

With Google Reader changing is there a competitor looming? - voidfiles
http://alexkessinger.net/2011/10/20/google-reader-changing-competitor-looming/

======
joebadmo
I wish a real competitor would have emerged earlier, honestly, if only to get
the Google Reader team to do something interesting. The truth is that Reader
has been the de facto standard, but ugly, clunky, and with a somewhat random
and randomly expanding feature set.

I've tried everything else in the vain hope that it'd be better, but nothing
ever is.

To me, this seems like the worst time to try to compete. Google's entering a
user-focused phase, with changes that are largely better for most people. Are
the obstinate change-hating refugees really the user base you want?

 _how do you rope up all the hardcore google reader users into one place, and
get them to share with one another._

This doesn't make any sense to me. Even hardcore google reader users have, I
imagine, very different interests. Why would you assume they automatically
make up some sort of community?

G+ seems like a much better platform to make communities on top of, since you
can easily direct your content.

Also, it seems like Google+ is becoming a platform. If Reader becomes an RSS
wielding inteface for that, I imagine they'll release public APIs on top of
which it would be easy to make an alternative UI.

~~~
voidfiles
Right, Google Reader won't ever be for the masses. That is exactly why another
company can swoop in. Google is a company for the 90%, but 10% is still big
enough to make a successful company.

~~~
dannyr
If Google is a company for the 90%, then it's for the masses right?

~~~
voidfiles
Yea.

------
adyus
There's always been a competitor that, IMHO, blows Reader out of the water,
yet it doesn't have a behemoth behind it to support and push it to the masses.

It's called Newsblur, and I'm getting closer to paying for the premium version
each time I use it.

~~~
makmanalp
Holy shit, I think the front page signinless-demo is using the css visited
hack to figure out popular sites that I've visited, and showing them to me in
the demo. Devious, but brilliant.

~~~
cbr
I see the same front page in an incognito window.

I think you just have similar favorite sites to the developers.

~~~
adyus
Heh, it seems that people who still use RSS or have an interest in it also
share the same reading lists.

Newsblur should just convert to a blog aggregator. Then it could change its
name, say, to Hacker News? :)

------
pixelcloud
The amount of RSS readers that support google reader is crazy. I use Feedly on
the laptop and Reeder on iOS, they both support sharing with a couple dozen
different services, have amazing interfaces, and feedly has great discovery
tools for finding new blogs. I don't see the point of switching since I
haven't logged into reader.google.com in ages (the last time was to export a
couple folders and send it to some friends).

~~~
voidfiles
Yea, I am with you. But, like the point I made in the article. What is feedly
going to do with the share button? Or, reeder for that matter.

I really think there is a space for someone to do a Google Reader like API,
and publicly support it. Google Reader has yet to release an officially
support API.

If they were to start as a drop in replacement they could be huge.

