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Thrilled to be launching NewsBlur's social features. NewsBlur has become something much bigger than what I ever thought possible when I wrote the first line of

by conesus 14y ago

Thrilled to be launching NewsBlur's social features. NewsBlur has become something much bigger than what I ever thought possible when I wrote the first line of code in June 2009 in the New York City underground. We're now two people and YC-backed. We have so many new big features coming down the pipeline. An iPad app, an updated iPhone app, an Android app, all first-class experiences. This is the launch of Blurblogs. This is my blurblog: http://samuel.newsblur.com http://samuel.newsblur.com.

revorad 14y ago
Congrats on the funding and the new launch! The article mentions that the product is freemium, but I don't see the upgrade options I remember seeing when I tried Newsblur a couple times earlier. Have you removed the paid version?
- conesus 14y ago
  We just don't shove it in your face. We're absolutely still freemium and we show you the upsell when you first create an account. After that, once you hit 64 sites, the limit at which freemium kicks in. Otherwise, you can go to "Choose your 64 sites" under the Manage menu. We will make it clearer on the dashboard later today. Thanks for the very useful feedback!
  - revorad 14y ago
    I never felt like you were shoving it in my face. But, good to know you've still got the paid version. Small bug report - When I connected my Google Reader account, the progress wheel in the popup window kept spinning indefinitely. If it didn't look so funky, I would have got bored sooner. Anyway, it imported my feeds fine when I reloaded the site, but I thought I should let you know about the glitch.
  - inexplicable 14y ago
    I love the fact the you choose not to 'shove it in your face' wrt the paid options. My personal belief is that if your users love what you've created, they will adopt it and then be happy to pay for it. In comparison, giving them multiple paid options at sign-up is kind off the wrong idea as your user has not had the chance to experience and understand your product. Newsblur looks good; am going to give it a good try.
  - unohoo 14y ago
    I think you should make this clear somewhere on the site - that only the initial 64 feeds are free and then you need to upgrade. If its already present in the FAQ section or such, its not very obvious / easily accessible. This could avoid scenarios where the user might be surprised later on. That's just what I think. I'm pretty sure you'll get mixed feedback on shoving/not shoving the pricing in the user's face.
    - webwanderings 14y ago
      Your free is also not as timely updating as say Google Reader updates. Hence I never kept up with this service because time is money and when you don't get RSS updates on time (especially when you have a context to compare against) you can't really be a happy camper as a free user.
skymt 14y ago
Blurblogs look great! A couple polish points: * You should set a <title>. * The site header ("Mission Mission") for the Sutro Tower GIF post is just low-contrast enough to be difficult to read on bad displays. Maybe you should up the contrast threshold on the algorithm you use to select colors. * Consider collapsing comment sections by default. If Blurblogs take off, it's going to be irritating to scroll past comments for popular posts.
- conesus 14y ago
  Yeah, the titles on blurblogs broke in the transition. Will be fixed momentarily. And if blurblogs take off, we will be collapsing comments from "public", but no need to limit growth now when we need it most. But we are planning to limit the height of the story content if it's more than a page-height long.
conesus 14y ago
Also, I can't emphasize this enough, but you should follow NewsBlur's development on GitHub: http://github.com/samuelclay http://github.com/samuelclay. NewsBlur is open-source for a few good reasons: 1. NewsBlur makes money off hosting 2. NewsBlur greatest benefit is its network 3. Giving back to the open-source community is in my blood, considering my work with DocumentCloud. I invite you to use the code for your own benefit. It's Python and JavaScript, with PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Redis as backends.
mgunes 14y ago
Will you keep making the source code available in a free software license in the upcoming iterations? Is the YC investment likely to cause any change in this regard? I'm happy that you're able to work much more freely on NewsBlur, but as an early premium user, the investment did get me mildly worried about the future of my beloved app that a handful of dedicated people used, and was very well cared for by one guy I trusted my data and workflow with. My uneducated and selfish hunch for NB's ideal future is one where you keep charging a much larger amount of users (and possibly charge more), avoid any further investment of the VC kind, and continue keeping the latest production source available under a free license.
- conesus 14y ago
  The intention is to keep NewsBlur open-source. We'll see how that goes. The other intention is to never have to raise more money, but we'll see how that goes. I have big plans for what I want to build, but to do it, I need seed funding. After that, my hope is to never raise again and have premiums pay for the service. Today, that is not possible. But we're at a tipping point that I think we can juice.
  - mgunes 14y ago
    > The intention is to keep NewsBlur open-source. We'll see how that goes. Do you mean with the investors? Do you perceive or foresee pressure from YC against keeping it open source, or do you believe there will be a shift of incentives (such as the practicality of hosting and sharing no longer being your focus of value for paid service) or technicalities that might prevent you from keeping the code open in the future NewsBlur? As the continuous availability of the source code is critical in my choosing to use and pay for NewsBlur (and I assume this is the case for a few other users on HN), I'd appreciate any details you can share in this regard. > I have big plans for what I want to build, but to do it, I need seed funding. After that, my hope is to never raise again and have premiums pay for the service. Happy to know that's your intention.

