

Feedly is Now Hijacking Shared Links And Cutting Out Original Publishers - mwilcox
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/12/07/feedlys-sharing-options-now-direct-shared-articles-servers-cuts-original-publishers

======
conesus
On [http://newsblur.com](http://newsblur.com) users have two options for
sharing links. They can either use a Send To feature, which uses the story's
original URL, and hook it up to any number of third party services like
Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, Tumblr, Instapaper, etc.

Or they can share to their blurblog, which is a shared stories blog. When
users share links to their blurblog, the tweeted link goes to the user's
blurblog, like so: [http://samuel.newsblur.com/story/family-
feuds/4e65d5](http://samuel.newsblur.com/story/family-feuds/4e65d5). It
includes their commentary and offers a place to reply to the user.
Alternatively, you can turn on a setting that takes you directly to the story.

I think Feedly's intention here isn't what's best for users, since you don't
have the option to comment on the story and have people reply to you, which
would necessitate its own page. This is more of the Send To feature described
above, and I think it's part of their drive to find additional revenue where
there isn't much.

RSS is not a growing market and I think only independent developers with small
costs will end up alive in a few years. Feedly will either have to evolve and
find a bigger market, or pare down the cost of hosting the majority of Google
Reader expats. And that doesn't square well with taking investment.

~~~
quesera
> RSS is not a growing market and I think only independent developers with
> small costs will end up alive in a few years. Feedly will either have to
> evolve and find a bigger market, or pare down the cost of hosting the
> majority of Google Reader expats. And that doesn't square well with taking
> investment.

Exactly right.

The rush to fill the Reader gap with a broad and compelling offering (high
quality mobile and web apps) was a problem outside the scope of small
developers, but the long term prospects for the market are below sustaining
levels for larger, funded businesses.

I do hope Feedly can figure out a way, without making me dislike them en
route. If not, I hope they offer a data export.

~~~
mwilcox
They should be tackling monetisation for publishers, microtransactions,
spotify-style royalties, etc. There's a lot of room for innovation in the RSS
market, but being arrogant and squeezing as much as you can out of free
content doesn't help anyone in the long run.

~~~
user_666
One problem with revenue sharing is that Feedly has too many nonpaying users
and not enough revenue. They probably cannot afford to share.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Go pay-only if freemium costs are too high.

------
tropicalmug
Newsblur[0] is a great open-source[1] feed-reader that not only beats Feedly
in ease of use, but also has a bunch of great additional features over the
standard RSS reader, with apps for both iOS and Android to complement the
killer web-app. I highly recommend it.

[0] [https://newsblur.com/](https://newsblur.com/)

[1]
[https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur](https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur)

~~~
libria
I went with NewsBlur b/c I didn't like Feedly requiring my gmail address.

After 5 months I finally subscribed, because it seems to work well enough and
I want to see it survive. I'd easily have paid Google the same amount or more
for a Reader subscription, but hey with Reader gone, I'll have to migrate to
Google Plus right?

Wrong, Newsblur it is.

------
TrainedMonkey
Excerpt from comments on blog:

Hello,

(This is Edwin from feedly).

As I mentioned in the email I sent to Nate earlier this morning, the goal of
this feature is to 1) help content creators increase their readership in
feedly (when a user discovers your content and adds it to his feedly, they are
converting a one time visitor into a repeat engaged user) and 2) help user
consume content faster on mobile device.

We are early in the design and implementation of this feature. If you are a
publisher and want to work with us on improving this feature (we are working
on some interesting features around discovery, call to action, analytics),
please email me at edwin@feedly.com If you do not want to benefit form this
feature, you can also sent me an email and we will quickly opt you out.

~~~
ghshephard
As a subscriber, and avid fan of feedly, the only thing that I see missing
from the feedly reeder is the ability to consume content offline, particularly
when I'm mobile, so I'm happy you are working on helping users consume content
faster on mobile devices.

If I read the OP article correctly, the major issue is that feedly is now
changing the link for an article away from the publishers site, and sending it
back to feedly. That's not cool, and I'm hoping you revert back to the
original behavior of the sharing feature, and send back the publishers link,
not a "feedly link".

I love your product - use it first thing when I wake up, over breakfast,
dinner, and just before I go to sleep. Will probably pay you any reasonable
subscription fee you ask for. I realize you have to experiment, try new
things, or stagnate - this was probably an experiment that went awry. Yes, it
will drive more customers to feedly, and, in the short term, show you really
good uptake - but, in the long term, it will just attract bad karma from
publishers - Your entire value proposition comes from the repackaging of other
people's content, that they've allowed you to distribute free of charge, so,
at the very least, you can hand out the original link.

------
DannyDover
This is a reoccurring trend with Feedly (taking advantage of content creators
while making money off of their content)

Unlike most RSS readers, Feedly refuses to share how many readers a content
creator has via their user-agent (the standard method for doing this). When I
asked them about this, they simply said to wait for analytics in 2014.
[https://twitter.com/feedly/status/408797947053101058](https://twitter.com/feedly/status/408797947053101058)

Are you going to make me pay for that too Feedly?

I really like their product but can't stand their policies. Why piss off the
very same people who are feeding your product?

