4 ms·

The death of Google Reader might actually be a good thing, in the long run. Google giving away their product for free effectively prevented a working market -

The death of Google Reader might actually be a good thing, in the long run. Google giving away their product for free effectively prevented a working market - nobody could make money selling a feed-aggregator. With Google out of the way, there will hopefully be money sloshing around, and users who now realise how much they want this kind of service (and are prepared to pay for it).

gz5 14y ago
It is foregone conclusion that G+ will add the subscriptions in some manner? Agree Reader exit still creates a nice niche for others to fill since even if G+ is the goal not all folks will go G+ if there are more focused alternatives.
julien 14y ago
Exactly! It is also very hard for small companies to convince people that their product is good enough to compete with one of Google's!
sabret00the 14y ago
But how much were these services really offering? It is one thing to attempt to charge for a superior service, but for the most basic of services? That's a whole different story. IMHO, feed reading should be integrated into the browser as a tab, not in the hands of commercial interests. But that's an aside.
- julien 14y ago
  Browsers have commercial interest =) There is room for both.
- tmgrhm 14y ago
  >IMHO, feed reading should be integrated into the browser as a tab, not in the hands of commercial interests. This is a really interesting idea. Has there been any talk in Chrome development about building a browser-side RSS reader? Google would still get all the information they get from Reader now but they'd be making the 'feature' exclusive to their browser. This coming not long after Apple removed their feed managing ability in the web browser, meaning they could get a load of Chrome converts on OS X just from that. It'd be really interesting to see what happened if browser-side RSS became "the thing" again. Although, as julien pointed out, doing it browser-side doesn't necessarily mean your RSS isn't in the hands of a commercial interest.
  - greyfade 14y ago
    It was tried, IIRC, early in Firefox's development. It ended up being scrapped for some reason, and it didn't really work all that well. Opera has a feed reader, too, but I never really found it to be as usable as Thunderbird or Akregator (neither of which I really like.)
    - zeckalpha 14y ago
      I don't think it was completely scrapped. I know some people who use live bookmarks.
- mpyne 14y ago
  Interestingly, this already work in IE, at least as far back as IE7 (which is how I monitor RSS feeds at work).
- iki23 14y ago
  won't scale for hundreds of feeds; I use thousands
- jimmaswell 14y ago
  How good is Firefox's rss handling?
  - jimworm 14y ago
    Check out Brief for Firefox, I've not felt a need to consume RSS any other way. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/
    - jimmaswell 14y ago
      I've been using that for a while now, it's pretty good. Seems to take up a lot of memory and cpu after a while, though.

gz5 14y ago

It is foregone conclusion that G+ will add the subscriptions in some manner? Agree Reader exit still creates a nice niche for others to fill since even if G+ is the goal not all folks will go G+ if there are more focused alternatives.

julien 14y ago

Exactly! It is also very hard for small companies to convince people that their product is good enough to compete with one of Google's!

sabret00the 14y ago

But how much were these services really offering? It is one thing to attempt to charge for a superior service, but for the most basic of services? That's a whole different story. IMHO, feed reading should be integrated into the browser as a tab, not in the hands of commercial interests. But that's an aside.

julien 14y ago
Browsers have commercial interest =) There is room for both.
tmgrhm 14y ago
>IMHO, feed reading should be integrated into the browser as a tab, not in the hands of commercial interests. This is a really interesting idea. Has there been any talk in Chrome development about building a browser-side RSS reader? Google would still get all the information they get from Reader now but they'd be making the 'feature' exclusive to their browser. This coming not long after Apple removed their feed managing ability in the web browser, meaning they could get a load of Chrome converts on OS X just from that. It'd be really interesting to see what happened if browser-side RSS became "the thing" again. Although, as julien pointed out, doing it browser-side doesn't necessarily mean your RSS isn't in the hands of a commercial interest.
- greyfade 14y ago
  It was tried, IIRC, early in Firefox's development. It ended up being scrapped for some reason, and it didn't really work all that well. Opera has a feed reader, too, but I never really found it to be as usable as Thunderbird or Akregator (neither of which I really like.)
  - zeckalpha 14y ago
    I don't think it was completely scrapped. I know some people who use live bookmarks.
mpyne 14y ago
Interestingly, this already work in IE, at least as far back as IE7 (which is how I monitor RSS feeds at work).
iki23 14y ago
won't scale for hundreds of feeds; I use thousands
jimmaswell 14y ago
How good is Firefox's rss handling?
- jimworm 14y ago
  Check out Brief for Firefox, I've not felt a need to consume RSS any other way. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/
  - jimmaswell 14y ago
    I've been using that for a while now, it's pretty good. Seems to take up a lot of memory and cpu after a while, though.