RSS | joeross.me

Aug 3, 2013 ∞

How the death of Google Reader is saving RSS

Ben Popper, at The Verge¹:

Some Reader partisans may have given up on RSS after the shutdown, but the majority seem to have migrated to other platforms. In the weeks following the announcement, Feedly saw 3 million Google Reader refugees sign up and Newsblur says it now has 25 times the paid subscriptions it did in March.

Interesting. It looks like Google inadvertently revived the very market Reader killed when it debuted.

I’m still relying on Feedly right now, and they’re the paid option I’m most likely to go with whenever they begin offering a premium tier, but the options are admittedly plentiful.

And there’s no denying that the death of Reader, in retrospect, was probably the best thing to happen to RSS since, well, the birth of RSS.

I like my headline (above the quote) better than Mr. Popper’s, which is “A month after Google killed its beloved Reader, the market for paid RSS tools is booming.” His is more informative, but for some reason mine just feels better. Arrogance? ↩

Mar 15, 2013 ∞

Google+ lead asks for advice from Google Reader fans

Google+ architect Yontan Zunger meant well, but Google+ will never be sufficient as a reader. Brands maintain a curated presence there for audience outreach and building purposes, not to provide readers with a convenient way to determine what content in that brand’s firehose of updates readers may wish to read further.

Note: I cross-posted this from a comment I wrote on Google+.

Mar 15, 2013 ∞

Transitioning from Google Reader to feedly

From the Feedly blog:

We have been working on a project called Normandy which is a feedly clone of the Google Reader API – running on Google App Engine. When Google Reader shuts down, feedly will seamlessly transition to the Normandy back end. So if you are a Google Reader user and using feedly, you are covered: the transition will be seamless.

Feedly is my top contender for a Reader replacement right now: multi-platform, ready to clone my Reader feeds, and prepared to essentially take over much of Reader’s core subscribe-and-sync functionality when Google pulls the plug.

Also, I can’t help but assume that they’re calling it Normandy because there are tens of thousands of Google Reader users suddenly storming their shores.

Mar 13, 2013 ∞

Powering Down Google Reader

I don’t even know what to say about this. Reader is an integral part of my workflow and I need to figure something else out. If you have any alternatives to suggest, please let me know.

Sep 25, 2012 ∞

Twitter replies and Instapaper integration

I wanted to post something brief to let you know I made a few small but (I think) useful additions to this site.

First, I’ve added a button to the bottom of all posts letting Twitter users reply or ask questions directly from the post. Thanks to the purveyor of kaos.am for unknowingly alerting me to this classy and subtle way to allow some direct communication without resorting to comments. Find more info on my no-comments policy here.

Second, all of my article posts now include a “Read Later” button that will send that post to your Instapaper account. If you don’t have an Instapaper account, you should consider getting one. It’s not free, but it’s worth paying for the knowledge that it won’t “pivot” or become ad-ridden sometime down the road. Instapaper also innovates frequently, doing things like Kindle integration and fonts for vision-impaired readers before anyone else.

Third, I’ve added some more feed options to the site. The original Tumblr feed is still available. However, you can now choose between a master feed including all updates, a links-only feed that only includes the links I share (updated at least once a day), or an articles-only feed that includes only longer articles (updated at least once a week). Find more information here.

That’s it. I hope you find at least one of these additions useful. I don’t plan to add to this site very often, as part of the goal in building it was to keep it clean and content-focused.

Sep 21, 2012 ∞

Temple Law Profs Feed

I used Yahoo Pipes to make a feed that unites all posts by Temple profs writing at their various law blogs. The feed still needs some work, specifically to ensure that the author name, and preferably the name of the blog at which they’re writing, is published in every entry. But overall I’m very happy with it.

I didn’t get permission from them or from their respective blogs, but since the stuff is posted publicly, all the content in my united feed is available freely in each separate feed, and all the entries in my united feed link directly out to the source posts, I don’t see why anyone would object.

But, of course, if anyone does object, I’ll remove them from the feed immediately. In fact, at any point in time, and without warning, I may need to delete the feed altogether, so consider yourselves warned.

For now, though, it’s a convenient way to follow what interests Temple Law professors on a day-to-day basis, particularly with regard to current events in their respective areas of expertise.

So, here’s the feed, and here’s the Yahoo Pipes URL so you can see how I did it.