7 ms·

I see Google Reader mentioned a lot when virtually anything RSS-related comes up. I missed out on the whole RSS craze (prison will do that to you). But I have a

by stryk 9y ago

I see Google Reader mentioned a lot when virtually anything RSS-related comes up. I missed out on the whole RSS craze (prison will do that to you). But I have always wondered -- so many people lament the fact that Google killed it -- why hasn't anyone forked/cloned it's UI and feature-set? You don't want to just straight up copy it and wake the Google lawyers from their nests obviously, but why not make something that works the same way? Seems like that would be a popular project among the open source crowd.

naravara 9y ago
> why hasn't anyone forked/cloned it's UI and feature-set? There are clients that kind of did, but one of the cool things about Google Reader that a lot of people miss is the social feed. You could share articles you found interesting and your shares would show up on the feeds of anyone who followed you as just another RSS source. It's just an extra folder of articles from your GChat friends that you can read at your leisure. And it's people selecting articles from their normal reading rotation, so it was refreshingly clear of clickbait. People usually shared stuff because they thought their friends would find it interesting rather than distributing content designed to "go viral." Once the ecosystem fragmented nobody has the critical mass to replicate the social features. It was nicer than what Twitter or Facebook do because it wasn't in your face.
- stryk 9y ago
  That sounds like... a fantastic idea! Why would they kill that off?! No easy way to inject ads into I guess (at least that people would be willing to put up with).
  - naravara 9y ago
    >Why would they kill that off?! It happened back when "Social" was a big thing and Google was trying to push everyone onto its erstwhile Facebook competitor Google+ and it's erstwhile Twitter competitor Google Buzz. First they killed the social feed and made the button auto-post to your Google Buzz account, but Buzz being a version of Twitter, had a lot more noise to signal so nobody used it that way. They probably eventually killed it because they preferred having their development resources put towards more exotic social media efforts than maintaining a thing that didn't really make any money. This long article has more of the sordid details if you're interested: https://www.buzzfeed.com/robf4/googles-lost-social-network?utm_term=.xrob8Yrr6w#.jbDxz3228Z https://www.buzzfeed.com/robf4/googles-lost-social-network?u...
    - stryk 9y ago
      thanks I'll check that out
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      Ah yes, G+, that resulted in the + being removed from the search field. All thanks to an ex-MS "cookie licker" (the term was used by Google people after he left the company).
      - xtracto 9y ago
        So, you are telling me that a person arrive to Google, broke the internet (by replacing the well behaved + with the annoying "") and then left to leave things worse than they were? Sad state of affairs...
      - armandososa 9y ago
        dude! we want names
organsnyder 9y ago
When Reader was killed, I switched to Feedly and haven't looked back. It took Reader's feature-set (at least, the features I care about) and has continued to provide a robust application for consuming news. I never used the social bits of Reader, though.
- xtracto 9y ago
  I second that. I am an avid Feedly user and a paying customer. It really filled up the huge void in Google Reader. I use Feedly it to consume RSS feeds. Although nowadays they hide the feature in the interface, it is possible to subscribe to a feed by just pasting it in input text box when you are looking for new content.
- ad-hominem 9y ago
  I try to use Feedly every six months but the UI is so unusably bad that I abandon it completely after two tries to read my feeds. I have quit reading about a dozen news sites / webcomics just because I used to check them through the feeds and now I can't be bothered.
- pinkano 8y ago
  thank you so much, happy to hear this. Petr from Feedly
BeetleB 9y ago
>I see Google Reader mentioned a lot when virtually anything RSS-related comes up. As someone who relied on RSS for years, and did not use Google Reader, this equivalency between RSS and Google Reader annoys me greatly. Google didn't kill RSS. RSS is alive and well - almost all sites have a feed. I used to have an RSS reader set up on my own server. For people who do not want to do that, just use an RSS software on your machine and update once a day.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  I get similar annoyance with how gmail and email is now "synonymous", much thanks to the heavy handed nature of the gmail "spam" filer (anything not from a big name provider gets automatically binned, apparently).
da02 9y ago
Prison? Are you talking about marriage or a soul-less corp. job? May I ask what were you in for? Was it a low-security "resort" prison?
- stryk 9y ago
