Gmail is super valuable for Google. Even if they don't make much money on the ads that show in Gmail, they can show you higher CPM ads on every other website you visit because they gather keyword saturation data from your emails, scoring things like subject keywords higher than message content. It's Google's strongest account requiring service I think next to YouTube. It could be argued that Reader also could have been / was used to gather user data but it's not the powerful kind of data that you get out of thousands of emails. The kind that tells you what a person is actually going to buy, and therefor exactly what ad to show them.
I also think the petition on change.org is Timish and pretty much agree with everything @Lincoln said.
I'm sad to see Reader go, but eh it was free. I copied all my rss feed urls in to a txt file and I'm just slowly awaiting the next best thing.
It's one of those things that once you have it setup, life just gets easier. If you never had it, you never knew or maybe you really couldn't have benefited from it but I kind of doubt that. Anyone who checks more than one website regularly could have.
For me it was a single webpage I could load twice per day and get caught up with all the APIs I work with because I was subscribed to the developer blogs rss feeds. It later evolved in to hosting an Icrontic rss feed, a feed I generated for work, and feeds for third party software I need to keep tabs on like ffmpeg.
Let's put it this way: I WILL NOT CHANGE MY HOTMAIL ADDRESS
I've tried using them, but I've noticed "keeping up to date" quickly loses its novelty for me. I've heard others use them for Web Comics and the like, but I prefer not checking them for weeks or months and then having 3-10 to look through and chuckle at.
I can see it being useful for APIs if I were using external facing things more often. I've just never felt super compelled to know everything that's happening right away every day. Hell, I hit the "mark all as read" button on Icrontic more than I click on individual thread links.
I can see it being useful for APIs if I were using external facing things more often. I've just never felt super compelled to know everything that's happening right away every day. Hell, I hit the "mark all as read" button on Icrontic more than I click on individual thread links.
Yar, for me it was really more about future downtime notifications.
I have an extremely curated set of news outlets, and I read a solid 85% of their content. Since I started using reader in 2008, I've read over 76,000 articles. Reader is an essential component of my daily life. I will miss reader dearly, and it's the most efficient way to get information.
I'm gonna miss google reader. I agree with @thrax, its such an easy way to get all my articles in one place. Now I've gotta find a replacement for that and eventually Google homepage too.
Feedly seems to have added some new features just for the occasion, including 'oldest first', which I need. So, I'm giving it a shot.
Where are you seeing that? I can't find an oldest first option anywhere in the Chrome or Android apps. I'd definitely give Feedly a try if they had that, especially since half my feeds are webcomics.
In only a few minutes, I've been able to get Feedly customised to work just the way Reader was working for me. Perhaps I got some special version, since I specifically clicked on the 'I'm coming from Reader' button?
Feedly seems to have added some new features just for the occasion, including 'oldest first', which I need. So, I'm giving it a shot.
Where are you seeing that? I can't find an oldest first option anywhere in the Chrome or Android apps. I'd definitely give Feedly a try if they had that, especially since half my feeds are webcomics.
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BlackHawkBible music connoisseurThere's no place like 127.0.0.1Icrontian
Maybe I should get into this whole RSS reader thing. Seems I'm missing out on a lot.
I'm not a Reader or RSS user, but I have been weaning myself away from Google products because of stuff like this in combination with my discomfort on how they track everything I (we) do. They seem to have booted me out of my gmail account a couple months back - admittedly I wasn't using it a lot, but I WAS using it, and now can no longer log in, the address that I have had since gmail launched I can no longer access.
I think the next step for me might be to get rid of the Google search bar and move on to a different search provider.
The bigger the money gets, the lower quality the service seems to be. Not universally true, I recognize.
So, I've been using Feedly for an entire day now, and here is what I've noticed is different about the way it works versus Reader:
- It shows you already-read items if everything is read in a category, rather than just a 'no unread items' page (doesn't bother me, but it's notable.) - Clicking the title of an expanded article in 'title' view mode collapses the article, but also expands the previous article, rather than going to a fully de-expanded list (This one may take some getting used to.) - There seems to be a width limit to embeded images, as some extra wide web-comics I read get their edges cut off. Zooming out does not help. (No issue for me, as I usually go to the site to read anyway (to support the artist) but might bother some). - Allows user to set which category they wish to arrive on, or bookmark particular categories to go directly to. (A nice feature. I'm already using it)
Of course, there are also visual stylistic differences, but they don't bother me.
That's all I've noticed so far. There may be more that I don't see yet because of the way I use the service.
I'm actually looking into setting up a self-hosted web-based RSS reader. Right now it looks like tiny tiny RSS, selfoss and NewsBlur are the candidates I want to try out as they all look decent and have Android apps. If anyone wants to get in on that, get in touch with me, when I get something set up which I'm happy with I'd be glad to let other Icrontidicks use it.
Edit: And just like that, two of the three have been tossed out. I have a Tiny Tiny RSS install up and running though and quite like it. Anyone that wants an account can have one, just let me know. I have self-registration turned off so I'll need to create you an account.
I'm trying The Old Reader also, but it's giving me some trouble. It keeps forgetting some of what I've already read and reinserting it into my feed, and to make it worse, it doesn't even sort it properly when it does so. Anyone else having this issue? Are they just overburdened?
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Give away for free with plenty of alternatives, many pre-dating Reader, all of which were in use before Reader gave a better alternative.
No, it doesn't sound an awful lot like what Microsoft did at all.
I also think the petition on change.org is Timish and pretty much agree with everything @Lincoln said.
I'm sad to see Reader go, but eh it was free. I copied all my rss feed urls in to a txt file and I'm just slowly awaiting the next best thing.
Netscape was a brilliant competitor. They just weren't more brilliant than free.
And Digg is throwing it's hat in the ring for replacement candidates.
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For me it was a single webpage I could load twice per day and get caught up with all the APIs I work with because I was subscribed to the developer blogs rss feeds. It later evolved in to hosting an Icrontic rss feed, a feed I generated for work, and feeds for third party software I need to keep tabs on like ffmpeg.
Let's put it this way:
I WILL NOT CHANGE MY HOTMAIL ADDRESS
I can see it being useful for APIs if I were using external facing things more often. I've just never felt super compelled to know everything that's happening right away every day. Hell, I hit the "mark all as read" button on Icrontic more than I click on individual thread links.
I think the next step for me might be to get rid of the Google search bar and move on to a different search provider.
The bigger the money gets, the lower quality the service seems to be. Not universally true, I recognize.
edit: Ah, I see, it only shows up if you put it in "Titles Only" view.
- It shows you already-read items if everything is read in a category, rather than just a 'no unread items' page (doesn't bother me, but it's notable.)
- Clicking the title of an expanded article in 'title' view mode collapses the article, but also expands the previous article, rather than going to a fully de-expanded list (This one may take some getting used to.)
- There seems to be a width limit to embeded images, as some extra wide web-comics I read get their edges cut off. Zooming out does not help. (No issue for me, as I usually go to the site to read anyway (to support the artist) but might bother some).
- Allows user to set which category they wish to arrive on, or bookmark particular categories to go directly to. (A nice feature. I'm already using it)
Of course, there are also visual stylistic differences, but they don't bother me.
That's all I've noticed so far. There may be more that I don't see yet because of the way I use the service.
Something I hadn't thought about.
Edit: And just like that, two of the three have been tossed out. I have a Tiny Tiny RSS install up and running though and quite like it. Anyone that wants an account can have one, just let me know. I have self-registration turned off so I'll need to create you an account.