
Feedly Found a New Way to Steal Page Views From Publishers - user_666
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2014/01/18/feedly-found-new-way-steal-page-views-publishers/
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michaelhoffman
Feedly to publishers:

> If you do not want to benefit form this feature, you can also sent me an
> email and we will quickly opt you out.

I think I will just quickly opt out as an end user by not using Feedly.

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TheTechBox
What do you use instead? or do you just use the sites themselves/Twitter etc?

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ims
After Google Reader shut down, I briefly switched to feedly but found the UI
basically unusable.

Newsblur is a great alternative. The web client and Android clients are both
nice to use -- no experience with iOS but I'm sure it's comparable -- and are
open source, written and maintained by Samuel Clay (conesus on HN).

I pay for the service but there's a free tier as well.

~~~
pronik
Just a small notice: NewsBlur is actively hostile to power users.

1\. There is a hard limit on a number of unreads per feed, which is pretty low
(100-500 depending on a feed):
[https://getsatisfaction.com/newsblur/topics/feed_cut_off_aft...](https://getsatisfaction.com/newsblur/topics/feed_cut_off_after_100_entries)

2\. When not hitting that first limitation, Items are marked as read after 30
(previously 14) days:
[https://getsatisfaction.com/newsblur/topics/do_unread_items_...](https://getsatisfaction.com/newsblur/topics/do_unread_items_sunset_after_14_days)

~~~
slgeorge
I think it's a bit strong saying it's "actively hostile" to power users. The
developer takes a very specific view about why he has the limits set-up that
way: I think a lot of people would like a different level but he makes sense
over the fact that most people don't go that far back on RSS. And in fairness
he's added a lot of other power user features like keyboard shortcuts.

Personally, I really like Newsblur. It's available on all the clients I care
about, it's pretty fast and it's Open Source with a sane business model. I'd
really like it to have search as that's the main thing that stops me finding
good trends in my RSS feeds.

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JohnTHaller
And, I just switched from Feedly to Digg in both my Windows Firefox browser
and Android app.

While not appropriate for folks on feed caching services (FeedBurner et al),
it would be interesting to write a quick script/htaccess to detect when Feedly
is loading your RSS feed on-server and redirect to a custom one which includes
a warning above each story about Feedly stealing page views.

~~~
orvtech
go on... I mean do we know their IPs? they could easily move to amazon and not
provide any distinguishable Browser ID, etc..

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incision
By the way, Pulse News has done this for a long time.

Share something from the Pulse app and it generates a pulse.me link which
functions as an URL shortener through a browser, but redirects to their app
install page on mobile.

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moeffju
Their annoying UX on Android as well as on the “desktop” and their hijacking
of URLs for sharing (enforced redirect) are the reasons I’ve stopped using
feedly. This is just another nail in the coffin.

Sadly, stunts like these will drive even more people to publish only excerpt
feeds, which is very frustrating for users and further impacts the already
declining RSS ecosystem.

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DanielBMarkham
I find we're using "publisher" in a quite broad manner any more.

When I think of a publisher, I think of words on paper. Specifically a
newspaper or book. As a publisher, I convey the words to some permanent form
(a publication) which is then broadcast in some fashion.

The point here? I own the words. I put my name on them.

But now we're asked to believe that publishing involves some kind of deeper
interaction. If I'm a publisher, I guess, I'm supposed to be creating an
immersive, interactive (perhaps "sticky" or "addictive") model of content
consumption. People who leave my words alone but take away my interaction with
consumers are stealing my works.

This just sounds like a playground fight over who gets to be the newspaper
delivery boy -- and the reason it's so important isn't because of the content,
genre, or authorship of the work in question. Everybody agrees on that. This
is important because content creation in 2014 is about a fight for eyeballs.
Get them on the page, get them to join an email list, get them involved in the
comments sections, get them coming back.

Publishers and publications, at least in the way the words have generally been
used, have little to do with anything here. The fight is because everybody's
looking to psychologically manipulate the poor schmuck who's reading the
publication, not for any loftier reason than that.

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matthewmacleod
I don't think that's valid. "Publishers" are those who publish content - that
is, make it available to others in some form. The fact that this publishing is
via RSS or a website doesn't change that.

You can bet that if you created a newspaper that was simply a selection of
articles photocopied from other newspapers, you'd have IP issues. Same if you
tried it with a book.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Didn't there use to be "clipping services" for executives that did just this?
You'd pay them, they'd subscribe to a bunch of different print services, then
they'd clip out what they thought might interest you, compile it, and send it
as it's own custom publication?

If I gave my passwords to a poor person in a third-world country, might they
not consume all of my digital content online for me, summarize it, and send me
what's important, in plain text format?

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mpclark
Yes, but the clipping services needed to purchase a license to do this. In the
UK there are two special bodies that handle this: the Newspaper Licensing
Agency and the Copyright Licensing Agency.

