool !

but something about seeing the original site. I totally agree you're missing something in a RSS reader. But well, when the connection is slow (my residence is in Bolivia ...), what matters most is the content and not the container, right? I'd rather receive the news quickly than waiting the website logo.

tcarnell2• 15 years ago

Very Impressive! I've been working on a number of 'content extraction' tools - cQuery.com and webXtract (experimental), but maybe you would find them a useful way to extract news and headlines from hundreds of online sources.

Here is an experiment that uses 'profiles' as a basis for content extraction:

http://webxtract.com/content-extractor

tcarnell2• 15 years ago

If you are interested, feel free to get in touch - anything to help NewsBlur!

hdx• 15 years ago

Very nice, I luv it! The one thing I can say I don't like is the blurred logo... gives me a headache :)

tuxguy• 15 years ago

this is super AWESOME. Keep up the great work Sam.

dfischer2• 15 years ago

I stopped using RSS a year ago. Too much shit. I filter what's important through my Twitter followers now.

dfischer2• 15 years ago

Didn't mean to offend anyone with "shit" - I really meant "too much information to sift through."

yarone• 15 years ago

Yes, and it really needs to be improved! It's been neglected for too long.

whalesalad• 15 years ago

I gave up on RSS... I get most of my news through Twitter and HN actually.

arjn• 15 years ago

I use google reader on my Transformer tablet (Android). While it's not perfect, its reasonably usable and works well.

knewter• 15 years ago

Yes, multiple times a day.

charlax• 15 years ago

Yes, I read (or skim through) about 200 articles a day (it takes me 30'). I refine my list on a monthly basis and make sure only relevant RSS feed are listed to make sure I am not overwhelmed.

tednaleid• 15 years ago

I leverage Google Reader, but never go to the website. It stores my subscriptions and current read state. A variety of clients synchronize the latest results. NetNewsWire on the desktop, Reeder on the iPad and NewsRob on my NexusOne Android phone. Not sure which one this falls under, but I picked "No, but I do use another RSS reader on a daily basis".

encoderer• 15 years ago

I changed an ex-girlfriends life with Reader -- I swear to god. She's a (semi) extreme couponer and deal hunter. Every day there's dozens of give-away's. Good, expensive stuff. Be the first 100 to click on this link, or the first 25 to take that survey, etc. She followed a dozen+ blogs every day to stay current on these things.

When I set her up in Reader and she discovered the "Next Item" button, it changed her life. It was really pretty great to be able to help her like that and see her eyes light up.

chrmaury5• 15 years ago

Thats how I felt when I discovered Reader. I went from browsing like 8 websites to 80, in the same amount of time.

Reader made me more intelligent.

rahilsondhi• 15 years ago

I used to check it daily, but now I've stopped because of information overload. The most important news finds its way to me (eg through Facebook or Twitter shares), otherwise, I'm much more productive just getting some work done.

ssp• 15 years ago

I switched to http://fastladder.com/ after bloglines became unusable.

dunhamda• 15 years ago

I use Google Reader daily, but I probably would not have participated in this poll if I didn't.

alain94040• 15 years ago

Warning: this poll is useless due to high selection bias. Why? Most people who don't use Google Reader will not bother to click on the link to the poll. I don't see how to correct for such a huge bias.

chrmaury5• 15 years ago

I see Reader is my main consumption service, and I see G+ as my potential broadcasting service. That being the case I would like to see more integration.

like = +1 Share= Share on G+ Share w/ comment = Share with comment on G+

Are there any other features? related to G+ or otherwise?

zapjp• 15 years ago

yes

hbzhang• 15 years ago

I do not use Google reader. I just tech news droid app. It is good enough! GR seems an old concept already.

TodWait• 15 years ago

I use it, but get a sense fewer people are using it than a few years ago. Most people I know get their interesting links by connecting and following smart folks on Twitter and feeding their links to PostRank.

rednaught• 15 years ago

I've been using Feedlooks (http://www.feedlooks.com/) which also a Twitter client built in. It also takes care of the "mark as read" problem when subscribed to a large number of feeds.

barista• 15 years ago

my yahoo is my reader of choice.

adsrikanth• 15 years ago

I used to and now, it seems to be a time killer so, I removed my feeds.

It's a great resource for filtering jobs from sites like craigslist.

lionhearted• 15 years ago

There's no voting field for "I use it sporadically," or that's what I'd have voted.

