There's so little here, Reader was bad because it was good and it killed other people's attempts at making an RSS reader, but it was also bad because it didn't have social features? Hard, hard disagree. I wanted an RSS reader, not a social stream, and Google Reader filled that role spectacularly. I read more independent sources those days than I do now thanks to it.
I just wanted a reader too, but it's certainly true that once Reader came out, there really wasn't much room for exploration or experimentation. Reader was pretty much what you got, like it or not.
I use feedly these days, because I don't really need anything fancy. Maybe there just wasn't much to do in that space, but it's hard to say, because Google stomped on it.
Reader did have social features which differentiated it from other feed aggregators. The power was in the network effect; if your friends used Reader then you would use it too. Without the social features it was not that great; just another aggregator.
To some extent Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. have replaced this need, but with a lot of other noise.
Without the social features it was great, because it aggregated your feeds without needing to run on your machine. (It also stored the entire history of the feed without taking up storage on your machine.)
I used to use Thunderbird for RSS feeds. That failed one day while I was on vacation -- the PC shut down for whatever reason -- losing track of what had happened while I was away. Not a huge deal, sure, but Reader was a huge improvement because it couldn't fail like that. It tracked everything and knew what was new and what was old with no chance of slipping.
(It also let you read blogs that were blocked by the Great Firewall, back before google itself was blocked.)
Lacking a free online RSS reader, I use Thunderbird again now, but Reader was better.
About social features, wouldn't that be great if RSS itself can allow more interaction? For example: Allowing reader to post/view comment and "likes" directly on their RSS reader?
Read-only publishing system is less attractive than interactive ones, people love to talk about stuff.
Comments
There's so little here, Reader was bad because it was good and it killed other people's attempts at making an RSS reader, but it was also bad because it didn't have social features? Hard, hard disagree. I wanted an RSS reader, not a social stream, and Google Reader filled that role spectacularly. I read more independent sources those days than I do now thanks to it.
I just wanted a reader too, but it's certainly true that once Reader came out, there really wasn't much room for exploration or experimentation. Reader was pretty much what you got, like it or not.
I use feedly these days, because I don't really need anything fancy. Maybe there just wasn't much to do in that space, but it's hard to say, because Google stomped on it.
Reader did have social features which differentiated it from other feed aggregators. The power was in the network effect; if your friends used Reader then you would use it too. Without the social features it was not that great; just another aggregator.
To some extent Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. have replaced this need, but with a lot of other noise.
Without the social features it was great, because it aggregated your feeds without needing to run on your machine. (It also stored the entire history of the feed without taking up storage on your machine.)
I used to use Thunderbird for RSS feeds. That failed one day while I was on vacation -- the PC shut down for whatever reason -- losing track of what had happened while I was away. Not a huge deal, sure, but Reader was a huge improvement because it couldn't fail like that. It tracked everything and knew what was new and what was old with no chance of slipping.
(It also let you read blogs that were blocked by the Great Firewall, back before google itself was blocked.)
Lacking a free online RSS reader, I use Thunderbird again now, but Reader was better.
Lacking a free online RSS reader, I use Thunderbird again now
Feedly's free tier works quite nicely if you miss Google Reader.
Glad to hear that :)
About social features, wouldn't that be great if RSS itself can allow more interaction? For example: Allowing reader to post/view comment and "likes" directly on their RSS reader?
Read-only publishing system is less attractive than interactive ones, people love to talk about stuff.