Trouble with the Old Reader
July 27, 2013 5:49 PM Subscribe
The Old Reader is back up again (scroll down for updates), after several days of being down when the servers crashed. But many users are not happy and some are bailing.
I really meant inprobable that they had 4 faulty drives. There is something more going on.
posted by Ad hominem at 6:09 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by Ad hominem at 6:09 PM on July 27, 2013
I wouldn't say I'm happy, but it doesn't appear that they lost any of my subscription data, and I discovered that gosh! I can live without an RSS reader for a few days!
I just chalked it up to growing pains and an underfunded project. After all, they don't have a multi-billion dollar company propping it up as a small side thing to keep Timmy* happy on his off hours.
*There is no Timmy.
posted by nevercalm at 6:10 PM on July 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
I just chalked it up to growing pains and an underfunded project. After all, they don't have a multi-billion dollar company propping it up as a small side thing to keep Timmy* happy on his off hours.
*There is no Timmy.
posted by nevercalm at 6:10 PM on July 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
If you read the comments, they say the problem wasn't with the drives themselves but the SATA cables/ports:
"Enterprise SSD? You seem to be over-estimating the amount of donations we get. The drives are Corsair CSSD-F120GB2, and the problem seems to be with poor SATA cables/ports rather than with the drives themselves."
posted by web-goddess at 6:11 PM on July 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
"Enterprise SSD? You seem to be over-estimating the amount of donations we get. The drives are Corsair CSSD-F120GB2, and the problem seems to be with poor SATA cables/ports rather than with the drives themselves."
posted by web-goddess at 6:11 PM on July 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
1) Spent $5/month on hosted solution.
2) The end.
Seriously people. It's. So. Simple. You never ever ever ever ever again have to worry about some crappo "free" service jerking you around.
posted by DU at 6:11 PM on July 27, 2013 [4 favorites]
2) The end.
Seriously people. It's. So. Simple. You never ever ever ever ever again have to worry about some crappo "free" service jerking you around.
posted by DU at 6:11 PM on July 27, 2013 [4 favorites]
What service is as good for $5 a month?
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:13 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:13 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
1) Spent $5/month on hosted solution.
I still rely on RSS a lot: can you name some hosted solutions that you would recommend?
posted by anothermug at 6:13 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
I still rely on RSS a lot: can you name some hosted solutions that you would recommend?
posted by anothermug at 6:13 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
Are people really upset about this? I love theoldreader, and I still feel like they're doing me a favor for running it.
posted by Think_Long at 6:18 PM on July 27, 2013 [6 favorites]
posted by Think_Long at 6:18 PM on July 27, 2013 [6 favorites]
I have to say that this outage made me acquaint myself with Digg Reader, and I think I prefer it, now.
Secondly, yeah, losing four drives at a go is not a thing that happens much. It's a horror story I will recount to the young sysadmins.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 6:18 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
Secondly, yeah, losing four drives at a go is not a thing that happens much. It's a horror story I will recount to the young sysadmins.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 6:18 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
I blame Google.
posted by drezdn at 6:21 PM on July 27, 2013 [7 favorites]
posted by drezdn at 6:21 PM on July 27, 2013 [7 favorites]
I paid $20 for Newsblur and have been pretty happy with it. It's not quite as fast as Reader but it's pretty close.
posted by octothorpe at 6:23 PM on July 27, 2013 [6 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 6:23 PM on July 27, 2013 [6 favorites]
Bad Cables makes no sense in this situation. They could just get new ones. SATA ports where? Drive or server? I hope they do a full postmortem. I feel kinda bad for them, I've been there. Really goes to show why cloud solutions are such an attractive option.
posted by Ad hominem at 6:25 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by Ad hominem at 6:25 PM on July 27, 2013
1) Spent $5/month on hosted solution.
Better than $5/month, you can spend $0/month, own all your own reading data, and install Tiny Tiny RSS on Red Hat's free OpenShift service.
If you're comfortable with a little bit of command line follow-the-directions, you could go from nothing to a working web based RSS reader in about 10 minutes. Spend another 20 minutes, and you can integrate fever protocol functionality, and use any fever mobile client to read your interwebs.
posted by Geckwoistmeinauto at 6:26 PM on July 27, 2013 [21 favorites]
Better than $5/month, you can spend $0/month, own all your own reading data, and install Tiny Tiny RSS on Red Hat's free OpenShift service.
If you're comfortable with a little bit of command line follow-the-directions, you could go from nothing to a working web based RSS reader in about 10 minutes. Spend another 20 minutes, and you can integrate fever protocol functionality, and use any fever mobile client to read your interwebs.
posted by Geckwoistmeinauto at 6:26 PM on July 27, 2013 [21 favorites]
$35 to start for me , $5 a month after:
$30 for feed a fever
$5 / month on digital ocean for el cheapo hosting.
