7 ms·

Baby steps toward replacing Google Reader

277 points by mh_ 14y ago

devongovett 14y ago
I'm working on an opensource implementation of the API here if anyone is interested in helping out :) https://github.com/devongovett/reader https://github.com/devongovett/reader
- Sujan 14y ago
  The most important thing right now is probably making sure that there is a documentation of the old API we all agree on. The one you are using [1] seems like a good start. [1] http://undoc.in http://undoc.in
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  Did I miss something in their API, or was there absolutely no way to tell whether you had renamed a feed or not?
  - reidrac 14y ago
    FYI: http://undoc.in/subscription.html#edit http://undoc.in/subscription.html#edit
- numo16 14y ago
  I might pitch in and help on this, I know I'll be looking for a replacement to Reader, might as well help build an api implementation
doe88 14y ago
That's a good idea but I nevertheless think big clients (client reader + integrated access to server api) will win anyway because if you have to pay a client and then pay a subscription to a server to have access to an implementation of this API I don't think it will be very appealing. All the current model of 'small' clients was based on the fact that the access to Google's (non official) api was free. That part won't be replaced.
- jxdxbx 14y ago
  It would be nice if one of the self-hosted server-side apps (Fever, Tiny Tiny RSS) replicated the Reader API. It's not really worth it for me to bother with a self-hosted solution if I have to use a web client.
zdw 14y ago
Also, an implementation independent test suite would be nice... I'm sure there are plenty of corner cases where all the new implementations might fall down, or make different decisions than are expected.
- canthonytucci 14y ago
  Marco should write it.
  - khet 14y ago
    why?
tenpoundhammer 14y ago
All I know is that I will be on whatever reeder supports. So basically whoever makes that thing is going to be deciding my fate. I hope they choose wisely.
- r00fus 14y ago
  Bingo. This is what's up for grabs - who wants to be the underlying infrastructure for all these great apps like Reeder or RiverOfNews Note: most folks are opting for Twitter/FB + Flipboard-style apps, so most of the market will be the privacy oriented elite.
  - ajslater 14y ago
    Feedly's first out of the gate already here.
- rluhar 14y ago
  The current version of Reeder supports Fever. It took me about ten minutes to setup Fever (you need a MySQL instance, but thats about it). I use Bluehost for my hosting and setting up Fever was pretty painless. It does cost $30, but it is worth it for me.
davidpayne11 14y ago
Please, as an advice to general HN posters, please avoid posting marco.org links here on HN, because his sole intention is to sell his readers out more than focusing on writing. That's a fairly grande accusation, but it's justified. Do you know why is he writing about Google Reader now? Go to your HN homepage right now, as of writing this comment, the Google reader announcement has about 1700 upvotes. Ouch, that's a lot of views for someone to let go of. Hence, if someone writes something that compliments this announcement, common sense tells me that they would get more page views. There's nothing wrong in having ads on your blog/website, people do it all the time. What's wrong is trying to create an impression to your readers that your sole intention is to write quality content, while you care just about pageviews. Please, realize that marco.org is no different from Techcrunch! Marco isn't innocent, if you've been following him closely. Also, I think it would help if you take a look at this page where he just blatantly sells us, his readers like some piece of junk commodity. http://www.marco.org/sponsorship http://www.marco.org/sponsorship
- ChrisClark 14y ago
  Ok, so he responds to HN posts all the time. Everything he says here is a good idea. And I want all the reader developers to consider it. So I'm going to upvote it. Just because he says what we want to hear doesn't make the content wrong. I want to hear it and I want others to hear it too. If what he is recommending isn't perfect, the comments here can expand and fix it.
  - timmins 14y ago
    I've been under the impression that HN doesn't sit well with Marco. I've read it multiple times on multiple occasions. Quickest example I could recall: https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/176437401156194305 https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/176437401156194305
    - corresation 14y ago
