Black Raven Dragoons

[Tirian]

I have 8 days off right now due to the Russian holiday calendar (New Year's - Orthodox Christmas). One of my goals has been to finally set up a new reader to consolidate the number of sites I ready.

Anyone have one they like?

I'm leading toward Feedly. I know and like the folks behind The Old Reader, but I want something with a native iOS app if possible.

[Zancarius]

I don't personally use RSS so I haven't any recommendations, but if you could scrounge up one of the discussions on the death of Google Reader on HN or Slashdot, there might be some useful links, mostly because Reader had a fairly large audience even when it was sent to the chopping block. It makes a good benchmark.

One of the alternatives I did find in such a thread (albeit an alternative with a paid subscription option of $24/yr) that looks vaguely interesting is a startup called NewsBlur which seems to have native apps available (assuming they're not simply a wrapper around a browser). It appears as though some of the suggestions you can find (including this one from LifeHacker) also mention Feedly and NewsBlur. So, it seems like it's a problem domain that might be under-served, likely because RSS use is fairly niche and difficult to monetize.

[Tirian]

Thanks a lot for your thoughts! I'm trying out Feedly now -- I don't love the iOS app, but it works. I keep hearing good things about NewsBlur, but like you said, the cost is offputting.

[Zancarius]

It appears as though Feedly might not be quite as above board as one might otherwise hope. The long and short of it is that they muck with the metadata Twitter apps (and possibly other social media apps) use to determine how to open links, then inject their own shortener into the mess effectively siphoning views away from the original content creator. It's not illegal but it certainly borders on unethical. On the other hand, I suppose it could be argued that it brings value to the consumer by putting everything in one place (akin to an aggregator). Given that most content creators (particularly small ones) rely on visits to their sites for ad revenue or conversion to paid products, it could impact their bottom line...

Here's the discussion on Hacker News, along with suggestions and links to other readers.

[Tirian]

Thanks a lot for posting this. I noticed signs of this (I think) when I posted some things to Facebook. I've now opted out and will see what happens with the next few items I pass on.

Right now, this is the only reader I've found that has all the options I want, but it's good to know that I should keep my eye out. For what it's worth, most of the sites I use are intelligently enough using Feedly to coax a click through on anything interesting anyway, which I think helps.

[Zancarius]

I'm glad there's an opt out at least.

Gee, if it were possible to monetize these things, we should put together a feed reader! I just don't know Objective-C for iDevices.

[Tirian]

Have you heard of The Old Reader? That's what they did -- by accident. They had no plan to make real cash, then the Google Reader announcement came.

You're right though, I think there's still room for a player that can do a few simple things that others have ignored.

[Zancarius]

It might be interesting to combine an RSS reader (or reader-like service) with a bookmarks/aggregator service. I use the crap out of Google bookmarks, but the UI is terrible. I admit I seldom use it to actually find things I've bookmarked since it's so awful to use.

There's pinboard.in I think, but it's basically Google bookmarks on steroids. Hmm.

[Tirian]

Yeah, good point. I'm also frustrated that I can't seem to have multiple, different browser bookmark settings under one Google account. I mean, at home I need a lot of translation pages, and at work my pr0n... wait....

[Zancarius]

Joking aside, that's actually a good idea. There was a project or addon for Firefox that attempted to do something of the sort I think. Though, I can't think of the name so it probably isn't particularly common.

I've actually taken to breaking up my browsing sessions across multiple browsers as well: One Firefox profile for generic browsing, links, Youtube, etc.; one profile for development documentation (further broken down to individual sessions organized by project or language using Session Manager); and one profile for development/debugging. Chromium is relegated to static tabs like the goon site and Hacker News. I then filter out the clutter of tabs in Chromium to bookmarks, but oftentimes that doesn't work.

Bookmarklets are handy, but I'm not sure "tagging" bookmarks is a viable solution in the long term. I've created so many tags in the hopes I might remember what went where that I've effectively given up all hope of finding anything I need. So, I just do a search for it.

[Tirian]

I have a similar problem between my Feedly bookmarks, Instapaper saves, "need to look at" folders on my home and work Chrome profiles, two mobile Chrome profiles and iOS Safari profile...

Why the hell do I even bother using the internet.