

Ask HN: Review my app – Sbscribe, a social RSS feed reader (Google Reader alt) - OliverJAsh

Hi everyone,<p>The people who use RSS today are power users. By the general user, Twitter is used as a replacement service for RSS by allowing people to follow websites. Twitter was not designed for this.<p>Briefly: Sbscribe is as easy to use as Twitter, but powered by RSS and tailored for discovering and sharing content in one interface.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;69376016<p>For all the content you currently discover and monitor using bookmarks, RSS feed readers like Google Reader, and social networks such as Twitter — Sbscribe offers the same experience, in one place.<p>This is an idea I had three years ago when I realised the value of socially curated news through platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. At the same time, I noticed my non-technical friends were &#x27;following&#x27; websites on Twitter. Sbscribe really aims to separate these two concerns — you follow people, and subscribe to websites. It has been in development since January.<p>I&#x27;m planning on launching a private alpha of Sbscribe in August some time (shortly followed by a public beta in October), and I&#x27;ve got a slew of ideas for how I can improve the &quot;subscription graph&quot;, as well as plans for a mobile web app. I&#x27;ve gotten to a point where I would really appreciate some feedback on improving the concept and UI. It&#x27;s also a good time to spread the message with the recent shutdown of Google Reader.<p>FYI: The service is backed by Node.js, MongoDB, and Redis, and on the front-end I am using Backbone.js and Marionette.js. It would also be great to talk with other developers familiar with this stack.<p>Oliver
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bjtitus
Looks great!

A couple things:

\- Instead of saying "subscribed" and "following" say "unsubscribe" and
"unfollow" and change the colors (Twitter does it this way). That way I know
what that button is going to do when I click on it.

\- The top bar seems unnecessary except for search. If your avatar/username
are linked to your profile, all of the buttons would be duplicates. Not saying
that will work in the long run or be totally discoverable, but I think it
could help. You could move the search box to the left hand pane or something
if you got rid of the bar.

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OliverJAsh
Thanks. I'll take both of those into account :-)

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roldie
Looks great! I think you've found the right balance between RSS readers and
Twitter.

Just for clarity, Sbscribe is a self-contained social network? One follows
someone else's Sbscribe profile, not their Twitter profile?

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OliverJAsh
Thank you! And yes, that's right.

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mrtomahawk
Any plans for adding tags for items which a user favorites, or could you talk
a little about how the favorites work? Can I share my favorites? Are they
public/private?

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Ashuu
Wonderful! I was looking for such a Google Reader alternative. Looks great
too!

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gr3yman
I'm interested. Sign me up for the Alpha/Beta/whatever!

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meerita
Bet you bootstraped all the design. Looks fantastic. Is it 2.3.2?

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OliverJAsh
I didn't use Bootstrap, but I quite clearly took a lot of inspiration from
Twitter.

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meerita
Wow. Why that? You could build around Bootstrap anyways without any harm. I
got tired of doing a new framework each time I start a project.

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TsiCClawOfLight
wow, this looks amazing! If you need any more beta testers, I'd be glad to
join in.

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Ramario
Looks very cool. Great design

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benguild
Cool

