6 ms·

Can they bring Google Reader back now? I'm still bitter about it being killed to focus on Google+. Now that Google+ is dead in the water it makes the decision

by tdicola 11y ago

Can they bring Google Reader back now? I'm still bitter about it being killed to focus on Google+. Now that Google+ is dead in the water it makes the decision to kill Reader even worse.

jonursenbach 11y ago
Why? Reader was in maintenance mode for years, and companies that appeared when it disappeared have gone above and beyond what they offered. See: Feedly.com
- tdicola 11y ago
  Feedly has improved a lot but it still doesn't display feeds as densely as Reader did and I feel a lot slower getting through a lot of feeds. Searching for articles was fantastic on Google Reader, but with Feedly it never works. Maybe I need to pay to enable search? Ultimately search 'just worked' on Google Reader and never works for me on Feedly. If Reader was in maintenance mode then that's even worse to have killed it. It didn't need new features or major work and had a devoted and loving following. It just needed someone to make sure the lights stayed on.
  - sosborn 11y ago
    > it didn't need new features or major work That was my favorite part about it. It just worked.
  - berberous 11y ago
    Do you use Feedly? Are you in "Title Only" mode? It's pretty dense -- I might be misremembering, but I'm not sure how Google could have been denser. I was very bitter about Google Reader ending at first, but honestly, Feedly is fantastic and I'm now glad it closed. That said, I don't use the search feature, so perhaps that's not as good as Google's was.
  - tw04 11y ago
    Feedly may have improved it's layout since I last tried it (admittedly it's been over a year). But, of all the companies to come up with what I found to be the best replacement: reader.aol.com I know... I know. But it's served my basic needs for quite a while now.
  - pablo-massa 11y ago
    My problem with Feedly is UI/UX. Web is.. fine, but the app have really weird interactions and is clunky. I use Digg Reader. Web is awesome, love the simplicity, the app need some love but is way more better than Feddly. The thing I don't like about Digg Reader is the Digg part, I only want my lovely curated RSS feeds. Also try NewsBlur, Feedreader, The Old Reader and Newsvibe but Digg Reader was the best for my needs.
    - dpark 11y ago
      Feedly's Android app is a mess. I can fiddle with the settings to get it into a usable state, but the default behavior just makes no sense (and it's not good after the tweaking). The default, so far as I can tell, is to dump every feed together to provide an "all-up" view. That could be okay, but then they layer a terrible card UI on top of it that's completely unintuitive. The top cards are big and generally pixelated (because it zooms in for some inexplicable reason), and it switches to a slightly different view after the first card, again, for no clear reason. I can swipe through the cards and reach the end, where it shows a giant checkmark and the words "Done" and "N reviewed". Reaching that page doesn't actually mean I'm done, though. Nothing is actually marked read until I go back to the top and tap on each them (or use the "mark all read" option). I'm either completely missing the interaction paradigm they intend or they haven't put much thought into what the interaction paradigm actually is. Maybe the devs all use iPhones and the Android client is an afterthought? Meanwhile their website is generally okay, but I am completely at a loss for how to mark an item as unread once I've opened it. I should probably look for a different feed aggregator.
      - _up 11y ago