Real happy with this, for now.
posted by jenkinsEar at 6:30 PM on July 27, 2013
$30 for feed a fever
$5 / month on digital ocean for el cheapo hosting.
Real happy with this, for now.
posted by jenkinsEar at 6:30 PM on July 27, 2013
Better than $5/month, you can spend $0/month, own all your own reading data, and install Tiny Tiny RSS on Red Hat's free OpenShift service.
Yes, if you don't need it available over the internet, you can definitely spend $0/month and install locally.
However, if you install onto a free cloud service, you are just trading one problem for another.
posted by DU at 6:31 PM on July 27, 2013
Yes, if you don't need it available over the internet, you can definitely spend $0/month and install locally.
However, if you install onto a free cloud service, you are just trading one problem for another.
posted by DU at 6:31 PM on July 27, 2013
I don't have a lot of feeds so I went a different route. I opted for the rss-to-email service Blogtrottr. On Gmail I can filter all the feeds into a seperate folder by sender so they don't pollute my inbox. 25 or less feeds is free. Highly configurable and, so far, trouble free. Works for me...
posted by jim in austin at 6:36 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by jim in austin at 6:36 PM on July 27, 2013
Wait, they're using consumer grade parts? If so, it's more surprising that things haven't failed sooner. Six months of commercial use from a consumer package sounds about right to me.
posted by ceribus peribus at 6:41 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by ceribus peribus at 6:41 PM on July 27, 2013
Weird, I thought everyone moved to Feedly.
posted by exogenous at 6:43 PM on July 27, 2013 [10 favorites]
posted by exogenous at 6:43 PM on July 27, 2013 [10 favorites]
So far Hive has been making me happy enough, even if I can't sync.
posted by Samizdata at 6:43 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by Samizdata at 6:43 PM on July 27, 2013
Pretty pleased with Newsblur so far.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:44 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Chrysostom at 6:44 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
Actually, AOL Reader isn't that bad.
posted by JHarris at 6:47 PM on July 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 6:47 PM on July 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
I've really liked oldreader so far -- very bare-bones, and allows me to do exactly what I did on Google Reader. So I hope it makes it through the growing pains.
posted by escabeche at 6:48 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by escabeche at 6:48 PM on July 27, 2013
Jesus christ internet, it's a fucking RSS reader. Why are we still struggling with this in 2013?
posted by xmutex at 6:52 PM on July 27, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by xmutex at 6:52 PM on July 27, 2013 [3 favorites]
Jesus christ internet, it's a fucking RSS reader. Why are we still struggling with this in 2013?
Because an 800 pound gorilla set the field back by several years.
posted by Phssthpok at 6:53 PM on July 27, 2013 [30 favorites]
Because an 800 pound gorilla set the field back by several years.
posted by Phssthpok at 6:53 PM on July 27, 2013 [30 favorites]
Meanwhile, my switch to Feedly went relatively smoothly, but at least four of the sites I followed followed Google's "RSS is over" lead and switched to truncated RSS posts. I fully expect the majority of the other high-traffic, high-quality feeds I subscribe to will follow suit in short order, and I'll be left using RSS to monitor eBay searches and web comics and I'll go back to getting my news from a few sites I hit once or twice a day. So, you know...fuck you still, Google.
posted by Banky_Edwards at 6:57 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Banky_Edwards at 6:57 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yes, if you don't need it available over the internet, you can definitely spend $0/month and install locally.
However, if you install onto a free cloud service, you are just trading one problem for another.
Or you can set up port forwarding on your router to access it from anywhere. I've been running TT-RSS on a server at home and I access it from the web and from the official app on my Android phone all the time.
posted by jessssse at 7:02 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
However, if you install onto a free cloud service, you are just trading one problem for another.
Or you can set up port forwarding on your router to access it from anywhere. I've been running TT-RSS on a server at home and I access it from the web and from the official app on my Android phone all the time.
posted by jessssse at 7:02 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
Meanwhile, my switch to Feedly went relatively smoothly, but at least four of the sites I followed followed Google's "RSS is over" lead and switched to truncated RSS posts. I fully expect the majority of the other high-traffic, high-quality feeds I subscribe to will follow suit in short order, and I'll be left using RSS to monitor eBay searches and web comics and I'll go back to getting my news from a few sites I hit once or twice a day. So, you know...fuck you still, Google.
