7 ms·

Show HN: Use Your Inbox As A Google Reader Replacement

62 points by cameronbrown 6y ago

cameronbrown 6y ago
Hey everyone! I wanted to share a tool I built a few months ago and have quietly been working on in the background. It's a little rough around the edges, so happy to take feedback, here, or hello@cameronbrown.co.uk.
Mr_P 6y ago
Not that I'd assume malicious intent on a Hacker News post, but I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email-address_harvesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email-address_harvesting
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  No worries, I think that's a fair risk from a user perspective - upvote for the feedback. I'd recommend anyone worried about this to sign up with an email alias (<username>+feedsub@gmail.com), (though again, that's something that can still be easily detected).
  - javajosh 6y ago
    It's the other way around, <username>+feedsub@gmail.com
    - cameronbrown 6y ago
      Edited - thanks!
  - pvg 6y ago
    It's not feedback, it's innuendo and grumped at in 9 different ways in the site guidelines, especially for a legit Show HN post.
  - achecouter 6y ago
    For email alias, I'd recommend to use a true email alias solution like 33mail or SimpleLogin as the plus (+) hack doesn't protect the privacy.
kmstout 6y ago
Or, to do it yourself, https://github.com/wking/rss2email https://github.com/wking/rss2email
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  The difference between an email client and an RSS reader is that an email client can parse message/rfc822 entries in a feed and an RSS reader has a prominent Mark All As Read button. I patched Thunderbird for a friend back in 2005 to enable it to show the email UI for message/rfc822 entries in RSS feeds, so that you could receive your email by RSS. We got it working end-to-end with SMTP delivery to the feed, which was pretty cool. It looks like he published a whitepaper about the idea: http://mengwong.com/rssemail/rssemail-006.pdf http://mengwong.com/rssemail/rssemail-006.pdf
  - rakoo 6y ago
    Most email clients have a 2-click solution to "mark all as read", which is more than enough in my opinion
    - floatingatoll 6y ago
      Sure, but it speaks directly to why the difference between them is really about mindset and not technologies. For example: If email newsletters were just published as an RSS feed there’d be a lot less need to spend big bucks on deliverability providers. And: If people had a clearly visible button “Mark All As Read” in their email client (with confirmation) there’d be a less uncertainty about using it when underwater.
      - rakoo 6y ago
        Indeed, there's a different in mindset between what is and what isn't acceptable to skip. It's too bad it takes work to make the distinction in one's own mailbox between the two categories, but once it's done RSS can be managed the same way email is
  - deleted 6y ago
stewbrew 6y ago
What's the advantage over ifttt etc.? Unfortunately, many sites don't provide an rss feed anymore. I have never understood what makes it better to support twitter, fb etc. instead of rss. Somebody will know the answer.
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  Currently, no specific advantages over IFTTT. But one day I'd like to add other features in future, to grab content that isn't available through feeds (like Instagram), along with custom CSS.
ggop 6y ago
There are some comics I'd like to follow but I'm not interested in creating an Instagram account. If you can add an Instagram feed, I'd be serious in signing up to your service. For most other content, I'm happy enough to run rss2email myself.
- iamjkt 6y ago
  For comics, not sure anything beats http://darkgate.net/comic/ http://darkgate.net/comic/ The author was always happy to add new sources too.
- hutattedonmyarm 6y ago
  I've been using RSS Bridge[1]. Let's you funnel other things into an RSS feed. One of my use cases is in fact following comics on Instagram from creators who don't upload anywhere else [1]https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge
- pabs3 6y ago
  Tweeper can convert Instagram (and Facebook) to RSS: https://ao2.it/en/blog/2013/07/07/tweeper-twitter-rss-web-scraper https://ao2.it/en/blog/2013/07/07/tweeper-twitter-rss-web-sc...
cameronbrown 6y ago
(I'd edit the original comment, but that's past due) One thing I use the service for is to receive notifications from HN replies, by subscribing to the https://hnrss.org/replies?id=cameronbrown https://hnrss.org/replies?id=cameronbrown feed. It was the original pain point I wanted to solve.
zenlot 6y ago
