
Baby steps toward replacing Google Reader - mh_
http://www.marco.org/2013/03/14/baby-steps-replacing-google-reader
======
ChuckMcM
Personally, this could be a killer use of App.net. Blend social with RSS and
get something like Pandora for newsfeeds. Not sure how hard it would be to
pull an RSS feed and then push that into an App.net stream, blended with some
meta data on content and a machine learning algorithm which enhanced your
feeds by finding similar feeds that has a high correlative match to what you
read most. Just sayin'

~~~
adestefan
No damn it. This is exactly why Google is closing down Reader. Most people who
have stuck with Reader do not want anything to do with mixing RSS and social
crap.

~~~
acdha
> This is exactly why Google is closing down Reader.

The large number of vocal people complaining specifically about how much worse
Google+ is than the old reader sharing system (search for "sharebros" or
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/robf4/googles-lost-social-network>) would suggest
this is not true.

With the exception of hardcore introverts, most people like the idea of
sharing - but only when it's actually doing something they like rather than
the gamified meaningless actions Google is chasing right now.

~~~
adestefan
I'm not against sharing. What I hate is when sharing turns into blasting
everything I do out to the world without my consent each time. I don't want
people to know every song I listen to, every news article I read, or every HN
post I open. If this makes me introverted, then I don't want to be cool and
hip.

See the recent stories about LinkedIn blasting out stuff to every contact in
an address book or the historical fubars of Facebook changing defaults on the
fly.

~~~
acdha
> If this makes me introverted, then I don't want to be cool and hip.

It just means you want good social software rather than things designed for
advertisers. The original Google Reader sharing model was exactly what you
describe: use it in private until you choose to share something.

------
devongovett
I'm working on an opensource implementation of the API here if anyone is
interested in helping out :) <https://github.com/devongovett/reader>

~~~
pavel_lishin
Did I miss something in their API, or was there absolutely no way to tell
whether you had renamed a feed or not?

~~~
reidrac
FYI: <http://undoc.in/subscription.html#edit>

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tenpoundhammer
All I know is that I will be on whatever reeder supports. So basically whoever
makes that thing is going to be deciding my fate. I hope they choose wisely.

~~~
r00fus
Bingo. This is what's up for grabs - who wants to be the underlying
infrastructure for all these great apps like Reeder or RiverOfNews Note: most
folks are opting for Twitter/FB + Flipboard-style apps, so most of the market
will be the privacy oriented elite.

~~~
ajslater
Feedly's first out of the gate already here.

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zdw
Also, an implementation independent test suite would be nice...

I'm sure there are plenty of corner cases where all the new implementations
might fall down, or make different decisions than are expected.

~~~
canthonytucci
Marco should write it.

~~~
khet
why?

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mstroeck
I'm the project lead for Vienna, the open source RSS client for the Mac. We
support Google Reader, and we want to support this:

<https://github.com/ViennaRSS/vienna-rss/issues/160>

If you're a Cocoa developer, feel free to jump right in. If you're going to
implement the server side, shoot me a note @mstroeck (app.net preferred).

~~~
pauljonas
I tried Vienna today -- downloaded, installed, then tapped OK on the "Google
Sync" option…

…an hour later, the application still was "not responding", though the little
red number circle on the dock icon continued to climb. About a half hour later
with the application still in a "not responding" state, I force quit and then
proceeded to delete it.

~~~
coldtea
Perhaps you're not a very technical person then. Or you have some bizarro
ideas about testing new apps.

If an app is "not responding" after one hour, and it's not doing physics
simulation or renders a 3D movie for Pixar, then you kill it and try again.
Damn, I wouldn't even let it stay stalled for 10 minutes.

If you genuinely want to test the app (instead of only being interested in
Google Sync), you'd also try how it does some other stuff, like adding some
RSS feeds directly.