I have the af_feedmod plugin set up on my TT-RSS installation, which after some setup, will extract the full content of a post. It works incredibly well.
posted by jessssse at 7:05 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
I have the af_feedmod plugin set up on my TT-RSS installation, which after some setup, will extract the full content of a post. It works incredibly well.
posted by jessssse at 7:05 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
Wait, they lost 4 SSD drives at once? Any hardware peeps have any guesses how that happened? It seems vanishingly unlikely to me.
I agree. Either they got a box of bad SSDs, or they designed something wrong. SSDs not designed for RAID, or RAID not configured correctly for the SSDs. Or using cheap motherboards that weren't tested before being put into production.
posted by gjc at 7:09 PM on July 27, 2013
I agree. Either they got a box of bad SSDs, or they designed something wrong. SSDs not designed for RAID, or RAID not configured correctly for the SSDs. Or using cheap motherboards that weren't tested before being put into production.
posted by gjc at 7:09 PM on July 27, 2013
I'm pretty content with Digg reader. I disliked feedly and found The Old Reader unbelievably slow.
posted by jeather at 7:12 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by jeather at 7:12 PM on July 27, 2013
JHarris: "Actually, AOL Reader isn't that bad."
It's the best one I've tried out, only real problem is you don't stay signed in across sessions. Least I don't.
posted by aerotive at 7:14 PM on July 27, 2013
It's the best one I've tried out, only real problem is you don't stay signed in across sessions. Least I don't.
posted by aerotive at 7:14 PM on July 27, 2013
I thankfully don't use a lot of the extra features for these sorts of things--I just want a simple place to read new stuff when it comes up. If I have unread posts more than a couple days old, chances are reading them isn't that much of a priority. So about half an hour after I saw they were down, I was set up on Feedly. If Feedly goes down... yeah. I'm not getting attached, at this point.
posted by Sequence at 7:18 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by Sequence at 7:18 PM on July 27, 2013
feedly has too many quirks. fortunately there's inoreader.
posted by sineater at 7:19 PM on July 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by sineater at 7:19 PM on July 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
FU Larry Page. May your inbox be filled with cursing and your nights be filled with reflux.
posted by peacay at 7:30 PM on July 27, 2013 [6 favorites]
posted by peacay at 7:30 PM on July 27, 2013 [6 favorites]
I hedged my bets and transferred data to both Feedly and The Old Reader. After this? Bye bye Old Reader. Feedly has been much more reliable (other than the mobile app hiccup, but that was fixed fast and didn't really impact my overall user experience).
posted by charmcityblues at 7:42 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by charmcityblues at 7:42 PM on July 27, 2013
I've had Akregator installed on my Linux boxes for as long as I can remember. Like a flatulent old dog, it's pretty slow and sometimes stinks, but it's all mine and it's never going to up and run off on me.
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 7:44 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 7:44 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
I used to use Reeder on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
After trying a bunch of apps and services that I hated, I now I use Feedly with Newsify on my iPhone and iPad and I couldn't be happier. (Out of the box Newsify is a bit of a pain, but it's got a ton of configuration options to make it do what you want).
I figured I would switch back to Reeder once they got their act together, but I'm so happy with Newsify that I'm sticking with it instead.
posted by i_have_a_computer at 7:45 PM on July 27, 2013
After trying a bunch of apps and services that I hated, I now I use Feedly with Newsify on my iPhone and iPad and I couldn't be happier. (Out of the box Newsify is a bit of a pain, but it's got a ton of configuration options to make it do what you want).
I figured I would switch back to Reeder once they got their act together, but I'm so happy with Newsify that I'm sticking with it instead.
posted by i_have_a_computer at 7:45 PM on July 27, 2013
Seriously people. It's. So. Simple. You never ever ever ever ever again have to worry about some crappo "free" service jerking you around.
What the fuck? This is like how an abacus is faster than a calculator if you don't count the time required to learn how to use an abacus.
If you're not technical, providing an RSS service that gives you what the Old Reader and its competitors do is not "So. Simple." and it's not a $5 problem.
posted by bonaldi at 7:47 PM on July 27, 2013 [22 favorites]
What the fuck? This is like how an abacus is faster than a calculator if you don't count the time required to learn how to use an abacus.
If you're not technical, providing an RSS service that gives you what the Old Reader and its competitors do is not "So. Simple." and it's not a $5 problem.
posted by bonaldi at 7:47 PM on July 27, 2013 [22 favorites]
I'd name my feed-reader service, but I don't want metafilter traffic to shut them down. :p Excellent interface, though a bit slow.
posted by subdee at 7:51 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by subdee at 7:51 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
aerotive: "JHarris: "Actually, AOL Reader isn't that bad."
It's the best one I've tried out, only real problem is you don't stay signed in across sessions. Least I don't."