~~~
feedly
If you do a search for your feed you will see the number of readers.

Right now the API is limited to developers building user facing apps. Offering
a long term API to other kinds of developers is not a commitment we are ready
to make.

The analytics we mentioned in that tweet will be free.

~~~
rcsorensen
You have yet to open up an API to all your users, with some hidden approval
process cloaked behind a google doc form.

One of the reasons I signed up for Feedly coming out of GR was the promise of
an API available, a promise that still hasn't been fulfilled.

~~~
stephen_mcd
Have a look at kouio, the app itself uses the public rest API, so it's been
available since day one:

[https://kouio.com/api-docs/](https://kouio.com/api-docs/)

------
greenyoda
Isn't copying someone else's blog content to your own site copyright
infringement? Couldn't the author of the content send Feedly a DMCA takedown
notice?

~~~
ghshephard
Depends on what content we are talking about - RSS content is viewed within
the reader, so it's fine for a RSS reader to copy content and provide it to
the user. The issue here isn't copying content, it's that Feedly is changing
the URL from the publishers site to their own site - which is distinctly not
cool.

Note - I love feedly, and, with the exception of HN, NYT, xkcd and twitter,
it's where I consume all my content from the web. This was just a misstep, and
I'm sure they'll do the right thing.

------
aaronbrethorst
I've been using [http://www.feedbin.me](http://www.feedbin.me) for months now,
and have been generally very happy with it. Not the least of all reasons why
is that it has a very easy to understand business model: pay $3/month.

~~~
bradleyland
Remember folks, if you're not paying for it, you're the product, not the
customer.

~~~
FBT
And if you _are_ paying for it, there are two products.

------
AznHisoka
This is something I noticed while developing BuzzSumo (a real-time searching
for trending content). The top most shared links for a topic were from feedly,
with the original article after that. We ended up just blacklisting feedly, so
that the original article would appear.

------
dewitt
_" Any link shared after about 10am links to Feedly. I don’t know of any other
service that pulls this kind of stunt."_

Twitter wraps every link in a redirect.

~~~
mattdeboard
A redirect that still lands at the original page, though. Huge difference.

~~~
dewitt
I agree. That is a big difference. Thank you for adding that.

------
quesera
"Social" is eating the world. From the inside. Like a peptic ulcer.

I noticed this behaviour in the Feedly iOS app yesterday and wondered if it
was new. Evaded it by sending the link to Safari and copying the URL from
there.

I like Feedly. I empathize with what I imagine to be their internal
discussions about how to add value that they can extract for themselves. I
hope they can succeed in a way that doesn't ruin their product.

------
stephen_mcd
Bummed out Feedly users: if you’re looking for a no-nonsense slick RSS reader
please have a look at [https://kouio.com](https://kouio.com) – I think you’ll
be pleasantly surprised.

~~~
gorbachev
Does it have mobile readers and multi-device sync?

If not, then I'll continue using Feedly (and pressure them to change the link
hijacking policy).

~~~
stephen_mcd
Essentially yes - the web interface is mobile first, we wrote about it when we
released it:

[https://kouio.com/blog/kouio-your-mobile-rss-
reader](https://kouio.com/blog/kouio-your-mobile-rss-reader)

------
mattdeboard
Wow, wonder why the mods nuked this one. Seems relevant to the site.

------
dec0dedab0de
If they only did it for their users it would just be a sort of SaaS browser.
However simply republishing entire feeds like this makes it feel more like a
blatant copyright violation.

------
vmlinuz
I don't know if that site has now been opted-out of whatever Feedly is doing,
or something else - but the example link given goes straight to the-digital-
reader.com for me... Without being able to see what's going on, I'd have to
guess that Feedly is _wrapping_ the content, putting their own header and
subscribe button on the top and using an iframe to pull in the original
content - in which case they're _not_ hosting it on their website, as alleged.

~~~
mwilcox
I clicked it probably only 10 minutes ago and it showed the screenshot listed.
They seem to have just disabled it.

------
fpesce
A quick Google search tells a lot about the hate-relationship that the-
digital-reader.com has for Feedly:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Athe-digital-
reader.co...](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Athe-digital-
reader.com+feedly)

Worst part is actually reading all the comments here and there that turns to
be ads for this-other-best-rss-feed-reader.

------
MaggieL
I simply refused to use their sharing function on Android. It's not a new
behavior.

