6 ms·
It was in the summer of 2008, three years after Google launched Reader and had at least 5 million users, when I decided to write my own RSS reader. There were j
by conesus 6y ago
It was in the summer of 2008, three years after Google launched Reader and had at least 5 million users, when I decided to write my own RSS reader. There were just so many features I wanted that I knew Google would never build and for some strange reason I thought I could make money with my own opinionated take on a news reader.
Then at 4pm on March 13th, 2013, I got an email from Nilay at The Verge asking if I'd heard the news. That was a difficult month as I scaled (and wrote about scaling[0]), since by then Google Reader had 10 million active users. After Reader was sunset, about 5 million found their homes on the news readers that remained.
It's strange to think that naively competing with one of the big platforms paid off, but there's plenty of companies that did well in the wake of a giant choosing to ignore the ecosystem near their feet.
[0]: https://blog.newsblur.com/post/45632737156/three-months-to-scale-newsblur https://blog.newsblur.com/post/45632737156/three-months-to-s...
- blakesterz 6y agoI've been with you since! Newsblur is still the way I keep up with the things I find important. I actually discovered HN on the suggested feeds thing on Newsblur!
- ecliptik 6y agoThank you for Newsblur, it's one of my essential apps and I use it for almost everything; RSS feeds, reddit, youtube, twitter, newsletters, even gemini:// via proxy. It's a solid product, and the amount of work you've put into it shows and I plan to remain a customer for years to come.
- conesus 6y agoThen you'll be excited to see the upcoming redesign that I have yet to publicly launch (but want a few users on to test the waters early): https://beta.newsblur.com https://beta.newsblur.com
- ecliptik 6y agoLooks awesome, replaced my pinned tab with the beta version and will put it through it's paces. Thank you!
- pfd1986 6y agoIs there (plan for) a "read it later" feature? Sometimes I find a good link that I just want to be able to find and read at a later time. Thanks!
- conesus 6y agoThe saved story feature does a great job of that, since it also allows you to filter saved stories by feed and by tag, so saved stories are easy to find again.
- arantius 6y agoEverything (in the UI) just seems smaller and harder to read? With slightly more space between everything?
- hopesthoughts 6y agoAre you going to make the new design accessible so I can use it?
- conesus 6y agoAccessible how? It should be no more or less accessible than the main website. Feel free to reach me at samuel@newsblur.com
- hopesthoughts 6y agoI use a screen reader, and have had trouble using it in the past.
- JustARandomGuy 6y agoThanks for NewsBlur! I’ve been a paying customer since Reader got cancelled. I recommend NewsBlur to everybody: super uptime, great API, integrated with IFTTT, and supported by a lot of good mobile reader apps
- p4bl0 6y agoSame here!
- baumy 6y agoAt some point a year or two ago I googled around for "best rss reader app" or "best rss news app" looking for android specifically, and I don't remember seeing newsblur talked about anywhere. All of the ones I did try (aggregator, feedly, inoreader, etc) were unsatisfactory in various ways. I just downloaded and tried newsblur and it's pretty much perfect for my taste and needs. Going to try it for a few days then will likely become a paid user. This comment is coming from a place of relative ignorance, but have you considered investing in a bit of marketing, or a bit more if you have? For how good this app is among rss readers, it doesn't seem as discoverable as it deserves to be.
- conesus 6y agoMarketing is hard for me because I've hired a few folks to do targeted ads and it ended up being a big cost sink. Beyond that, I try to blog regularly and use big screenshots for new features, which helps a bit with SEO and discoverability. But getting NB onto lists? I'm not sure what that requires.
- slgeorge 6y agoI'm a subscriber so I have self-interest in you being successful and I've paid money to help support that. If there's one thing I would encourage/plead you to do, it's to hire one person who will do "advocacy marketing". You said "Marketing is hard" and there's no doubt. But you'll know the right person, because they'll be __more__ excited about talking about your product and how it can be used, and who can use it ... than even you are. Most importantly, they'll just do that one thing. RSS/Newsletters is an area of content that geeks love - so finding someone who wants to __regularly__ talk about that in content, video, <forums that count> would be massive. I'll stop there ;-)
- londons_explore 6y agoSet up a referral scheme. Anyone who refers a new paid user to NewsBlur gets a month free. Anyone who refers 10 people gets a tshirt. Anyone who refers 100 paid users gets actual cash... Make sure you run the messaging past a bunch of existing users to make sure you pique their interest but don't alienate them in the process.
- tomjen3 6y agoThank you for making newsblur. I used it for a long time after google reader, until I moved all my RSS subscriptions to Thunderbird. If anybody else wants a good cloud RSS service, take a look at newsblur.
- myelin 6y agoAnother happy NewsBlur customer here; I was part of the mass exodus from Google Reader, and NewsBlur has been an excellent replacement.
- user_error 6y ago> "My hosting provider, Reliable Hosting Services, was neither reliable, able to host my increasing demands, or a service I could count on." I cried when I read this. Beautiful.
- beefman 6y agoHappy customer since 2013. Never stop!
- egypturnash 6y agooh man I love the last item on the table comparing Free Newsblur to Paid Newsblur. Free version: My dog goes hungry! Paid version: Tiny photo of happy dog and a note about what a nice meal you'll cook for her.
- greenyoda 6y agoHere's yet another thank-you! I've been a paying NewsBlur user since Google Reader died, and enjoy using it every day. Despite everyone saying that "RSS is dead", it's very rare for me to find a blog I'm interested in that doesn't have an RSS feed.
- joshschreuder 6y agoI’ve been a paying (happily) user since Reader died, and I am a big fan of Newsblur. It’s one of my “multiple visits a day” sites / app. You’re also super responsive on Twitter / support channels too whenever I’ve needed, thanks for putting together a great service and being such a strong face of it.
- ropable 6y agoSigned up for Newsblur after Google Reader announced the shutdown on a HN recommendation, did the import, haven't looked back since. Bravo.
- ehsankia 6y agoThis is in no way meant to be disrespectful about your work, but I would argue that if one great engineer can whip up something that provides as much if not more than Google Reader, then maybe Reader wasn't really a good use of Google's time after all and it was right to let smaller developers handle RSS readers. It just isn't a Google-scale problem that requires the kind of resources Google has to offer, it makes no sense for them to maintain something than small independent developers like you can handle just fine.
- tvararu 6y agoReading this post inside Newsblur. :)