I found that was an issue with having two linked accounts (and Firefox maybe?) so with my regular account it stays signed in, with the usual 'oh, dormant feed update? Have the last 20 posts' thing on occasion. But on Firefox with my other ID which has two linked google accounts it logs me out every time.
posted by geek anachronism at 7:58 PM on July 27, 2013
It's the best one I've tried out, only real problem is you don't stay signed in across sessions. Least I don't."
I found that was an issue with having two linked accounts (and Firefox maybe?) so with my regular account it stays signed in, with the usual 'oh, dormant feed update? Have the last 20 posts' thing on occasion. But on Firefox with my other ID which has two linked google accounts it logs me out every time.
posted by geek anachronism at 7:58 PM on July 27, 2013
I'm a Feedbin.me user, which I find functionally equivalent to Google Reader even if the interface is not the same. Free to try, $20 a year.
posted by Apropos of Something at 7:59 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by Apropos of Something at 7:59 PM on July 27, 2013
so now what's the best android client for offline reading?
posted by beukeboom at 8:02 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by beukeboom at 8:02 PM on July 27, 2013
I've been ok with Digg Reader, like jeather .
posted by doctornemo at 8:09 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by doctornemo at 8:09 PM on July 27, 2013
AOL Reader is my favorite too (ty mathowie for tweeting about it). My only problem is that the 'enter' shortcut to open/close an article doesn't work, so I have to use 'o'. Feedly is good too, but I can't stand that the left pane won't stay visible permanently at my preferred browser width.
posted by mullacc at 8:11 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by mullacc at 8:11 PM on July 27, 2013
Only marginally "back up again" in practice: I still very often get bounced to the "The Old Reader is unavailable" page.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 8:12 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 8:12 PM on July 27, 2013
Feedbin has worked flawlessly for me using Reeder on the iPhone and ReadKit on OS X. (Not sure I'll even bother going back to Reeder when/if it's back on OS X at this point.) I don't use the web interface much but it's also similar to Reeder.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 8:22 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 8:22 PM on July 27, 2013
I used Old Reader two days. The slowness was understandable considering the influx of users, but it didn't update at least half of the feeds I put into it. On NewsBlur now and liking it a lot, aside from some interface peeves. I like the looks of Feedly, but that 'Sign in With Google' thing bugs and freaks me out. Why do sites do that, rather than using a login/account system that's native to what you're using?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:23 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:23 PM on July 27, 2013
Ooo, AOL Reader looks nice and clean.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:24 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:24 PM on July 27, 2013
so now what's the best android client for offline reading?
I really like Press.
posted by Apropos of Something at 8:28 PM on July 27, 2013
I really like Press.
posted by Apropos of Something at 8:28 PM on July 27, 2013
I still very often get bounced to the "The Old Reader is unavailable" page.
Same here, and its feed updating schedule seems borked. I was willing to wait out the downtime and chalk it up to growing pains, but the slowness plus the down time plus the weird feed update issues are all really annoying me. I think I'll give Digg Reader a try for a while, see if it works out better. So far, I like it. The import of my data was super fast, and the interface is clean and pleasantly bare bones.
posted by yasaman at 8:29 PM on July 27, 2013
Same here, and its feed updating schedule seems borked. I was willing to wait out the downtime and chalk it up to growing pains, but the slowness plus the down time plus the weird feed update issues are all really annoying me. I think I'll give Digg Reader a try for a while, see if it works out better. So far, I like it. The import of my data was super fast, and the interface is clean and pleasantly bare bones.
posted by yasaman at 8:29 PM on July 27, 2013
Bah, AOL Reader doesn't seem to include direct links to mp3 files in podcast feeds.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:42 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:42 PM on July 27, 2013
I've literally been through a dozen readers since Google Reader went down. The Old Reader just seemed the most stable heretofor. By which I mean it didn't force me to view all articles in some sort of preview mode or a series of cramped boxes, didn't do strange things with feeds like show posts out of chrono order sometimes or show posts from a feed twice or more, doesn't play games with things I mark as read, doesn't push me to link other social media sites with it, doesn't throttle my reading (do most people not read that many feeds? Is that why Feedly is so popular?), doesn't hide most pictures and videos, and is relatively easy to navigate. I even found a dark skin for it on Stylish. I don't need my reader to be perfect in every way (Google Reader wasn't!), I just need it to not be super irritating.
There are a lot of people insisting that the only way to get an experience as good as Google Reader is to start paying a subscription, but I've yet to see what paying really nets me. Stability? Is that it?
I've been using Ridly in addition to The Old Reader as it has been up and down, but with The Old Reader as flaky as its become, it looks like my search is far from over.