I really like the idea, but 2.99 for Pro plan for updating every 15mins and a dark theme? Doesn't sound right. When I see such options(e.g dark theme for paid plan) for those simple tools I always wonder how many open source products people have used to create the product in first place.
bharani_m 6y ago
Good idea! I am always happy to see more tools come up around the email inbox. Few suggestions - 1. Your privacy page is empty. 2. Instead of asking me to enter a feed URL during signup, you could just start with the email, and then on the next screen, you could show me your list of feed suggestions. I think that would simplify the signup flow. All the best! Shameless plug: I run a similar tool called EmailThis [0] that brings bookmarking (similar to Pocket and Instapaper) to your email inbox. [0] https://www.emailthis.me https://www.emailthis.me
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  Hey - thanks for the link and the suggestions :)
twapi 6y ago
IFTTT is better way
- jchook 6y ago
  I find IFTTT unreliable, with spotty response to events.
hutattedonmyarm 6y ago
Interestingly, I'm the opposite way: I'd love to get some of my emails in my RSS feed instead. I even wrote a little tool for myself which hackily forwards patreon update emails to my inoreader address so they land in my RSS feed. Cron regularily runs the script (ideally before I see the email)
- nunodonato 6y ago
  I'm working on an app that will deliver daily emails of all the stuff that matters to you (rss, calendars, weather, so on..) will need beta testers soon.if you are up for it I'd love to have you test it since you seem to be one of my target users :)
  - hutattedonmyarm 6y ago
    Are you sure? I want things out of my inbox and in my RSS feed instead. I don't want my RSS feed in my emails. Yours seems to be more the latter
    - nunodonato 6y ago
      Ah, you are right, I misread your comment. Perhaps it's my mind playing tricks on me to think I have real users xD
- hobo_mark 6y ago
  NewsBlur (a Google Reader replacement) can turn newsletters into RSS feeds with a simple GMail forwarding rule.
self_awareness 6y ago
I don't really get it, there are LOTS of RSS readers out there, why people still reference a product that doesn't exist since several years?
- lemiffe 6y ago
  It was “the” RSS reader. Nostalgia probably.
rcarmo 6y ago
A long time ago I hacked this together from Aaron’s code: https://github.com/rcarmo/rss2imap https://github.com/rcarmo/rss2imap I’ve been meaning to revisit it for Python 3, maybe make it run serverless (which is a major pain because of the need to access an IMAP server).
nicolaslem 6y ago
Funny enough, I run a RSS reader at almost the same domain: https://feedsubs.com https://feedsubs.com
pabs3 6y ago
feed2exec is another option for this: https://feed2exec.readthedocs.io/ https://feed2exec.readthedocs.io/
slightwinder 6y ago
And where is the replacement? The main benefit of a feedreader is to have an interface and workflow dedicated for newsfeeds. Just collecting feed-items is easy, there are several options for this.
Jaruzel 6y ago
If you are a Windows user, Outlook has a built in RSS reader functionality. It's not great, but it does mean you can easily consume feeds on say, a work computer where adding new software is prohibited. It's also private to you, so you are not storing your reading habits on someone else's server.
- scarface74 6y ago
  But now your RSS feeds are on your work computer. Isn’t that worse?
rakoo 6y ago
Like others I also used the RSS to email route, because my mail system has everything a RSS reader needs and then more. It's at this point I realized I spent more time skimming over title and summaries and marking all entries as read than actually reading content that felt interesting. RSS is the ultimate form of information flood and it didn't bring as much value as it should have so I stopped completely and relied on "organic" link aggregators, namely HN and Reddit, because content is triaged by a community whose appeal to news I share. Maybe I just wasn't subscribed to the correct feeds ? I saw a post a long time ago where RSS is not for feeds with multiple articles in a day or in a week, it's for those very low-volume little websites where authors publish one post per month but you still want to keep track of them. Maybe I should get into that again
mshaler 6y ago
I would love to access Twitter as a RSS-style feed because I love the "mark all as read" amnesty feature...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

62 points by cameronbrown 6y ago

Hey everyone! I wanted to share a tool I built a few months ago and have quietly been working on in the background. It's a little rough around the edges, so happy to take feedback, here, or hello@cameronbrown.co.uk.