~~~
_delirium
Under UK law, the digital version is actually legal without a license, because
the Supreme Court held that copies made by digital-clippings services were
permitted "temporary copies":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Relations_Consultants_A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Relations_Consultants_Association_%28PRCA%29_v_The_Newspaper_Licensing_Agency_%28NLA%29)

In the US the same case came out the other way around, holding that copies
made in the process of digital aggregation didn't constitute fair use:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press_v._Meltwater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press_v._Meltwater)

In the US you don't need a license for the physical version, though, where you
literally cut out news articles and mail an envelope of clippings to someone.
Under the first-sale doctrine, you own the physical printed copy of a book,
magazine, or newspaper you bought, and you can resell that copy (only) without
further permission of the copyright holder. You can also modify it before
resale if you'd like, since you fully own it: carve it into a book-sculpture,
clip out pages and sell them independently, cut out the pages and reuse the
binding, etc. You can even buy copyrighted paintings, modify them, and sell
the modified version, as long as you're modifying the physical canvas you
bought (not copying it onto a new canvas or making prints).

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oneeyedpigeon
For the sake of providing a counter argument, not all publishers monetize page
views; some simply want as many eyeballs as possible landing on their content.
Additionally, it is almost impossible to guarantee that a request for your
content results in a hit on your httpd process (even if you have the resources
to send highly restrictive cache headers, browsers, proxies, etc. don't HAVE
to honour them)

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lnanek2
He brings up 75% of Twitter being mobile, which sounds like a good number.
But, at least on the Google Play store, Feedly seems to have 1 to 5 million
installs whereas Twitter has 100 to 500 million. So we're talking about 1% the
number of users anyway. So it doesn't much matter what Feedly does since it
won't make a dent on your page views anyway.

~~~
coldtea
Depends on your audience. If you have a tech/iOS audience, Feedly users might
be 10% of your visitors or more. Plus, Feedly might grow in the future.

And in any case, we should not encourage bad behavior, whatever the actual
impact.

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uladzislau
As an end user I personally hate the fact that I can't choose my own URL
shortener and stuck with feedly.com links.

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kmfrk
They say insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

These people have to stop doing this shit and realize it isn't doing anyone
any good.

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RexRollman
Because greed.

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xpose2000
My viewpoint is a bit different on this. First off, Feedly has no way of
showing the user the entire article, even if they first direct them to the
feedly app. Feedly should show the preview with a snippet, then provide a
"View Website" link.

That is, unless you output the entire blog post on your RSS feed. If you do
this, then that's your own fault.

Therefore we are left with the question. Does this harm your site and/or
metrics? Short answer. No.

Are your users going to your articles from Feedly short links? Probably not.
Why would you link your users to a feedly short link to begin with?

In the end, what Feedly is doing is doing a disservice to their end user. It
makes the process confusing by creating more hoops to get to the original
content. Those short links frankly do not need to exist.

We all know what Feedly is trying to do, and in the end they should stick to
building premium features rather than something like this.

~~~
pmr_
> unless you output the entire blog post on your RSS feed. If you do this,
> then that's your own fault.

I understand the reasons against posting your entire blog on an RSS feed, but
it hurts usability so much. If I'm opening my feed reader I would like to stay
there and not have to continuously open a post in my browser and then jump
back again. If a RSS feed does not contain the full posts I need to be
extremely interested in the content to still follow it.

~~~
judk
As a user, sure. As a publisher, full article feeds are incompatible with web
ads.

~~~
pmr_
I have seen special ads embedded into feeds. Sure, they are not dynamic,
targeted and what not, but they are hand selected, probably relevant, and
under total control of the content provider.

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aaronbrethorst
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Just use
[http://feedbin.me](http://feedbin.me). It's three bucks a month.

edit: because in Feedly's case _you_ are the product.

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wonderzombie
And by that do you mean to suggest Feedly doesn't offer a paid version?

[https://feedly.com/index.html#pro](https://feedly.com/index.html#pro)

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Grue3
Wow, a RSS reader "steals views from publishers"? Call the police.

Guess what? If your article wasn't in my RSS, I wouldn't have read it at all.
It didn't steal anything.

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ilamont
ShareThis widgets operate in a similar way.

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elleferrer
Can we just please build an exact replica of Google Reader that can handle
power users?