Almost all options lack some sort of discovery function for finding new blogs to follow, I'm finding. I've seen sites that supposedly deal in RSS feed discovery, but they are more like limited search engines. When I input a term and what I get are news articles and mentions of certain topics on sites that do not spend any time in those topics (the search term just happened to be there), that to me is unsuccessful.
posted by koucha at 8:49 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
There are a lot of people insisting that the only way to get an experience as good as Google Reader is to start paying a subscription, but I've yet to see what paying really nets me. Stability? Is that it?
I've been using Ridly in addition to The Old Reader as it has been up and down, but with The Old Reader as flaky as its become, it looks like my search is far from over.
Almost all options lack some sort of discovery function for finding new blogs to follow, I'm finding. I've seen sites that supposedly deal in RSS feed discovery, but they are more like limited search engines. When I input a term and what I get are news articles and mentions of certain topics on sites that do not spend any time in those topics (the search term just happened to be there), that to me is unsuccessful.
posted by koucha at 8:49 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
I've been pretty happy with inoreader so far. No downtime, interface very similar to google reader. Free.
posted by Wavelet at 9:22 PM on July 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by Wavelet at 9:22 PM on July 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
I've been quite happy with Feedly- am preferring it to Google Reader, actually- but what's this about throttling?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:23 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:23 PM on July 27, 2013
--so now what's the best android client for offline reading?--
gReader / gReader-Pro --> it's apparently the only one that works with TheOldReader (thnx for the tip web_goddess) and of course, within 2hrs of buying the app, the SSD downtime eventuated.
I've shuffled a few of my more newsier feeds into Pulse [and Press - mentioned above - is pretty good too], but I still have feedly in the background to play with now and then so it reminds me why I like gReader. I want to stay with TheOldReader and I'm trying to view its (minor) slowness as inevitable without the gargantuan google architecture underpinning it. And it's making me take a breath and be patient for all of what? a minute in total a day. I do have my fingers crossed behind my back with respect to the server though.
posted by peacay at 9:26 PM on July 27, 2013
gReader / gReader-Pro --> it's apparently the only one that works with TheOldReader (thnx for the tip web_goddess) and of course, within 2hrs of buying the app, the SSD downtime eventuated.
I've shuffled a few of my more newsier feeds into Pulse [and Press - mentioned above - is pretty good too], but I still have feedly in the background to play with now and then so it reminds me why I like gReader. I want to stay with TheOldReader and I'm trying to view its (minor) slowness as inevitable without the gargantuan google architecture underpinning it. And it's making me take a breath and be patient for all of what? a minute in total a day. I do have my fingers crossed behind my back with respect to the server though.
posted by peacay at 9:26 PM on July 27, 2013
@jenfullmoon It's my understanding that Feedly limits the number of feeds you may subscribe to without a paid subscription like Newsblur.
posted by koucha at 9:40 PM on July 27, 2013
posted by koucha at 9:40 PM on July 27, 2013
Jesus christ internet, it's a fucking RSS reader. Why are we still struggling with this in 2013?
Because there's a world of difference between something you'd whip up for personal use and something with tens of thousands (or more) of users? Remember how unstable Twitter was forever?
The Old Reader so far seems like something that some good programmers put together, but they don't have a ton of money, and no real plans to try to make a ton of money off of it. That's why I'm willing to hang around.
posted by Ickster at 9:41 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
Because there's a world of difference between something you'd whip up for personal use and something with tens of thousands (or more) of users? Remember how unstable Twitter was forever?
The Old Reader so far seems like something that some good programmers put together, but they don't have a ton of money, and no real plans to try to make a ton of money off of it. That's why I'm willing to hang around.
posted by Ickster at 9:41 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
I'm actually surprised the number of people on here, of all places, that would ditch a free, friendly RSS service because of a few days of downtime.
I kind of understand why Google didn't want to support GR if this is the type of community it fosters.
posted by ceol at 10:05 PM on July 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
I kind of understand why Google didn't want to support GR if this is the type of community it fosters.
posted by ceol at 10:05 PM on July 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
@jenfullmoon It's my understanding that Feedly limits the number of feeds you may subscribe to without a paid subscription like Newsblur.
As of now, Feedly is still free. I subscribe to about 65 different feeds and have had no issues. They're supposedly considering adding some enhanced features for paid users, but they've spent the last three months aggressively developing their web and mobile apps, and squashing the inevitable bugs and usability quirks. I'm happy with it, and am planning to upgrade to a paid account if the added features seem worthwhile.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:13 PM on July 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
As of now, Feedly is still free. I subscribe to about 65 different feeds and have had no issues. They're supposedly considering adding some enhanced features for paid users, but they've spent the last three months aggressively developing their web and mobile apps, and squashing the inevitable bugs and usability quirks. I'm happy with it, and am planning to upgrade to a paid account if the added features seem worthwhile.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:13 PM on July 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
It's a free service, it's generally excellent, shit happens, and Feedly is unusably bad. I'm cool.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:15 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:15 PM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
I'm using AOL Reader for now because it's the still only one I've found that does "mark all as read" correctly.