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doe88
That's a good idea but I nevertheless think big clients (client reader +
integrated access to server api) will win anyway because if you have to pay a
client and then pay a subscription to a server to have access to an
implementation of this API I don't think it will be very appealing. All the
current model of 'small' clients was based on the fact that the access to
Google's (non official) api was free. That part won't be replaced.

~~~
jxdxbx
It would be nice if one of the self-hosted server-side apps (Fever, Tiny Tiny
RSS) replicated the Reader API. It's not really worth it for me to bother with
a self-hosted solution if I have to use a web client.

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Spittie
I just wrote something similar on an another site:

"For now, Google Reader was the standard. Now that it isn't it anymore, I hope
that it will get developed a nice API to sync feeds between decides, and that
the major reader will implement it. This way every application would be able
to sync with every backend, without any problem. And if a backend close, you
could easily switch to a different one by changing one line in the
configuration."

I seriously hope that this will be true. What has got me stuck on Google
Reader for now (beside the "it just works" interface) is that every major
application synced with it. I don't really want this to happen again, only
with a different company.

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randallu
OAuth rather than POST. I don't want a bunch of client apps storing passwords
in plain text.

------
WilliamTJ
Here a link to Mr Avocado? He the former engineer who created Google reader
project in the first place.This is Just a suggestion from a user. Maybe
getting him on board would help a lot in your project?

<http://www.massless.org/?area=Projects>

------
davidpayne11
Please, as an advice to general HN posters, please avoid posting marco.org
links here on HN, because his sole intention is to sell his readers out more
than focusing on writing. That's a fairly grande accusation, but it's
justified.

Do you know why is he writing about Google Reader now? Go to your HN homepage
right now, as of writing this comment, the Google reader announcement has
about 1700 upvotes. Ouch, that's a lot of views for someone to let go of.
Hence, if someone writes something that compliments this announcement, common
sense tells me that they would get more page views.

There's nothing wrong in having ads on your blog/website, people do it all the
time. What's wrong is trying to create an impression to your readers that your
sole intention is to write quality content, while you care just about
pageviews. Please, realize that marco.org is no different from Techcrunch!

Marco isn't innocent, if you've been following him closely. Also, I think it
would help if you take a look at this page where he just blatantly sells us,
his readers like some piece of junk commodity.
<http://www.marco.org/sponsorship>

~~~
swombat
Are you completely stupid or are you just trolling us?

On the off chance you're just stupid, here's some enlightenment. Marco Arment
is a cofounder of hugely successful Tumblr and creator of Instapaper, both of
which certainly make or made him more money than he'll ever make from ads on
his blog, however popular. He's also created The Magazine, which probably
makes a fair bit of cash already, and will be making more in the future. He
has a solid reputation in the tech space, and it is stupid to argue that he's
somehow spending his days trying to bait HN with empty crap articles.

marco.org is very different from TC, in that if marco.org had no ads, Marco
would certainly still write to it, as it's his personal platform, whereas if
TC had no ads, it would fold in a week.

~~~
corresation
_Marco Arment is a cofounder of hugely successful Tumblr and creator of
Instapaper, both of which certainly make or made him more money than he'll
ever make from ads on his blog, however popular._

The GP post should be nuked from orbit, but the reasoning you put there is
hilariously specious. If it is so irrelevant, then why are they there? Why
does Arment stuff entries full of credibility-diminishing "sponsored by" text,
or worse insidious Amazon affiliate links?

Every ounce of reality says that he cares very much about his blog income,
your imaginings of his external wealth notwithstanding.

~~~
swombat
He can make something in the thousands of dollars a month of income from his
blog. That's pretty good, and it probably pays for quite a few monthly
expenses, so he'd be stupid _not_ to put this one nonintrusive ad on there.

Not putting a small ad on there that pays thousands of dollars would just be
silly.

As a comparison, swombat.com has no ads because the amount of money attached
to it would simply be too small to bother (tens of dollars a month at the very
most, if that much). If it was a few thousand, I'd put a small ad on there
even if I had millions in the bank.

------
LiquidEyes
Volvo or Volkswagen?

