6 ms·

Google Alerts Drops RSS Delivery Option

54 points by duncan_bayne 13y ago

aaronpk 13y ago
It's also funny to see how many websites embedded RSS search feeds and are now broken: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Google+Alerts+no+longer+supports+RSS+delivery%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Google+Alerts+no+longer+s...
- duncan_bayne 13y ago
  Yeah, I received zero warning about RSS support being dropped from Alerts ... I wonder if anyone received notification, or if it was just turned off?
  - dangoldin 13y ago
    I asked about this when I heard about the shutdown but no one responded. I guess now we know the answer.
    - eitland 13y ago
      I have contacted them on a number of occasions and while problems often get fixed, including some particularly annoying ones I never get a reply. Not from mails, not from forms. I strongly dislike this silence but I guess it is effective in reducing feedback.
duncan_bayne 13y ago
The arrogance is quite astounding. The text of the error message: "Google Reader is no longer available. To continue receiving Google Alerts, change to email delivery." Apparently the only reason for Google to support RSS was that they had their own RSS aggregator. Classy move.
- hosay123 13y ago
  If you think that's funny, check out http://googledevelopers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/pubsubhubbub-feeds-and-feed-api.html http://googledevelopers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/pubsubhubbub-... : we encourage providers of feed systems and related tools to connect their automated systems for feed acquisition to our PuSH hub (or other hubs in the PuSH ecosystem). Google directly hosts many feed producers (e.g. Blogger is one of the largest feed sources on the web) and is a feed consumer too (e.g. many webmasters use feeds to tell our Search system about changes on their sites). Our PuSH hub offers easy access to hundreds of millions of Google-hosted feeds, as well as hundreds of millions of other feeds available via the PuSH ecosystem and through active polling. You'd think they could have picked a better subject to get people to trust them over, or a better day to post about it
tannerc 13y ago
I want to believe otherwise, but is this just a case of being one in the crowd, despite the fact the crowd may be remarkably small? Google clearly wants to move users to G+, and we've been hearing for years now how "RSS is dead," but perhaps they're onto something? How could they make such a glaring move if it was going to cost them so much reputation? I, for one, can't do the email option for alerts as well. I've basically stopped using any/all alerts at this point and Google is starting to look like the enemy.
- duncan_bayne 13y ago
  I'm afraid I have to agree - with their war on RSS and their support for EME (basically, DRM) in HTML5, Google is now acting against my interests on two significant issues.
teeboy 13y ago
Google, I'll strangle myself to death with titanium barb wires before I use Google+. Not a single person I know ever updated anything on Google+ and looks more like a well-designed wasteland right now. With these kind of high-handed tactics, I'll make sure to badmouth it as much as possible. Geez!
- embolism 13y ago
  Google+ is Google. You'll use it in the end.
  - bluthru 13y ago
    >You'll use it in the end. Apt wording.
  - shmerl 13y ago
    Better to use Diaspora. G+ and centralized social networks in general is a dead end, and not something "used in the end".
    - embolism 13y ago
      Diaspora? Is that still going?
      - shmerl 13y ago
        Yes, and actively developed too. It could benefit from more developers of course. Latest Big Brother scandal caused a big influx of Diaspora users by the way, with various refugees from big centralized networks.
      - shmerl 13y ago
        https://pod.orkz.net/uploads/images/scaled_full_c6d736391b3b351e4ca0.png https://pod.orkz.net/uploads/images/scaled_full_c6d736391b3b...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
Narkov 13y ago
We switched to Mention.net a few months ago after Alerts stopped sending alerts. We used to get hundreds of hits per month and now it's about 1 per month. Mention.net returns everything and more.
- duncan_bayne 13y ago
  Thanks for the hint, I'll check them out.
- mutagen 13y ago
  I've been getting good results with my light use of mention.net, time to expand it.
nswanberg 13y ago
This service will turn emails into an RSS stream: http://www.mmmmail.com/ http://www.mmmmail.com/ Presumably there are others if this does not meet expectations.
- dustyreagan 13y ago
  I wonder if services like this will become more popular?
jmharvey 13y ago
Shutting down a service is understandable. Giving users several months' notice ahead of shutting down is nice. Telling users, "hey, fyi, this service will have stopped by the time you read this email" is a lousy way to do things, but it's the bare minimum. Shutting down a service without telling anyone that the service is shutting down (unless someone specifically asks about it) is the kind of thing a fly-by-night startup does right around the time they let their domain expire.
yanokwa 13y ago
http://talkwalker.com http://talkwalker.com bills itself as the best free and easy alternative to Google Alerts. Just started using it a few minutes ago and so far, so good.
martindale 13y ago
Wow. I think the amazing thing with this whole Google Reader fiasco is not the death of a single product, but rather the apparently systematic destruction of any remaining bastions of trust that the technologically inclined have in Google as a whole.
gwern 13y ago
Interesting coincidence - I was just in the middle of analyzing my Alerts since January 2007 looking in whether Alerts stopped yielding many hits. (So far: there is no overall decline except in May/June 2011 when the monthly average total hits abruptly dropped from 254 to 147 for no apparent reason.)
- gwern 13y ago
  And it's up at http://www.gwern.net/Google%20Alerts http://www.gwern.net/Google%20Alerts
egypturnash 13y ago
Google Alerts hasn't been sending me email for ages anyway. And yet every so often I'll go check on my alerts and there are new pages showing up for those searches.
unicornporn 13y ago
I would love sort of a timeline that documents how Google is slowly abandoning the once embraced "open standards". Federated XMPP for Google Talk, RSS in Google Reader for Google+ feeds etc etc.
jsilva 13y ago
Just curious how a service like google alerts can be built. Is it all about crawling ? Any light on this please ? Thanks