I check HN first, my favorite blogs directly second, and the current forums I'm reading third. If I have more time to burn (rarely), I sign in to Reader. I liberally built up my RSS feed with lots of things, so it's great for skimming, but the signal:noise ratio isn't all that great. Hence, my fourth choice for getting some information/entertainment.

simcop2387• 15 years ago

I use google reader as an aggregator for my feeds and pull them in with Liferea to actually read them. It makes it really nice to use since it keeps all of the readers in sync between machines.

Duff• 15 years ago

I love Reader. It amazes me that Google keeps creating these new "social" features, where they have a great social thing going already.

I share stuff and discuss things with my colleagues on Reader. Somehow, they launched Google+ without any integration!

frossie• 15 years ago

This. If Google went poof tomorrow, the lack of Reader would be the one thing that would leave me bereft. On the iPhone, I use mobileRSS as the UI, but I use the web app directly on the desktop.

I assume the OP question was to establish whether one would use something else, and Plus integration would definitely affect my answer. If there was a tight integration (like, share to a particular circle) I would be less tempted to jump ship, but I have to say I am more wedded to Reader that any other Google product simply because by searching the "Shared" section I can find almost every single thing I have found interesting on the web [I share to one person only, either directly from the RSS feed or to Reader using Shareaholic].

jdietrich• 15 years ago

No, it's a skinner box [1]. The mere existence of a URL with a limitless amount of relevant, interesting content is toxic to my productivity. Even if I have it blacklisted, the temptation plays on my mind, my dopamine receptors dancing at the prospect of a slot machine that dispenses pure novelty. I use a cron job to e-mail me a daily digest of the RSS feeds I can't do without, which decouples cause from effect - I know what time I'll get my daily fix, so I feel no urge to ^r^r^r.

I also have HN on maxvisit:20, minaway:300 and have blocked Reddit, BoingBoing and other skinner boxes on a router which I can't control.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

athst• 15 years ago

I have never been able to get RSS to work for me - I'd always subscribe to a bunch of feeds, then they'd pile up into hundreds of unread posts, and then I'd just go numb to it and end up visiting the site itself like I did before.

But now, Twitter has filled this hole for me - most every site or writer of significance has a Twitter feed, and it's easy to follow them. I don't feel obligated to read down this huge stack of accumulated posts, so there aren't any mental barriers to use it. In addition, you read the content on the site itself, in the format that it was meant for (or you add it to Instapaper). Twitter is sorta like RSS for normal humans.

kayoone• 15 years ago

Exactly. With RSS i never got into the habit of checking it consistently because there was just too much stuff i did not care about so quickly i dismissed it. With twitter i follow great people from all the areas i am interested in and they usually have very interesting stuff to say and share. So if something is interesting i will just email it to me. I have tried Instapaper to save interesting stuff for later reads but then i have the same problem of not checking it again after some time because i dont have much time to check it and the stuff piles up. With emails i need to get my inbox clean and will check the article and then eventually save it to Instapaper if its long or worth a reread.

dym• 15 years ago

The missing option is: "Yes, and I wrote code for it" :)

BTW have you tried to enter the Konami code into Reader?

jokermatt999• 15 years ago

Do you still work on it, or have you just worked on it in the past?

realgt2• 15 years ago

i loved Google Reader until i started using feedly which is how reader _should_ have been implemented. i've been cycling through 15K+ items per month on reader for several years now and don't ever see myself not using rss for content discovery

gmartres• 15 years ago

Wow, that's unexpected. I'd have thought the HN crowd would be keen not to depend on Google for too many services. Especially when there's a lot of open source alternatives and when it appears that Reader does not even support something as basic and important as offline reading: https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/reader/thread?tid=5fc...

Personally I use Akregator(http://userbase.kde.org/Akregator/fr)

What's so great about Reader?

st3fan• 15 years ago

Yes, but indirectly. I use the awesome Reeder app for iOS and OS X. Which grabs stuff from my Google Reader account.

tvaughan• 15 years ago

Yes, but via Feedly.

gkanai• 15 years ago

Yes

skilesare• 15 years ago

Where is the option for 'hourly'?

horza• 15 years ago

No, I use Mixtab for Mac, it's available on the Mac App Store.

mikeklaas• 15 years ago

No, because RSS readers are still stuck in the mindset of email clients. Unread counts. Keep track of read state for everything. It's better than nothing, but not much, especially for non-techies.