Mr_P 6y ago

Not that I'd assume malicious intent on a Hacker News post, but I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email-address_harvesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email-address_harvesting

cameronbrown 6y ago
No worries, I think that's a fair risk from a user perspective - upvote for the feedback. I'd recommend anyone worried about this to sign up with an email alias (<username>+feedsub@gmail.com), (though again, that's something that can still be easily detected).
- javajosh 6y ago
  It's the other way around, <username>+feedsub@gmail.com
  - cameronbrown 6y ago
    Edited - thanks!
- pvg 6y ago
  It's not feedback, it's innuendo and grumped at in 9 different ways in the site guidelines, especially for a legit Show HN post.
- achecouter 6y ago
  For email alias, I'd recommend to use a true email alias solution like 33mail or SimpleLogin as the plus (+) hack doesn't protect the privacy.

kmstout 6y ago

Or, to do it yourself, https://github.com/wking/rss2email https://github.com/wking/rss2email

floatingatoll 6y ago
The difference between an email client and an RSS reader is that an email client can parse message/rfc822 entries in a feed and an RSS reader has a prominent Mark All As Read button. I patched Thunderbird for a friend back in 2005 to enable it to show the email UI for message/rfc822 entries in RSS feeds, so that you could receive your email by RSS. We got it working end-to-end with SMTP delivery to the feed, which was pretty cool. It looks like he published a whitepaper about the idea: http://mengwong.com/rssemail/rssemail-006.pdf http://mengwong.com/rssemail/rssemail-006.pdf
- rakoo 6y ago
  Most email clients have a 2-click solution to "mark all as read", which is more than enough in my opinion
  - floatingatoll 6y ago
    Sure, but it speaks directly to why the difference between them is really about mindset and not technologies. For example: If email newsletters were just published as an RSS feed there’d be a lot less need to spend big bucks on deliverability providers. And: If people had a clearly visible button “Mark All As Read” in their email client (with confirmation) there’d be a less uncertainty about using it when underwater.
    - rakoo 6y ago
      Indeed, there's a different in mindset between what is and what isn't acceptable to skip. It's too bad it takes work to make the distinction in one's own mailbox between the two categories, but once it's done RSS can be managed the same way email is
- deleted 6y ago

stewbrew 6y ago

What's the advantage over ifttt etc.? Unfortunately, many sites don't provide an rss feed anymore. I have never understood what makes it better to support twitter, fb etc. instead of rss. Somebody will know the answer.

cameronbrown 6y ago
Currently, no specific advantages over IFTTT. But one day I'd like to add other features in future, to grab content that isn't available through feeds (like Instagram), along with custom CSS.

ggop 6y ago

There are some comics I'd like to follow but I'm not interested in creating an Instagram account. If you can add an Instagram feed, I'd be serious in signing up to your service. For most other content, I'm happy enough to run rss2email myself.

iamjkt 6y ago
For comics, not sure anything beats http://darkgate.net/comic/ http://darkgate.net/comic/ The author was always happy to add new sources too.
hutattedonmyarm 6y ago
I've been using RSS Bridge[1]. Let's you funnel other things into an RSS feed. One of my use cases is in fact following comics on Instagram from creators who don't upload anywhere else [1]https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge
pabs3 6y ago
Tweeper can convert Instagram (and Facebook) to RSS: https://ao2.it/en/blog/2013/07/07/tweeper-twitter-rss-web-scraper https://ao2.it/en/blog/2013/07/07/tweeper-twitter-rss-web-sc...

cameronbrown 6y ago

(I'd edit the original comment, but that's past due) One thing I use the service for is to receive notifications from HN replies, by subscribing to the https://hnrss.org/replies?id=cameronbrown https://hnrss.org/replies?id=cameronbrown feed. It was the original pain point I wanted to solve.