        Have you enabled "Auto Mark as Read" in Settings? You can change the "ALL" View in the Sidemenu. I am actualy working on a Feedly alternative. That's sorts articles by popularity. And can import Popularty counts from Sites that offer it. I hope the 70k Hacker News Readers on Feedly would like that. My Idea is to make search free and instead offer "Sort by Time" and "Compact View" as a Pro feature. Would anyone here be interested?
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  I use newsblur and it can get really slow, especially in safari.
  - conesus 11y ago
    Hey, I run NewsBlur and I'd love to know why it's slowing down in safari for you. I use Safari myself as my primary browser and NewsBlur's always instantaneous. Are you running any extensions, specifically adblock? Email me: samuel@newsblur.com.
    - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
      Replied! (and in retrospect that comment was a lot more negative than I really feel about newsblur, I'm absolutely not looking to switch to something else)
- arturhoo 11y ago
  Give AOL Reader a try. Feels very familiar to G Reader and the search functionality is competent enough.
scrollaway 11y ago
I recommend Bazqux.com. It is similar to Google Reader in many ways, the UI is very familiar as well, and it lets you log in with a Google account if you like. It is paid-for, although very cheap (and first month free). I ended up buying a life-subscription. I really miss Google Reader as well.
extc 11y ago
What's obnoxious is that everyone watching from the outside knew all these forced G+ moves were annoying and not welcome. One of the worst outcomes, imo, is the addition of G+ comments on YouTube videos - you end up with comments like "Check this out" in the video's actual comments section. Those comments are completely useless and destroy any sort of conversation, if it's even possible to have one in YT comments.
- amlgsmsn 11y ago
  >What's obnoxious is that everyone watching from the outside knew all these forced G+ moves were annoying and not welcome What makes you think it was any different from the inside?
  - extc 11y ago
    Optimism, I suppose.
- justuk 11y ago
  That's one of the reasons why I stopped using G+. I couldn't figure out how to make a public link on G+ to a YouTube video - without the comment appearing on YouTube. It got to a point where I would look on Vimeo etc to see if they had the video to link to.
- hobarrera 11y ago
  Alientube (firefox plugin) might be of interest to you. It shows reddit comments for youtuve videos, which tend to be of slightly better quality (not always though).
Sgt_Apone 11y ago
Digg Reader is an excellent replacement. It's very similar in execution, but you do need to sign up using a Google, Facebook, or Twitter account.
ars 11y ago
> Now that Google+ is dead in the water Why do you say that? In my experience every single teen I know is on Google+ and not facebook, while the older parents are on facebook. Some of the teens also have facebook, but none don't have Google+. This is because of two reasons: 1: Gmail means they all have Google+ accounts almost automatically, and 2: The privacy controls are much better in Google+, and they like that.
- hobarrera 11y ago
  > In my experience every single teen I know is on Google+ and not facebook, while the older parents are on facebook. The only few people I know on Google+ are hardcore google fans who work in tech. Every teen (~15-18) I know is on facebook. And their younger siblings. Plugin, Facebook Messenger seems to be quite dominant across those age groups too.
pablo-massa 11y ago
I think that they are going to focus on the product Google Newsstand* following the idea of hosted content (Apple News, Facebook instant articles). *I think they are going to change the name and redesign the product to push forward the adoption.

