
Why I Continue to Use Google Reader - rizzn
http://siliconangle.net/ver2/2009/10/29/why-i-continue-to-use-google-reader/
======
brown9-2
So basically Scoble doesn't like Google Reader because it isn't Twitter.

Personally I really want "social networking features" to stay the heck out of
my RSS reader, so I find his critique of that feature to be meaningless.

I'm a big Reader fan because it allows me to visit one site daily to read 50
occasionally updated blogs rather than visit 50 sites daily.

~~~
Periodic
But if all those people used twitter, you'd just have to check twitter hourly.
That's half as many checks as 50 sites daily.

------
gfodor
Does Scoble take into account that he is an edge case when he writes these
things, or not? (Honest question) I get the sense that whenever he writes or
complains about things he writes as though other people have the same problems
he does. This is at best naive, at worst dishonest if so.

~~~
brown9-2
I don't think this even matters to him since it seems like his greatest
interest is self-promotion, not the-average-person promotion.

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trevorbramble
I too, continue to use Google Reader, even though I've been lamenting its
deficiencies for more than two years.

I go into more detail in these posts
[<http://blog.trevorbramble.com/past/tags/googlereader>] where I try to glue
together Reader and Yahoo Pipes because Reader can't do even basic de-
duplication.

Despite my gripes about it, it's the best available. (Though I'm sure their
lack of improvements has a lot to do with that fact.)

~~~
cake
Yes yes, I'm an avid GR user too and I can't believe how slowly it evolves.

There's a lack of keywords feed filtering, feeds personalisation, items
expiration, some way to archive items for later and on and on...

My guess is that it's a very small team working on Google Reader and that they
have the wrong priorities : the social stuff, at least it is for me.

~~~
trevorbramble
I really should revive the Sluice project. Keyword filtering and setting aside
items are two of the most concrete intended features (alongside de-duplication
and same-link post stacking).

I have to admit I was interested in exploring the social side with my app as
well, so I'm glad Google made that mistake before I did. =^)

I just want a way to manage my river of news so that the can't-miss items
aren't missed, and the always-skip items are skipped, and above all I should
never be blithely offered the same exact link with the same exact metadata
more than once. Everything beyond that is negotiable.

------
jlees
Both Scoble's post and this rebuttal really boil down to one thing: different
people have different information consumption needs. What suits a power
blogger might not suit a social-consumption junkie.

Me? I used to be a blogger, reading RSS feeds for 2-4 hours a day (depending
how quickly I found interesting things to write about, and whether it was a
catch-up day). I honestly cannot imagine replicating that level of information
wired-ness with a simple Twitter list. However! I'm now far more casual in my
news consumption and Twitter lists are the perfect way for me to get a handful
of headlines from a handful of folks I trust.

I haven't even set up a Twitter list just yet - only a custom group in
TweetDeck. I manually visit four or five sites when I get the time, and get my
news that way. I even set up these sites in Google Reader, but it's not all
that efficient when you've only got a handful - I actually prefer to visit the
sites themselves, as I can see things like Lifehacker's recommended stories
more easily there. HN is the main place I go to for news outwith these
sources.

~~~
andyangelos
A main reason I plan to stay with Google is the ability to avoid visiting
sites themselves unless I want to participate. For some reason constantly
leaving and returning for information is not conducive for optimal
consumption. Different information consumption needs indeed.

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hyyypr
I personally stopped using Greader, not because it's a bas tool. It's a great
tool, but I stopped using it after realizing that google knew everything about
me, and that I was totally dependant on them. So now I use tt-rss, it's a
Greader clone (just better) that I host on my box. And I'm now Google-free :)

~~~
rizzn
I've always felt that Google was a benevolent overlord. That may change at
some point, and at that point I'll leave. Until then, I'm ok with being
dependent on them for almost everything.

~~~
Periodic
Until you try to leave and realize you're just too dependent on them. They
pull you in by inches, and then you realize you're miles from getting out.

I actually love most Google products, and I'm willing to deal with them for
now. I just wanted to provide the counter argument.

~~~
dschobel
You're always free to take your ball and go home though:
<http://www.dataliberation.org/>

~~~
jedc
I'm a huge fan of those guys. Even though I may never move my data out of
Google, at least I know I always have the option.

------
AndrewDucker
Is there a better online RSS reader than Google Reader?

~~~
kylec
I've been considering Fever (<http://feedafever.com/>) but it's tough to know
how well it will fit my needs without a demo, or at the very least a refund
policy.

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bcl
I like using Google Reader on the iPhone, it works better than any of the
dedicated apps I've tried and I don't have to reconfigure a new app with my
list of feeds.

I also don't think Twitter is ever going to replace RSS feeds. RSS covers in-
depth information from sources that I follow while twitter may occasionally
direct me to the same sources that isn't its primary use.

------
greyman
From Scoble post about GReader: >> 3\. It makes me feel guilty. I have 1,000
unread items. Twitter doesn’t tell me that.

Actually, I happen to agree with this point. The feed reader tracks what is
read and what is unread, and that can develop into a unhealthy habit to check
"what is new" and try to "clear the feeds" from unread items several times per
day.

Recently, my experience is that GReader (or any feed reader in general) tends
to consume quite a lot of time, even too much time. So like Scoble, I am also
looking for a better solution, which might include twitter (but twitter lists
isn't it for me).

~~~
kentosi
Is there an aging mechanism whereby the application can automatically ignore
posts that are n-days old, or with less than n-number of "like" hits?

Reason I ask is that I've just started using greeder. I tend to also get
ovsessive-compulsive about making sure everything's read and ticked, so i can
definitely see this as becomming a problem.

~~~
rizzn
Not that I'm aware of.

They're doing some funky stuff with that Auto-sort and Magic options, but I
don't think they do what you say.

------
teeja
What I need in a reader (I haven't found it) is the ability to say: this list
of subjects is what I want to read about. Period. I don't want to be the
filter. In an always-on reader, I want fine-grained tunable filters. Source
level isn't good enough: it has to be at the post level. Or better.

Sometimes I want to drink from the firehose. Then I run to an accumulator like
popurls.com. But life's too short to be scrolling for a half hour. As for
socializing: I do that at the club.

~~~
rizzn
You want Uncov's product Persai. Or whatever he ended up calling it.

It pretty much did that.

------
darjen
The iPhone version of Reader is very annoying because it refreshes the page
constantly when I come back to it. Thus I lose the place or folder where I was
at.

~~~
bshih
The iPhone (and Android) will unload Reader (i.e. the state of the DOM/page)
when memory gets tight (when the browser is running in the background, or when
visiting a resource-intensive page in another tab). As devices get more memory
(e.g., 3GS is better at this than first-gen) things will get better.