Still feeling a bit nervous though since, well, it's AOL.
posted by kmz at 12:22 AM on July 28, 2013
Still feeling a bit nervous though since, well, it's AOL.
posted by kmz at 12:22 AM on July 28, 2013
I was excited when The Old Reader decided to start working just now, so I went on it to export my OPML. Now using Feedly... I'm glad they changed the UI a bit since I last tried it a long time ago. It's much more pleasant to use now, IMO.
posted by The Biggest Dreamer at 12:31 AM on July 28, 2013
posted by The Biggest Dreamer at 12:31 AM on July 28, 2013
Jesus christ internet, it's a fucking RSS reader. Why are we still struggling with this in 2013?
Some of us view this as a flowering of innovation, which comes with some hiccups.
I kind of understand why Google didn't want to support GR if this is the type of community it fosters.
It's sort of the other way around. Google developed a great good-enough product that ran on fast, bet-your-life stable servers, and nobody else has that latter bit down quite like Google. Google also primed the community for gripiness by refusing to keep improving the product and then actually removing important functionality. As a result the community has extremely high uptime sensitivity, combined with rather mercenary attitudes toward readers that don't have the exact mix of functionality they {were used to|always wanted but never had}.
posted by dhartung at 1:31 AM on July 28, 2013 [4 favorites]
Some of us view this as a flowering of innovation, which comes with some hiccups.
I kind of understand why Google didn't want to support GR if this is the type of community it fosters.
It's sort of the other way around. Google developed a great good-enough product that ran on fast, bet-your-life stable servers, and nobody else has that latter bit down quite like Google. Google also primed the community for gripiness by refusing to keep improving the product and then actually removing important functionality. As a result the community has extremely high uptime sensitivity, combined with rather mercenary attitudes toward readers that don't have the exact mix of functionality they {were used to|always wanted but never had}.
posted by dhartung at 1:31 AM on July 28, 2013 [4 favorites]
I'm actually surprised the number of people on here, of all places, that would ditch a free, friendly RSS service because of a few days of downtime.
I kind of understand why Google didn't want to support GR if this is the type of community it fosters.
When you put something out there, free or not, people expect it to work. If it can't be relied upon, you're just wasting everyone's time. People have a right to get upset when their time is wasted -- money is not the only thing of value in the world.
posted by JHarris at 2:31 AM on July 28, 2013
I kind of understand why Google didn't want to support GR if this is the type of community it fosters.
When you put something out there, free or not, people expect it to work. If it can't be relied upon, you're just wasting everyone's time. People have a right to get upset when their time is wasted -- money is not the only thing of value in the world.
posted by JHarris at 2:31 AM on July 28, 2013
If you read the comments, they say the problem wasn't with the drives themselves but the SATA cables/ports
This is actually incredibly believable to me. I can't even count the number of times i've had weird fucking problems with SATA cables and ports. Even with decent cables(like pack-ins from name brand drives or mobos, the ones with actual metal locking clips) and ports on high-end motherboards. Both with personal systems, and systems for clients or at my current job.
I have no idea what the hell it is about the design of SATA cables or something, but they're about as flaky as the super crappy knockoff 30 pin ipod/iphone cables were, where you could actual expect to get one completely unusable one if you had a large number in front of you, and several that would inexplicably fail after a few connections/disconnections or a couple of weeks or months.
I've fired up a system and had it detect one of four drives, when all the drives were good and it was a motherboard with barely any mileage on it.
So yea, i really don't think these guys are doofuses, "doing it wrong", or anything like that.
What i would like a good explanation on though, is why are these guys running their own servers at all? Why isn't this just a job for something like ec2/amazon AWS?
Nearly every time i've compared the costs of purchasing hardware, the time it would take me to set it up, and colo or just a standard VPS/leased server of some sort somewhere to a cloud solution like that the cloud has beat the shit out of the others in cost. Is there something i'm missing here as to why it was even worth it to run their own gear here?
posted by emptythought at 3:34 AM on July 28, 2013 [3 favorites]
This is actually incredibly believable to me. I can't even count the number of times i've had weird fucking problems with SATA cables and ports. Even with decent cables(like pack-ins from name brand drives or mobos, the ones with actual metal locking clips) and ports on high-end motherboards. Both with personal systems, and systems for clients or at my current job.