      either factually wrong or completely irrelevant Coming from Marco Arment that is rich.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Personally, this could be a killer use of App.net. Blend social with RSS and get something like Pandora for newsfeeds. Not sure how hard it would be to pull an RSS feed and then push that into an App.net stream, blended with some meta data on content and a machine learning algorithm which enhanced your feeds by finding similar feeds that has a high correlative match to what you read most. Just sayin'
- duaneb 14y ago
  > Blend social with RSS and get something like Pandora for newsfeeds. You might like Prismatic: http://getprismatic.com/news/home http://getprismatic.com/news/home
  - pekk 14y ago
    Nope, the demanded permissions are way out of control: * View basic information about your account * Manage your data in Google Reader * View your email address * Manage your contacts * Perform these operations when I'm not using the application
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  What's the maximum payload size on App.net? Last time I went looking all I learned was that it's larger than Twitter's.
  - m_eiman 14y ago
    256 chars of message, but things can be attached to the message in addition to that. See http://developers.app.net/docs/resources/post/ http://developers.app.net/docs/resources/post/ and http://developers.app.net/docs/meta/annotations/ http://developers.app.net/docs/meta/annotations/
- mjfern 14y ago
  Disclaimer: I'm a cofounder at Intigi. With https://intigi.com https://intigi.com, we've done just this, intake content from both social (Twitter) and RSS feeds. With Twitter, we index the full text of any linked article and make the text fully searchable. The full text provides much more data for us to search and also is a great way of deduplicating content (i.e., Tweets linking to the same article).
randallu 14y ago
OAuth rather than POST. I don't want a bunch of client apps storing passwords in plain text.
Spittie 14y ago
I just wrote something similar on an another site: "For now, Google Reader was the standard. Now that it isn't it anymore, I hope that it will get developed a nice API to sync feeds between decides, and that the major reader will implement it. This way every application would be able to sync with every backend, without any problem. And if a backend close, you could easily switch to a different one by changing one line in the configuration." I seriously hope that this will be true. What has got me stuck on Google Reader for now (beside the "it just works" interface) is that every major application synced with it. I don't really want this to happen again, only with a different company.
WilliamTJ 14y ago
Here a link to Mr Avocado? He the former engineer who created Google reader project in the first place.This is Just a suggestion from a user. Maybe getting him on board would help a lot in your project? http://www.massless.org/?area=Projects http://www.massless.org/?area=Projects
mstroeck 14y ago
I'm the project lead for Vienna, the open source RSS client for the Mac. We support Google Reader, and we want to support this: https://github.com/ViennaRSS/vienna-rss/issues/160 https://github.com/ViennaRSS/vienna-rss/issues/160 If you're a Cocoa developer, feel free to jump right in. If you're going to implement the server side, shoot me a note @mstroeck (app.net preferred).
- pauljonas 14y ago
  I tried Vienna today -- downloaded, installed, then tapped OK on the "Google Sync" option… …an hour later, the application still was "not responding", though the little red number circle on the dock icon continued to climb. About a half hour later with the application still in a "not responding" state, I force quit and then proceeded to delete it.
  - coldtea 14y ago
    Perhaps you're not a very technical person then. Or you have some bizarro ideas about testing new apps. If an app is "not responding" after one hour, and it's not doing physics simulation or renders a 3D movie for Pixar, then you kill it and try again. Damn, I wouldn't even let it stay stalled for 10 minutes. If you genuinely want to test the app (instead of only being interested in Google Sync), you'd also try how it does some other stuff, like adding some RSS feeds directly.
vijayboyapati 14y ago
Can someone explain to me why no one is doing a direct, pixel for pixel clone of Google Reader? I mean, the thing is popular enough that any startup would die for its traffic. Not to mention its users absolutely love it. As Paul Bucheit said, it's better to have a small number of users who love your product than a large number that like it. And well, Greader has a large number of users who love it. So why not do a blatant clone as a f* you to Google for nuking a product that its users are absolutely devoted to.
LiquidEyes 14y ago
Volvo or Volkswagen?