  I wish it was just a soul sucking corporate job. At least you get paid more than 33 cents an hour for doing those jobs. but alas, no this was actual prison, and nothing so luxurious as Bernie Madoff's Camp Fluffy. This was prison prison in Michigan City, Indiana (and the last 6 months I was transferred to Pendelton, IN). I was down for 3 years of a 6 year sentence for 2 charges: Conspiracy to Distribute or Manufacture, and Trafficking in a Controlled Substance. This was before they switched from a 'Class A-B-C-D' felony classification system to a 'Level 1-2-3-4' system, so my 2 charges were a Class C and a Class B (effectively a Level 3 and a Level 2 nowadays). TLDR; I was a drug dealer. For a long time. I was extremely good at it. I sold all of them, but the ones I ended up being charged with were Heroin (at least 10 grams, which bumped it up from a C to a B class) and 80mg OxyContins ("green hornets"). Incidentally, at the time, the laws were such that if my house had been located 200 feet closer to a school than it was, I would most likely still be in prison. I got lucky there, the laws were "within 1000 feet of a school" and my house was somewhere between 1100-1200, and even though I absolutely NEVER sold anything out of my house it would not have mattered. The prosecutor went so far as to send surveyors to my property and dig up the blueprints of my house from City Hall and measure out the property lines and distances. I think I saw steam shoot out of that lady's ears when my lawyer read the surveyor's report in court. She was pissed.
  - da02 8y ago
    Well congratulations on making it out and getting out of that business. Were you assaulted in prison? Why were you good at drug dealer? (I thought most drug dealers make little income...unless it's wholesaling.)
    - stryk 8y ago
      [I can only speak for what I experienced personally, and what facilities I was in and passed thru along the way. It varies from place-to-place and state-to-state based on many factors] Assaulted no. Did I have to fight? You bet. Inside, if you don't protect yourself and/or stand up for what's rightfully yours then you're not going to have a good time at all. At some point someone who is bigger, stronger, tougher, whatever than you _IS_ going to attempt to take all your shit. It's more of a test than anything else, to see what you will let people get away with. If you don't stand up for yourself, well, prison is full of predators especially if you're in a medium or higher security facility. This does not apply if your charges are for anything to do with hurting children or extreme violence against women -- in that case they're never going to stop coming... ever. Word from the older guys who had been in there for a long time is that prison isn't what it once was in the 70's and 80's. Bad inmate on inmate assaults is almost always gang related, forcible rape doesn't really happen [at least in the facilities I was in and passed thru along the way] because they don't really have to do that -- there are plenty of willing participants (with exceptions for internal gang retaliation, but it would have to be something major). Another big change that reduced a lot of violence was they started giving people additional criminal charges, "outside cases" to use prison parlance, for crimes they commit inside such as stabbings, murders, serious contraband, etc. instead of just doing internal institutional discipline. This also cut way down on inmate vs. corrections officer violence -- stabbing a guard now became attempted murder of a law enforcement official -- an A felony, 20 more years to your sentence minimum. That's not to say it's fun or peaceful or anything, it's still prison, still a city within walls segregated intensely by race and where you grew up, and there are some truly messed up people in there. It's 90% boredom 5% loneliness, and 5% small bouts of intense violence. But if you carry yourself with dignity, don't do anything stupid, and don't back down when challenged (particularly over something petty) you'll be allright.
jbigelow76 9y ago
why hasn't anyone forked/cloned it's UI and feature-set? Somebody did, The Old Reader (theoldreader.com natch) was setup to be as close to Google Reader as possible. I've been a paying user since it launched shortly after the Google Reader shut down, very happy with the service.
- armandososa 9y ago
  I tried The Old Reader as soon as it came up, but it was in an uncanny valley were it was not quite as good as Google's –or maybe I was just sad and feeling unappreciative– but recently I rediscovered it and became a paying user within the hour. I just wish I have saved my 500+ subscriptions OPML somewhere.
- PappaPatat 8y ago
  There is noway I could keep up with the number of sources I like to keep up with without RSS. Not providing a useable RSS feed as a site is a dealbreaker for me: I will not come back regularly, if at all. I've been using the oldreader (what a blessing) since Google Reader died (what a shame). Love the google auth integration (as soon as I log in to my gmail, all my subscribtions are available, no matter what machine I am on ATM), but I never ever thought about paying for the service since it is more then complete for me as it is. Maybe I should since I truly appreciate it and have found 0 alternatives over the years (and no, I am not going to roll my own, nor host anything, nor install apps across all my devices).