zenlot 6y ago

I really like the idea, but 2.99 for Pro plan for updating every 15mins and a dark theme? Doesn't sound right. When I see such options(e.g dark theme for paid plan) for those simple tools I always wonder how many open source products people have used to create the product in first place.

bharani_m 6y ago

Good idea! I am always happy to see more tools come up around the email inbox. Few suggestions - 1. Your privacy page is empty. 2. Instead of asking me to enter a feed URL during signup, you could just start with the email, and then on the next screen, you could show me your list of feed suggestions. I think that would simplify the signup flow. All the best! Shameless plug: I run a similar tool called EmailThis [0] that brings bookmarking (similar to Pocket and Instapaper) to your email inbox. [0] https://www.emailthis.me https://www.emailthis.me

cameronbrown 6y ago
Hey - thanks for the link and the suggestions :)

twapi 6y ago

IFTTT is better way

jchook 6y ago
I find IFTTT unreliable, with spotty response to events.

hutattedonmyarm 6y ago

Interestingly, I'm the opposite way: I'd love to get some of my emails in my RSS feed instead. I even wrote a little tool for myself which hackily forwards patreon update emails to my inoreader address so they land in my RSS feed. Cron regularily runs the script (ideally before I see the email)

nunodonato 6y ago
I'm working on an app that will deliver daily emails of all the stuff that matters to you (rss, calendars, weather, so on..) will need beta testers soon.if you are up for it I'd love to have you test it since you seem to be one of my target users :)
- hutattedonmyarm 6y ago
  Are you sure? I want things out of my inbox and in my RSS feed instead. I don't want my RSS feed in my emails. Yours seems to be more the latter
  - nunodonato 6y ago
    Ah, you are right, I misread your comment. Perhaps it's my mind playing tricks on me to think I have real users xD
hobo_mark 6y ago
NewsBlur (a Google Reader replacement) can turn newsletters into RSS feeds with a simple GMail forwarding rule.

self_awareness 6y ago

I don't really get it, there are LOTS of RSS readers out there, why people still reference a product that doesn't exist since several years?

lemiffe 6y ago
It was “the” RSS reader. Nostalgia probably.

rcarmo 6y ago

A long time ago I hacked this together from Aaron’s code: https://github.com/rcarmo/rss2imap https://github.com/rcarmo/rss2imap I’ve been meaning to revisit it for Python 3, maybe make it run serverless (which is a major pain because of the need to access an IMAP server).

nicolaslem 6y ago

Funny enough, I run a RSS reader at almost the same domain: https://feedsubs.com https://feedsubs.com

pabs3 6y ago

feed2exec is another option for this: https://feed2exec.readthedocs.io/ https://feed2exec.readthedocs.io/

slightwinder 6y ago

And where is the replacement? The main benefit of a feedreader is to have an interface and workflow dedicated for newsfeeds. Just collecting feed-items is easy, there are several options for this.

Jaruzel 6y ago

If you are a Windows user, Outlook has a built in RSS reader functionality. It's not great, but it does mean you can easily consume feeds on say, a work computer where adding new software is prohibited. It's also private to you, so you are not storing your reading habits on someone else's server.

scarface74 6y ago
But now your RSS feeds are on your work computer. Isn’t that worse?

rakoo 6y ago

Like others I also used the RSS to email route, because my mail system has everything a RSS reader needs and then more. It's at this point I realized I spent more time skimming over title and summaries and marking all entries as read than actually reading content that felt interesting. RSS is the ultimate form of information flood and it didn't bring as much value as it should have so I stopped completely and relied on "organic" link aggregators, namely HN and Reddit, because content is triaged by a community whose appeal to news I share. Maybe I just wasn't subscribed to the correct feeds ? I saw a post a long time ago where RSS is not for feeds with multiple articles in a day or in a week, it's for those very low-volume little websites where authors publish one post per month but you still want to keep track of them. Maybe I should get into that again

mshaler 6y ago

I would love to access Twitter as a RSS-style feed because I love the "mark all as read" amnesty feature...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]