I have no idea what the hell it is about the design of SATA cables or something, but they're about as flaky as the super crappy knockoff 30 pin ipod/iphone cables were, where you could actual expect to get one completely unusable one if you had a large number in front of you, and several that would inexplicably fail after a few connections/disconnections or a couple of weeks or months.
I've fired up a system and had it detect one of four drives, when all the drives were good and it was a motherboard with barely any mileage on it.
So yea, i really don't think these guys are doofuses, "doing it wrong", or anything like that.
What i would like a good explanation on though, is why are these guys running their own servers at all? Why isn't this just a job for something like ec2/amazon AWS?
Nearly every time i've compared the costs of purchasing hardware, the time it would take me to set it up, and colo or just a standard VPS/leased server of some sort somewhere to a cloud solution like that the cloud has beat the shit out of the others in cost. Is there something i'm missing here as to why it was even worth it to run their own gear here?
posted by emptythought at 3:34 AM on July 28, 2013 [3 favorites]
I hear that AWS let's you use their hard drives, if you ask nicely.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:45 AM on July 28, 2013
posted by blue_beetle at 5:45 AM on July 28, 2013
I really like Mr. Reader on my iPad (mostly for the pinboard support) connected to feedly, wish they had a desktop client as well.
posted by Mick at 6:15 AM on July 28, 2013
posted by Mick at 6:15 AM on July 28, 2013
I feel bad for the Old Reader folks. They've been gamely running their service for a long time now, and suddenly a bunch of new people jumped in and they've tried to accommodate them but they've had a lot of problems. This system failure must be like a kick in the gut.
I switched to Feedly. It's great, and I don't miss Google Reader at all. I do miss Reeder.app; he's still in the process of migrating to the Feedly backend for the various apps. Also Feedly has two big flaws. One, it hasn't announced its business model yet, and whatever they're doing must be expensive. Two, there's still no OPML export of your subscription list. They've promised they'll add it, and I have no reason to doubt them, but I'm uncomfortably aware of how locked in I am now.
posted by Nelson at 6:57 AM on July 28, 2013
I switched to Feedly. It's great, and I don't miss Google Reader at all. I do miss Reeder.app; he's still in the process of migrating to the Feedly backend for the various apps. Also Feedly has two big flaws. One, it hasn't announced its business model yet, and whatever they're doing must be expensive. Two, there's still no OPML export of your subscription list. They've promised they'll add it, and I have no reason to doubt them, but I'm uncomfortably aware of how locked in I am now.
posted by Nelson at 6:57 AM on July 28, 2013
I hear that AWS let's you use their hard drives, if you ask nicely.I'm not saying that's a bad idea, of course, but: AWS has also had extended downtimes. More than once.
posted by Flunkie at 7:37 AM on July 28, 2013
Have been using Feedly, but frankly the interface feels primitive and counterintuitive. I hate that I have to launch that ancient, clunky Mail program to share items outside of the program, and then close the blank window that launching it opens in my browser. I hate that I have to command-click a headline to open in a new tab because simply clicking it opens a couple of paragraphs at most which float over the feed window and have to be unchecked to go away. And I hate hate hate that for feeds in folders I see a total number of new items in the folder, but cannot easily see which feeds they are coming from.
Do any of the GR alternatives show only feeds with unread or newly posted items and not display those feeds without? I have 300+ feeds, many of them dormant for months at a time. I don't want to hide all of the occasional reads into a special folder just to be able to see what's new in an endless list of titles.
The internet seems less vibrant for Google Reader's hobbling the social sharing of the folks, like me, who find good stuff early. It feels like work. What a rotten trick this is, on readers and on the tech folks who now feel compelled to reinvent the RSS reader instead of something new or fun.
posted by Scram at 7:43 AM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
Do any of the GR alternatives show only feeds with unread or newly posted items and not display those feeds without? I have 300+ feeds, many of them dormant for months at a time. I don't want to hide all of the occasional reads into a special folder just to be able to see what's new in an endless list of titles.
The internet seems less vibrant for Google Reader's hobbling the social sharing of the folks, like me, who find good stuff early. It feels like work. What a rotten trick this is, on readers and on the tech folks who now feel compelled to reinvent the RSS reader instead of something new or fun.
posted by Scram at 7:43 AM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
Do any of the GR alternatives show only feeds with unread or newly posted items and not display those feeds without?
Yes, Digg does that. Specifically, I have my main page that shows me all unread items sorted newest first.
posted by jeather at 8:02 AM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yes, Digg does that. Specifically, I have my main page that shows me all unread items sorted newest first.
posted by jeather at 8:02 AM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
I set up tt-rss on a paid server off in a cloud somewhere - it wasn't that hard to do - and I've been pretty happy with it. It does most of what I liked about google reader, though it's a bit slower and clunkier. (I think it covers most of what Scram wants.) Its web interface doesn't work well on an iphone or an ipad 1, but (with a little bit more work to install a plugin) it can act as a server for Reeder on iphone and Mr. Reader on ipad.
