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I agree with you, but I think there is at least three related usability issues that made Google Reader less attractive to users. Namely, Google Reader required

I agree with you, but I think there is at least three related usability issues that made Google Reader less attractive to users. Namely, Google Reader required multiple tools to use efficiently. It also required users to have a basic understanding of RSS feeds. Finally, users had to cope with multiple information formats -- possibly hundreds. Here's just one example. Recently, a popular web comic changed its feed to contain thumbnails, links and ads -- requiring the user to click through in order to see the comic. Previously it just syndicated large, readable versions of the comic. That makes a lot of sense to me, but I have to wonder if a less experienced user might feel that something broke. This leads me to consider how it must feel for a "regular user" might feel or react while browsing between feeds and coping with information provided in so many different formats. Some feeds have pictures, some don't, some have complete articles, others just send out links and ads. Maybe I'm giving myself a false memory, but I can remember a feeling of cognitive friction while switching between feeds. I'm an information junkie and I'm technologically literate, so I dealt with it. I'm saying RSS would possibly fair better if the presentation format were standardized across sites. Maybe a simple style manual would unite enough content providers around a single format? The problem is actually worse with the popular content providers. They each seem to redefine the layout of an RSS feed, whereas the long tail of bloggers seem to coalesce around a very basic format.

mmahemoff 13y ago
Yes, you have a good point about consistency. That's one of several reasons the siloed equivalents of RSS (Twitter, Facebook, etc) "won". There's a consistent appearance, consistent metadata, and consistent interactions when it comes to liking and commenting; that kind of interaction was never standardised with RSS, despite some basic attempts. The best you could do was "star it on Google Reader" as a de facto standard. This is really orthogonal to the question of stream filtering, I maintain that's still an issue for RSS aggregators even though as you point out, there are other usability concerns too.

mmahemoff 13y ago

Yes, you have a good point about consistency. That's one of several reasons the siloed equivalents of RSS (Twitter, Facebook, etc) "won". There's a consistent appearance, consistent metadata, and consistent interactions when it comes to liking and commenting; that kind of interaction was never standardised with RSS, despite some basic attempts. The best you could do was "star it on Google Reader" as a de facto standard. This is really orthogonal to the question of stream filtering, I maintain that's still an issue for RSS aggregators even though as you point out, there are other usability concerns too.