54 points by duncan_bayne 13y ago

It's also funny to see how many websites embedded RSS search feeds and are now broken: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Google+Alerts+no+longer+supports+RSS+delivery%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Google+Alerts+no+longer+s...

duncan_bayne 13y ago
Yeah, I received zero warning about RSS support being dropped from Alerts ... I wonder if anyone received notification, or if it was just turned off?
- dangoldin 13y ago
  I asked about this when I heard about the shutdown but no one responded. I guess now we know the answer.
  - eitland 13y ago
    I have contacted them on a number of occasions and while problems often get fixed, including some particularly annoying ones I never get a reply. Not from mails, not from forms. I strongly dislike this silence but I guess it is effective in reducing feedback.

duncan_bayne 13y ago

The arrogance is quite astounding. The text of the error message: "Google Reader is no longer available. To continue receiving Google Alerts, change to email delivery." Apparently the only reason for Google to support RSS was that they had their own RSS aggregator. Classy move.

hosay123 13y ago
If you think that's funny, check out http://googledevelopers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/pubsubhubbub-feeds-and-feed-api.html http://googledevelopers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/pubsubhubbub-... : we encourage providers of feed systems and related tools to connect their automated systems for feed acquisition to our PuSH hub (or other hubs in the PuSH ecosystem). Google directly hosts many feed producers (e.g. Blogger is one of the largest feed sources on the web) and is a feed consumer too (e.g. many webmasters use feeds to tell our Search system about changes on their sites). Our PuSH hub offers easy access to hundreds of millions of Google-hosted feeds, as well as hundreds of millions of other feeds available via the PuSH ecosystem and through active polling. You'd think they could have picked a better subject to get people to trust them over, or a better day to post about it

tannerc 13y ago

I want to believe otherwise, but is this just a case of being one in the crowd, despite the fact the crowd may be remarkably small? Google clearly wants to move users to G+, and we've been hearing for years now how "RSS is dead," but perhaps they're onto something? How could they make such a glaring move if it was going to cost them so much reputation? I, for one, can't do the email option for alerts as well. I've basically stopped using any/all alerts at this point and Google is starting to look like the enemy.

duncan_bayne 13y ago
I'm afraid I have to agree - with their war on RSS and their support for EME (basically, DRM) in HTML5, Google is now acting against my interests on two significant issues.

teeboy 13y ago

Google, I'll strangle myself to death with titanium barb wires before I use Google+. Not a single person I know ever updated anything on Google+ and looks more like a well-designed wasteland right now. With these kind of high-handed tactics, I'll make sure to badmouth it as much as possible. Geez!

embolism 13y ago
Google+ is Google. You'll use it in the end.
- bluthru 13y ago
  >You'll use it in the end. Apt wording.
- shmerl 13y ago
  Better to use Diaspora. G+ and centralized social networks in general is a dead end, and not something "used in the end".
  - embolism 13y ago
    Diaspora? Is that still going?
    - shmerl 13y ago
      Yes, and actively developed too. It could benefit from more developers of course. Latest Big Brother scandal caused a big influx of Diaspora users by the way, with various refugees from big centralized networks.
    - shmerl 13y ago
      https://pod.orkz.net/uploads/images/scaled_full_c6d736391b3b351e4ca0.png https://pod.orkz.net/uploads/images/scaled_full_c6d736391b3b...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

Narkov 13y ago

We switched to Mention.net a few months ago after Alerts stopped sending alerts. We used to get hundreds of hits per month and now it's about 1 per month. Mention.net returns everything and more.

duncan_bayne 13y ago
Thanks for the hint, I'll check them out.
mutagen 13y ago
I've been getting good results with my light use of mention.net, time to expand it.

nswanberg 13y ago

This service will turn emails into an RSS stream: http://www.mmmmail.com/ http://www.mmmmail.com/ Presumably there are others if this does not meet expectations.

dustyreagan 13y ago
I wonder if services like this will become more popular?

jmharvey 13y ago

Shutting down a service is understandable. Giving users several months' notice ahead of shutting down is nice. Telling users, "hey, fyi, this service will have stopped by the time you read this email" is a lousy way to do things, but it's the bare minimum. Shutting down a service without telling anyone that the service is shutting down (unless someone specifically asks about it) is the kind of thing a fly-by-night startup does right around the time they let their domain expire.

yanokwa 13y ago

http://talkwalker.com http://talkwalker.com bills itself as the best free and easy alternative to Google Alerts. Just started using it a few minutes ago and so far, so good.

martindale 13y ago

Wow. I think the amazing thing with this whole Google Reader fiasco is not the death of a single product, but rather the apparently systematic destruction of any remaining bastions of trust that the technologically inclined have in Google as a whole.

gwern 13y ago

Interesting coincidence - I was just in the middle of analyzing my Alerts since January 2007 looking in whether Alerts stopped yielding many hits. (So far: there is no overall decline except in May/June 2011 when the monthly average total hits abruptly dropped from 254 to 147 for no apparent reason.)

gwern 13y ago
And it's up at http://www.gwern.net/Google%20Alerts http://www.gwern.net/Google%20Alerts

egypturnash 13y ago

Google Alerts hasn't been sending me email for ages anyway. And yet every so often I'll go check on my alerts and there are new pages showing up for those searches.

unicornporn 13y ago

I would love sort of a timeline that documents how Google is slowly abandoning the once embraced "open standards". Federated XMPP for Google Talk, RSS in Google Reader for Google+ feeds etc etc.

jsilva 13y ago

Just curious how a service like google alerts can be built. Is it all about crawling ? Any light on this please ? Thanks