A better answer would be something like HN: isn't limited to certain sources, the best content floats to the top, and is in tune with the idiosyncrasies that set you apart from mainstream nonsense. [1]

[1] Oh look, I built just that http://zite.com :)

borland• 15 years ago

Where's the "Yes, but I never actually use the interface, only third party apps like Reeder on iOS" ?

imagetic• 15 years ago

No / Yes. I use Reeder daily on the Mac and iPad. I can't stand going to Reader, the UI sucked so bad for so long. Reederapp was a huuuuge win.

mikecsh• 15 years ago

I use it indirectly to sync NetNewsWire on my Mac, iPhone and iPad. I don't use the app itself though.

flarg• 15 years ago

Yes

therationalme• 15 years ago

Yes... although I should probably moderate my rss habits with a little more discipline

SonicSoul• 15 years ago

yes, and also Reeder for OSX and iOS. keeps all devices in sync. i wish i found a similar setup for podcasts. i've been trying to use itunes but that is a disaster when you use multiple computers.

klochner• 15 years ago

So google has more than 90% RSS reader market share?

That seems surprisingly high to me.

a3_nm• 15 years ago

Hackernews is a biaised sample.

zobzu• 15 years ago

I use Firefox live bookmarks. I tried many feed readers but I never find them as convenient. I must be broken.

elmindreda• 15 years ago

Every morning starts with coffee and Liferea.

mcherm• 15 years ago

"Everyone says" blogs are dead. Maybe they've been replaced by Twitter. But for me, reading blogs is essential: I learn a great deal from them. Many reputable news sources also have RSS feeds. I read from several different locations so I need a web-based tool to be able to keep track of what I have read. I'd be happy to use another tool, but the only decent one I know of is Google Reader.

lilc• 15 years ago

I didn't use it much until I found you could interact with it via an API. This is what got me using it: http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/GRAY/WebService-Google-Reader...

sinamt• 15 years ago

If you're a Google Reader user you may want to checkout this Chrome extension I built that enables full content feeds. It adds readable content or iframing of feed entries. Settings are per feed or folder and are transparently built into Google Reader.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/khbjahpecnkenngkid...

krhebbar• 15 years ago

Yes

virtualpain• 15 years ago

No, but I do use Reader at least weekly. I use RSS reader to avoid blog's annoying advertisement (although some blogs has ads in their RSS but that less annoy) and heavy load theme (yes my internet connection suck)

rman666• 15 years ago

Yes, many times per day.

ghanashyam• 15 years ago

once a week.. as feeds increase I want to spend more time on it

moonlighter• 15 years ago

I'm using NewsRack (which sync's with Google Reader), so implicitly I'm using Google Reader (just not it's web UI).

ftwinnovations• 15 years ago

Yes

gphilip• 15 years ago

Yes

LordBodak• 15 years ago

I love Google Reader! For Android users, I highly recommend D7 Reader - https://sites.google.com/site/d7reader/

It's quite a bit better than the official app.

Sindisil• 15 years ago

The one feature gReader is missing, which may drive me to an alternative, is the ability to chose a set of items to mark as read.

I can "mark all as read", of course, but I'd like to be able to eliminate items I can tell from the title are not of immediate interest.

budman• 15 years ago

I have been an everyday RSS user for a few years now. Jumped around trying Bloglines, a few desktop clients, Google Reader, some unknown smaller sites, etc over that time. Finally I found my perfect aggregator and have been using it daily for about 8 months now. I even took it upon myself to donate a few bucks to developer.

Simple, free and open source: http://rsslounge.aditu.de/ Only catch is it requires your own host/webserver with PHP/SQL and a quick installation. But well worth it for me as I just dropped it onto one of my websites.

pknerd• 15 years ago

yuval• 15 years ago

yes

ilovekhym• 15 years ago

Yes

thirdsun• 15 years ago

If Reeder for iPad is considered as using Google Reader, then yes, daily. This is without a doubt my most used iPad app and very essential for my daily routine.

Fuzzwah2• 15 years ago

I self host a copy of rnews http://rnews.sourceforge.net/ which I've hacked up to do a heap of extra things, such as tweet links which I click on (I use this as a simple history system).

I was never a fan of the g.reader layout and toyed with a boxed layout on an igoogle page similar to what I have set up in my rnews system but it felt clunky.

Fuzzwah2• 15 years ago

Also, while we're talking rss.... yahoo pipes is brilliant. I use it to mash up a whole stack of feeds and convert pages which don't have rss into rss.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/

Anyone who uses rss and hasn't messed with pipes is missing out on a whole heap of awesome.

brevityness• 15 years ago

My heart is with Reeder for Mac - http://reederapp.com/mac/

fredley• 15 years ago

Yes, online as well as Android app.

beefman• 15 years ago

"Since April 18, 2007 you have read a total of 118,679 items."

siri• 15 years ago

I use reader more than my gmail... sad to see no UI or feature development on reader since longtime..