by conesus 14y ago

revorad 14y ago

Congrats on the funding and the new launch! The article mentions that the product is freemium, but I don't see the upgrade options I remember seeing when I tried Newsblur a couple times earlier. Have you removed the paid version?

conesus 14y ago
We just don't shove it in your face. We're absolutely still freemium and we show you the upsell when you first create an account. After that, once you hit 64 sites, the limit at which freemium kicks in. Otherwise, you can go to "Choose your 64 sites" under the Manage menu. We will make it clearer on the dashboard later today. Thanks for the very useful feedback!
- revorad 14y ago
  I never felt like you were shoving it in my face. But, good to know you've still got the paid version. Small bug report - When I connected my Google Reader account, the progress wheel in the popup window kept spinning indefinitely. If it didn't look so funky, I would have got bored sooner. Anyway, it imported my feeds fine when I reloaded the site, but I thought I should let you know about the glitch.
- inexplicable 14y ago
  I love the fact the you choose not to 'shove it in your face' wrt the paid options. My personal belief is that if your users love what you've created, they will adopt it and then be happy to pay for it. In comparison, giving them multiple paid options at sign-up is kind off the wrong idea as your user has not had the chance to experience and understand your product. Newsblur looks good; am going to give it a good try.
- unohoo 14y ago
  I think you should make this clear somewhere on the site - that only the initial 64 feeds are free and then you need to upgrade. If its already present in the FAQ section or such, its not very obvious / easily accessible. This could avoid scenarios where the user might be surprised later on. That's just what I think. I'm pretty sure you'll get mixed feedback on shoving/not shoving the pricing in the user's face.
  - webwanderings 14y ago
    Your free is also not as timely updating as say Google Reader updates. Hence I never kept up with this service because time is money and when you don't get RSS updates on time (especially when you have a context to compare against) you can't really be a happy camper as a free user.

skymt 14y ago

Blurblogs look great! A couple polish points: * You should set a <title>. * The site header ("Mission Mission") for the Sutro Tower GIF post is just low-contrast enough to be difficult to read on bad displays. Maybe you should up the contrast threshold on the algorithm you use to select colors. * Consider collapsing comment sections by default. If Blurblogs take off, it's going to be irritating to scroll past comments for popular posts.

conesus 14y ago
Yeah, the titles on blurblogs broke in the transition. Will be fixed momentarily. And if blurblogs take off, we will be collapsing comments from "public", but no need to limit growth now when we need it most. But we are planning to limit the height of the story content if it's more than a page-height long.

conesus 14y ago

Also, I can't emphasize this enough, but you should follow NewsBlur's development on GitHub: http://github.com/samuelclay http://github.com/samuelclay. NewsBlur is open-source for a few good reasons: 1. NewsBlur makes money off hosting 2. NewsBlur greatest benefit is its network 3. Giving back to the open-source community is in my blood, considering my work with DocumentCloud. I invite you to use the code for your own benefit. It's Python and JavaScript, with PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Redis as backends.

mgunes 14y ago

Will you keep making the source code available in a free software license in the upcoming iterations? Is the YC investment likely to cause any change in this regard? I'm happy that you're able to work much more freely on NewsBlur, but as an early premium user, the investment did get me mildly worried about the future of my beloved app that a handful of dedicated people used, and was very well cared for by one guy I trusted my data and workflow with. My uneducated and selfish hunch for NB's ideal future is one where you keep charging a much larger amount of users (and possibly charge more), avoid any further investment of the VC kind, and continue keeping the latest production source available under a free license.

conesus 14y ago
The intention is to keep NewsBlur open-source. We'll see how that goes. The other intention is to never have to raise more money, but we'll see how that goes. I have big plans for what I want to build, but to do it, I need seed funding. After that, my hope is to never raise again and have premiums pay for the service. Today, that is not possible. But we're at a tipping point that I think we can juice.
- mgunes 14y ago
  > The intention is to keep NewsBlur open-source. We'll see how that goes. Do you mean with the investors? Do you perceive or foresee pressure from YC against keeping it open source, or do you believe there will be a shift of incentives (such as the practicality of hosting and sharing no longer being your focus of value for paid service) or technicalities that might prevent you from keeping the code open in the future NewsBlur? As the continuous availability of the source code is critical in my choosing to use and pay for NewsBlur (and I assume this is the case for a few other users on HN), I'd appreciate any details you can share in this regard. > I have big plans for what I want to build, but to do it, I need seed funding. After that, my hope is to never raise again and have premiums pay for the service. Happy to know that's your intention.