by tdicola 11y ago

Can they bring Google Reader back now? I'm still bitter about it being killed to focus on Google+. Now that Google+ is dead in the water it makes the decision to kill Reader even worse.

jonursenbach 11y ago

Why? Reader was in maintenance mode for years, and companies that appeared when it disappeared have gone above and beyond what they offered. See: Feedly.com

tdicola 11y ago
Feedly has improved a lot but it still doesn't display feeds as densely as Reader did and I feel a lot slower getting through a lot of feeds. Searching for articles was fantastic on Google Reader, but with Feedly it never works. Maybe I need to pay to enable search? Ultimately search 'just worked' on Google Reader and never works for me on Feedly. If Reader was in maintenance mode then that's even worse to have killed it. It didn't need new features or major work and had a devoted and loving following. It just needed someone to make sure the lights stayed on.
- sosborn 11y ago
  > it didn't need new features or major work That was my favorite part about it. It just worked.
- berberous 11y ago
  Do you use Feedly? Are you in "Title Only" mode? It's pretty dense -- I might be misremembering, but I'm not sure how Google could have been denser. I was very bitter about Google Reader ending at first, but honestly, Feedly is fantastic and I'm now glad it closed. That said, I don't use the search feature, so perhaps that's not as good as Google's was.
- tw04 11y ago
  Feedly may have improved it's layout since I last tried it (admittedly it's been over a year). But, of all the companies to come up with what I found to be the best replacement: reader.aol.com I know... I know. But it's served my basic needs for quite a while now.
- pablo-massa 11y ago
  My problem with Feedly is UI/UX. Web is.. fine, but the app have really weird interactions and is clunky. I use Digg Reader. Web is awesome, love the simplicity, the app need some love but is way more better than Feddly. The thing I don't like about Digg Reader is the Digg part, I only want my lovely curated RSS feeds. Also try NewsBlur, Feedreader, The Old Reader and Newsvibe but Digg Reader was the best for my needs.
  - dpark 11y ago
    Feedly's Android app is a mess. I can fiddle with the settings to get it into a usable state, but the default behavior just makes no sense (and it's not good after the tweaking). The default, so far as I can tell, is to dump every feed together to provide an "all-up" view. That could be okay, but then they layer a terrible card UI on top of it that's completely unintuitive. The top cards are big and generally pixelated (because it zooms in for some inexplicable reason), and it switches to a slightly different view after the first card, again, for no clear reason. I can swipe through the cards and reach the end, where it shows a giant checkmark and the words "Done" and "N reviewed". Reaching that page doesn't actually mean I'm done, though. Nothing is actually marked read until I go back to the top and tap on each them (or use the "mark all read" option). I'm either completely missing the interaction paradigm they intend or they haven't put much thought into what the interaction paradigm actually is. Maybe the devs all use iPhones and the Android client is an afterthought? Meanwhile their website is generally okay, but I am completely at a loss for how to mark an item as unread once I've opened it. I should probably look for a different feed aggregator.
    - _up 11y ago
      Have you enabled "Auto Mark as Read" in Settings? You can change the "ALL" View in the Sidemenu. I am actualy working on a Feedly alternative. That's sorts articles by popularity. And can import Popularty counts from Sites that offer it. I hope the 70k Hacker News Readers on Feedly would like that. My Idea is to make search free and instead offer "Sort by Time" and "Compact View" as a Pro feature. Would anyone here be interested?
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
I use newsblur and it can get really slow, especially in safari.
- conesus 11y ago
  Hey, I run NewsBlur and I'd love to know why it's slowing down in safari for you. I use Safari myself as my primary browser and NewsBlur's always instantaneous. Are you running any extensions, specifically adblock? Email me: samuel@newsblur.com.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    Replied! (and in retrospect that comment was a lot more negative than I really feel about newsblur, I'm absolutely not looking to switch to something else)
arturhoo 11y ago
Give AOL Reader a try. Feels very familiar to G Reader and the search functionality is competent enough.

scrollaway 11y ago

I recommend Bazqux.com. It is similar to Google Reader in many ways, the UI is very familiar as well, and it lets you log in with a Google account if you like. It is paid-for, although very cheap (and first month free). I ended up buying a life-subscription. I really miss Google Reader as well.

extc 11y ago

What's obnoxious is that everyone watching from the outside knew all these forced G+ moves were annoying and not welcome. One of the worst outcomes, imo, is the addition of G+ comments on YouTube videos - you end up with comments like "Check this out" in the video's actual comments section. Those comments are completely useless and destroy any sort of conversation, if it's even possible to have one in YT comments.

amlgsmsn 11y ago
>What's obnoxious is that everyone watching from the outside knew all these forced G+ moves were annoying and not welcome What makes you think it was any different from the inside?
- extc 11y ago
  Optimism, I suppose.
justuk 11y ago
That's one of the reasons why I stopped using G+. I couldn't figure out how to make a public link on G+ to a YouTube video - without the comment appearing on YouTube. It got to a point where I would look on Vimeo etc to see if they had the video to link to.
hobarrera 11y ago
Alientube (firefox plugin) might be of interest to you. It shows reddit comments for youtuve videos, which tend to be of slightly better quality (not always though).

Sgt_Apone 11y ago

Digg Reader is an excellent replacement. It's very similar in execution, but you do need to sign up using a Google, Facebook, or Twitter account.

ars 11y ago

> Now that Google+ is dead in the water Why do you say that? In my experience every single teen I know is on Google+ and not facebook, while the older parents are on facebook. Some of the teens also have facebook, but none don't have Google+. This is because of two reasons: 1: Gmail means they all have Google+ accounts almost automatically, and 2: The privacy controls are much better in Google+, and they like that.

hobarrera 11y ago
> In my experience every single teen I know is on Google+ and not facebook, while the older parents are on facebook. The only few people I know on Google+ are hardcore google fans who work in tech. Every teen (~15-18) I know is on facebook. And their younger siblings. Plugin, Facebook Messenger seems to be quite dominant across those age groups too.

pablo-massa 11y ago

I think that they are going to focus on the product Google Newsstand* following the idea of hosted content (Apple News, Facebook instant articles). *I think they are going to change the name and redesign the product to push forward the adoption.