SkyRocknRoll• 15 years ago

Yes

jcasman• 15 years ago

These days it's daily but that comes and goes. It's like any kind of reading, way overloaded which means periodically I consciously give up or... just never get around to it. The Mark All As Read is a key function for me, so I can start fresh.

kleim• 15 years ago

No, I prefer 'river of news' style aggregators like Zencancan.

quattrofan• 15 years ago

Love it, but it really needs a link into Google+ asap

NARKOZ• 15 years ago

no, I use reeder.app

NathanC• 15 years ago

I use http://fmeme.com/ and get endless content curated by category

rhizome31• 15 years ago

I use Netvibes. Good to see other interesting news readers suggested here. I'll give them a try.

I avoid using Google products as much as I can. I still have a Gmail address that some people use, but it forwards to another address. I should probably set up an auto-reply to tell people to stop using it. I still have a site on App Engine that I need to migrate (will give me a good excuse to try Flask or Brubeck :-) The only Google product that I think I'm going to keep using is Youtube, because it has content I can't watch elsewhere.

orionlogic• 15 years ago

Yes. Google Reader is my bookmark manager in cloud.

Concours• 15 years ago

I use http://www.nerdzine.com on a daily basis for my rss news.

navpan• 15 years ago

No, but I use it on a weekly basis

defmoves• 15 years ago

Yes, Mostly mobile reader while commuting.

robgough• 15 years ago

Switched from Bloglines many moons ago, and never looked back... I use Reeder on my iPad, Helvetireader2 as a browser script and don't ever really use it on my phone, but when I do I'd use the mobile site.

hgarg2011• 15 years ago

Yes, on Mac and Android phone. I do use other RSS Readers which in turn connect to Google Reader,

anuj• 15 years ago

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sage/

coley• 15 years ago

Yes, via @feedly

2nd_planet• 15 years ago

I use it maybe monthly; but not daily.

erikb• 15 years ago

I'm an IT student in Germany and must say that there is basically nobody here who uses RSS readers at all. The only reason for RSS in Germany seems to be that tools can also read it (like mobile apps for facebook and co.)

mattmanic• 15 years ago

Yes, use it every day on my Mac, and use Reeder on my iOS devices.

Airballman• 15 years ago

YES.

spindritf• 15 years ago

I use Liferea, it came with the system. Tried Google Reader once but its import feature messed up the order the feeds were in and treated hierarchic folders as a flat tag space which, after years of being accustomed to my feeds in a certain way and next to one another, killed my enthusiasm for it.

perl• 15 years ago

Yes I do use google reader

gtzi• 15 years ago

No, Twitter has over time replaced Google Reader for me. I don't know how to feel about it.

CedriK• 15 years ago

Yes but may look for another reader. Because they don't add some new features.

urlwolf• 15 years ago

I use the opera feed reader, it's fantastic. Much faster than greader to move around, works offline.

robjohnson• 15 years ago

Each and every day.

pauljonas• 15 years ago

Love Google Reader, have ~2,500 subscriptions, it is the only RSS reader that could handle such volume -- NetNewsWire make my Mac sputter and smoke with only ~300 feeds or so.

Many might be aghast at the humungous subscription set, but I do not do RSS like email -- it is more akin to a stream I surf, skim and dip. And it is lightning fast, permitting me to breeze through content in a rapid pace.

That said, I am astonished at how Google has allowed it to languish and stagnate, or by adding incomplete and inconsequential features.

* One of the big reasons I made the switch was the ability to search feeds, but sadly, of late, it looks like "search" (which I thought was the bread and butter Google raison d'être) functionality has deteriorated, not as robust or comprehensive as even a year ago or few months ago.

* No public API.

* Control to let me jump in at a given time point in the stream. Sometimes due to just mistakenly hitting a hotkey that refreshes and resets when I'm in the middle of a stream. Or it might be that I just want to jump to feeds earlier than 8 hours ago, 3 days ago, or 3 months ago.

chromejs10• 15 years ago

I couldn't live without my Google Reader. It's simple and basic which is what I want. I don't need a complex article viewer. I need to see the summary, bookmark some, and be able to view the full article. That's it.

wakemup• 15 years ago

Yes

alanh• 15 years ago

Huh? I have no idea how to answer. I "use" Reader but almost EXCLUSIVELY as a syncing service for my subscriptions, which I only read using dedicated, native RSS reader apps (Hello, Reeder [sic]!)

Poll: Do you use Google Reader on a daily basis?

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