277 points by mh_ 14y ago

I'm working on an opensource implementation of the API here if anyone is interested in helping out :) https://github.com/devongovett/reader https://github.com/devongovett/reader

Sujan 14y ago
The most important thing right now is probably making sure that there is a documentation of the old API we all agree on. The one you are using [1] seems like a good start. [1] http://undoc.in http://undoc.in
pavel_lishin 14y ago
Did I miss something in their API, or was there absolutely no way to tell whether you had renamed a feed or not?
- reidrac 14y ago
  FYI: http://undoc.in/subscription.html#edit http://undoc.in/subscription.html#edit
numo16 14y ago
I might pitch in and help on this, I know I'll be looking for a replacement to Reader, might as well help build an api implementation

doe88 14y ago

That's a good idea but I nevertheless think big clients (client reader + integrated access to server api) will win anyway because if you have to pay a client and then pay a subscription to a server to have access to an implementation of this API I don't think it will be very appealing. All the current model of 'small' clients was based on the fact that the access to Google's (non official) api was free. That part won't be replaced.

jxdxbx 14y ago
It would be nice if one of the self-hosted server-side apps (Fever, Tiny Tiny RSS) replicated the Reader API. It's not really worth it for me to bother with a self-hosted solution if I have to use a web client.

zdw 14y ago

Also, an implementation independent test suite would be nice... I'm sure there are plenty of corner cases where all the new implementations might fall down, or make different decisions than are expected.

canthonytucci 14y ago
Marco should write it.
- khet 14y ago
  why?

tenpoundhammer 14y ago

All I know is that I will be on whatever reeder supports. So basically whoever makes that thing is going to be deciding my fate. I hope they choose wisely.

r00fus 14y ago
Bingo. This is what's up for grabs - who wants to be the underlying infrastructure for all these great apps like Reeder or RiverOfNews Note: most folks are opting for Twitter/FB + Flipboard-style apps, so most of the market will be the privacy oriented elite.
- ajslater 14y ago
  Feedly's first out of the gate already here.
rluhar 14y ago
The current version of Reeder supports Fever. It took me about ten minutes to setup Fever (you need a MySQL instance, but thats about it). I use Bluehost for my hosting and setting up Fever was pretty painless. It does cost $30, but it is worth it for me.

davidpayne11 14y ago

Please, as an advice to general HN posters, please avoid posting marco.org links here on HN, because his sole intention is to sell his readers out more than focusing on writing. That's a fairly grande accusation, but it's justified. Do you know why is he writing about Google Reader now? Go to your HN homepage right now, as of writing this comment, the Google reader announcement has about 1700 upvotes. Ouch, that's a lot of views for someone to let go of. Hence, if someone writes something that compliments this announcement, common sense tells me that they would get more page views. There's nothing wrong in having ads on your blog/website, people do it all the time. What's wrong is trying to create an impression to your readers that your sole intention is to write quality content, while you care just about pageviews. Please, realize that marco.org is no different from Techcrunch! Marco isn't innocent, if you've been following him closely. Also, I think it would help if you take a look at this page where he just blatantly sells us, his readers like some piece of junk commodity. http://www.marco.org/sponsorship http://www.marco.org/sponsorship

ChrisClark 14y ago
Ok, so he responds to HN posts all the time. Everything he says here is a good idea. And I want all the reader developers to consider it. So I'm going to upvote it. Just because he says what we want to hear doesn't make the content wrong. I want to hear it and I want others to hear it too. If what he is recommending isn't perfect, the comments here can expand and fix it.
- timmins 14y ago
  I've been under the impression that HN doesn't sit well with Marco. I've read it multiple times on multiple occasions. Quickest example I could recall: https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/176437401156194305 https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/176437401156194305
  - corresation 14y ago
    either factually wrong or completely irrelevant Coming from Marco Arment that is rich.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Personally, this could be a killer use of App.net. Blend social with RSS and get something like Pandora for newsfeeds. Not sure how hard it would be to pull an RSS feed and then push that into an App.net stream, blended with some meta data on content and a machine learning algorithm which enhanced your feeds by finding similar feeds that has a high correlative match to what you read most. Just sayin'