by stryk 9y ago

naravara 9y ago

> why hasn't anyone forked/cloned it's UI and feature-set? There are clients that kind of did, but one of the cool things about Google Reader that a lot of people miss is the social feed. You could share articles you found interesting and your shares would show up on the feeds of anyone who followed you as just another RSS source. It's just an extra folder of articles from your GChat friends that you can read at your leisure. And it's people selecting articles from their normal reading rotation, so it was refreshingly clear of clickbait. People usually shared stuff because they thought their friends would find it interesting rather than distributing content designed to "go viral." Once the ecosystem fragmented nobody has the critical mass to replicate the social features. It was nicer than what Twitter or Facebook do because it wasn't in your face.

stryk 9y ago
That sounds like... a fantastic idea! Why would they kill that off?! No easy way to inject ads into I guess (at least that people would be willing to put up with).
- naravara 9y ago
  >Why would they kill that off?! It happened back when "Social" was a big thing and Google was trying to push everyone onto its erstwhile Facebook competitor Google+ and it's erstwhile Twitter competitor Google Buzz. First they killed the social feed and made the button auto-post to your Google Buzz account, but Buzz being a version of Twitter, had a lot more noise to signal so nobody used it that way. They probably eventually killed it because they preferred having their development resources put towards more exotic social media efforts than maintaining a thing that didn't really make any money. This long article has more of the sordid details if you're interested: https://www.buzzfeed.com/robf4/googles-lost-social-network?utm_term=.xrob8Yrr6w#.jbDxz3228Z https://www.buzzfeed.com/robf4/googles-lost-social-network?u...
  - stryk 9y ago
    thanks I'll check that out
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Ah yes, G+, that resulted in the + being removed from the search field. All thanks to an ex-MS "cookie licker" (the term was used by Google people after he left the company).
    - xtracto 9y ago
      So, you are telling me that a person arrive to Google, broke the internet (by replacing the well behaved + with the annoying "") and then left to leave things worse than they were? Sad state of affairs...
    - armandososa 9y ago
      dude! we want names

organsnyder 9y ago

When Reader was killed, I switched to Feedly and haven't looked back. It took Reader's feature-set (at least, the features I care about) and has continued to provide a robust application for consuming news. I never used the social bits of Reader, though.

xtracto 9y ago
I second that. I am an avid Feedly user and a paying customer. It really filled up the huge void in Google Reader. I use Feedly it to consume RSS feeds. Although nowadays they hide the feature in the interface, it is possible to subscribe to a feed by just pasting it in input text box when you are looking for new content.
ad-hominem 9y ago
I try to use Feedly every six months but the UI is so unusably bad that I abandon it completely after two tries to read my feeds. I have quit reading about a dozen news sites / webcomics just because I used to check them through the feeds and now I can't be bothered.
pinkano 8y ago
thank you so much, happy to hear this. Petr from Feedly

BeetleB 9y ago

>I see Google Reader mentioned a lot when virtually anything RSS-related comes up. As someone who relied on RSS for years, and did not use Google Reader, this equivalency between RSS and Google Reader annoys me greatly. Google didn't kill RSS. RSS is alive and well - almost all sites have a feed. I used to have an RSS reader set up on my own server. For people who do not want to do that, just use an RSS software on your machine and update once a day.

digi_owl 9y ago
I get similar annoyance with how gmail and email is now "synonymous", much thanks to the heavy handed nature of the gmail "spam" filer (anything not from a big name provider gets automatically binned, apparently).

da02 9y ago

Prison? Are you talking about marriage or a soul-less corp. job? May I ask what were you in for? Was it a low-security "resort" prison?