duaneb 14y ago
> Blend social with RSS and get something like Pandora for newsfeeds. You might like Prismatic: http://getprismatic.com/news/home http://getprismatic.com/news/home
- pekk 14y ago
  Nope, the demanded permissions are way out of control: * View basic information about your account * Manage your data in Google Reader * View your email address * Manage your contacts * Perform these operations when I'm not using the application
fusiongyro 14y ago
What's the maximum payload size on App.net? Last time I went looking all I learned was that it's larger than Twitter's.
- m_eiman 14y ago
  256 chars of message, but things can be attached to the message in addition to that. See http://developers.app.net/docs/resources/post/ http://developers.app.net/docs/resources/post/ and http://developers.app.net/docs/meta/annotations/ http://developers.app.net/docs/meta/annotations/
mjfern 14y ago
Disclaimer: I'm a cofounder at Intigi. With https://intigi.com https://intigi.com, we've done just this, intake content from both social (Twitter) and RSS feeds. With Twitter, we index the full text of any linked article and make the text fully searchable. The full text provides much more data for us to search and also is a great way of deduplicating content (i.e., Tweets linking to the same article).

randallu 14y ago

OAuth rather than POST. I don't want a bunch of client apps storing passwords in plain text.

Spittie 14y ago

I just wrote something similar on an another site: "For now, Google Reader was the standard. Now that it isn't it anymore, I hope that it will get developed a nice API to sync feeds between decides, and that the major reader will implement it. This way every application would be able to sync with every backend, without any problem. And if a backend close, you could easily switch to a different one by changing one line in the configuration." I seriously hope that this will be true. What has got me stuck on Google Reader for now (beside the "it just works" interface) is that every major application synced with it. I don't really want this to happen again, only with a different company.

WilliamTJ 14y ago

Here a link to Mr Avocado? He the former engineer who created Google reader project in the first place.This is Just a suggestion from a user. Maybe getting him on board would help a lot in your project? http://www.massless.org/?area=Projects http://www.massless.org/?area=Projects

mstroeck 14y ago

I'm the project lead for Vienna, the open source RSS client for the Mac. We support Google Reader, and we want to support this: https://github.com/ViennaRSS/vienna-rss/issues/160 https://github.com/ViennaRSS/vienna-rss/issues/160 If you're a Cocoa developer, feel free to jump right in. If you're going to implement the server side, shoot me a note @mstroeck (app.net preferred).

pauljonas 14y ago
I tried Vienna today -- downloaded, installed, then tapped OK on the "Google Sync" option… …an hour later, the application still was "not responding", though the little red number circle on the dock icon continued to climb. About a half hour later with the application still in a "not responding" state, I force quit and then proceeded to delete it.
- coldtea 14y ago
  Perhaps you're not a very technical person then. Or you have some bizarro ideas about testing new apps. If an app is "not responding" after one hour, and it's not doing physics simulation or renders a 3D movie for Pixar, then you kill it and try again. Damn, I wouldn't even let it stay stalled for 10 minutes. If you genuinely want to test the app (instead of only being interested in Google Sync), you'd also try how it does some other stuff, like adding some RSS feeds directly.

vijayboyapati 14y ago

Can someone explain to me why no one is doing a direct, pixel for pixel clone of Google Reader? I mean, the thing is popular enough that any startup would die for its traffic. Not to mention its users absolutely love it. As Paul Bucheit said, it's better to have a small number of users who love your product than a large number that like it. And well, Greader has a large number of users who love it. So why not do a blatant clone as a f* you to Google for nuking a product that its users are absolutely devoted to.

LiquidEyes 14y ago

Volvo or Volkswagen?