stryk 9y ago
I wish it was just a soul sucking corporate job. At least you get paid more than 33 cents an hour for doing those jobs. but alas, no this was actual prison, and nothing so luxurious as Bernie Madoff's Camp Fluffy. This was prison prison in Michigan City, Indiana (and the last 6 months I was transferred to Pendelton, IN). I was down for 3 years of a 6 year sentence for 2 charges: Conspiracy to Distribute or Manufacture, and Trafficking in a Controlled Substance. This was before they switched from a 'Class A-B-C-D' felony classification system to a 'Level 1-2-3-4' system, so my 2 charges were a Class C and a Class B (effectively a Level 3 and a Level 2 nowadays). TLDR; I was a drug dealer. For a long time. I was extremely good at it. I sold all of them, but the ones I ended up being charged with were Heroin (at least 10 grams, which bumped it up from a C to a B class) and 80mg OxyContins ("green hornets"). Incidentally, at the time, the laws were such that if my house had been located 200 feet closer to a school than it was, I would most likely still be in prison. I got lucky there, the laws were "within 1000 feet of a school" and my house was somewhere between 1100-1200, and even though I absolutely NEVER sold anything out of my house it would not have mattered. The prosecutor went so far as to send surveyors to my property and dig up the blueprints of my house from City Hall and measure out the property lines and distances. I think I saw steam shoot out of that lady's ears when my lawyer read the surveyor's report in court. She was pissed.
- da02 8y ago
  Well congratulations on making it out and getting out of that business. Were you assaulted in prison? Why were you good at drug dealer? (I thought most drug dealers make little income...unless it's wholesaling.)
  - stryk 8y ago
    [I can only speak for what I experienced personally, and what facilities I was in and passed thru along the way. It varies from place-to-place and state-to-state based on many factors] Assaulted no. Did I have to fight? You bet. Inside, if you don't protect yourself and/or stand up for what's rightfully yours then you're not going to have a good time at all. At some point someone who is bigger, stronger, tougher, whatever than you _IS_ going to attempt to take all your shit. It's more of a test than anything else, to see what you will let people get away with. If you don't stand up for yourself, well, prison is full of predators especially if you're in a medium or higher security facility. This does not apply if your charges are for anything to do with hurting children or extreme violence against women -- in that case they're never going to stop coming... ever. Word from the older guys who had been in there for a long time is that prison isn't what it once was in the 70's and 80's. Bad inmate on inmate assaults is almost always gang related, forcible rape doesn't really happen [at least in the facilities I was in and passed thru along the way] because they don't really have to do that -- there are plenty of willing participants (with exceptions for internal gang retaliation, but it would have to be something major). Another big change that reduced a lot of violence was they started giving people additional criminal charges, "outside cases" to use prison parlance, for crimes they commit inside such as stabbings, murders, serious contraband, etc. instead of just doing internal institutional discipline. This also cut way down on inmate vs. corrections officer violence -- stabbing a guard now became attempted murder of a law enforcement official -- an A felony, 20 more years to your sentence minimum. That's not to say it's fun or peaceful or anything, it's still prison, still a city within walls segregated intensely by race and where you grew up, and there are some truly messed up people in there. It's 90% boredom 5% loneliness, and 5% small bouts of intense violence. But if you carry yourself with dignity, don't do anything stupid, and don't back down when challenged (particularly over something petty) you'll be allright.

jbigelow76 9y ago

why hasn't anyone forked/cloned it's UI and feature-set? Somebody did, The Old Reader (theoldreader.com natch) was setup to be as close to Google Reader as possible. I've been a paying user since it launched shortly after the Google Reader shut down, very happy with the service.

armandososa 9y ago
I tried The Old Reader as soon as it came up, but it was in an uncanny valley were it was not quite as good as Google's –or maybe I was just sad and feeling unappreciative– but recently I rediscovered it and became a paying user within the hour. I just wish I have saved my 500+ subscriptions OPML somewhere.
PappaPatat 8y ago
There is noway I could keep up with the number of sources I like to keep up with without RSS. Not providing a useable RSS feed as a site is a dealbreaker for me: I will not come back regularly, if at all. I've been using the oldreader (what a blessing) since Google Reader died (what a shame). Love the google auth integration (as soon as I log in to my gmail, all my subscribtions are available, no matter what machine I am on ATM), but I never ever thought about paying for the service since it is more then complete for me as it is. Maybe I should since I truly appreciate it and have found 0 alternatives over the years (and no, I am not going to roll my own, nor host anything, nor install apps across all my devices).