As it turns out, tt-rss supports multiple users right out of the box, so if any of you want to try it out for a week or two, send me a mefi-mail and I'll make an account for you. Disclaimers: This is a short term thing just for checking it out; please don't import more than a few dozen feeds; I can't give any tech support because I barely understand it myself; it could lose all your feeds or insult your dog at any time; I have it set to update feeds every 3 hours so don't blame the software for 3-hour delays!
posted by moonmilk at 8:04 AM on July 28, 2013
As it turns out, tt-rss supports multiple users right out of the box, so if any of you want to try it out for a week or two, send me a mefi-mail and I'll make an account for you. Disclaimers: This is a short term thing just for checking it out; please don't import more than a few dozen feeds; I can't give any tech support because I barely understand it myself; it could lose all your feeds or insult your dog at any time; I have it set to update feeds every 3 hours so don't blame the software for 3-hour delays!
posted by moonmilk at 8:04 AM on July 28, 2013
This is why I didn't choose The Old Reader. I liked the service a lot and the people running it, but when you've got a huge influx of users at the same time as one of your devs has to leave the project, then it's never going to be easy.
I wish them all the best, but they really need to get a business model asap, not "we're working on one" like it's been for a long time.
Feedly doesn't have a business model either, as far as I can tell, but to me it looks like the kind of thing where "advertising", "promoted feeds" and "suggestions based on your history" will crop up in the near future.
It's a largely hit-and-miss affair. I chose Feed Wrangler, a paid service, but despite the developer being a nice guy with some decent history in app development, there's no real way of knowing if the RSS service will crash and burn and I'll be out of pocket as well as out of an RSS service.
posted by milkb0at at 8:29 AM on July 28, 2013
I wish them all the best, but they really need to get a business model asap, not "we're working on one" like it's been for a long time.
Feedly doesn't have a business model either, as far as I can tell, but to me it looks like the kind of thing where "advertising", "promoted feeds" and "suggestions based on your history" will crop up in the near future.
It's a largely hit-and-miss affair. I chose Feed Wrangler, a paid service, but despite the developer being a nice guy with some decent history in app development, there's no real way of knowing if the RSS service will crash and burn and I'll be out of pocket as well as out of an RSS service.
posted by milkb0at at 8:29 AM on July 28, 2013
So, what's the best way to view Theoldreader on an iPhone/iPad?
posted by box at 10:50 AM on July 28, 2013
posted by box at 10:50 AM on July 28, 2013
Feedly's interface does indeed suck, but it seems to be the one that has the best chance of surviving long-term based on client support. The Old Reader seems nice if you're using the web interface and the social stuff, but I haven't seen as many client options.
Sadly, the only OSX Feedly client I've found is ReadKit, but I really don't like the three-column horizontal interface, and since it's App Store only, I can't try it out to see if it's worth using anyway. NetNewsWire has been my go-to OSX RSS client for many years now, but so far, their newer versions don't support any kind of syncing, and they've been notoriously slow rolling out updates in recent years, so who knows when it'll support one of these services.
It's just a real bad time for us RSS addicts, between the Readerpocalypse and so many content providers removing full article text from their feeds.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:56 AM on July 28, 2013
Sadly, the only OSX Feedly client I've found is ReadKit, but I really don't like the three-column horizontal interface, and since it's App Store only, I can't try it out to see if it's worth using anyway. NetNewsWire has been my go-to OSX RSS client for many years now, but so far, their newer versions don't support any kind of syncing, and they've been notoriously slow rolling out updates in recent years, so who knows when it'll support one of these services.
It's just a real bad time for us RSS addicts, between the Readerpocalypse and so many content providers removing full article text from their feeds.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:56 AM on July 28, 2013
This is why I like Newsblur: there's a serious business model. I can pay a latte a month and have a much higher degree of confidence that a service I use every day won't fail or become exploitative due to a revenue crunch.
This is particularly true for something like an RSS reader where the service is complicated and expensive to run — remember when e.g. NNW would bring any desktop to it's knees? — but the costs don't scale linearly, making it impossible to build your own service for anywhere remotely close to the same cost even if you do happen to have the skills.
posted by adamsc at 2:03 PM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
This is particularly true for something like an RSS reader where the service is complicated and expensive to run — remember when e.g. NNW would bring any desktop to it's knees? — but the costs don't scale linearly, making it impossible to build your own service for anywhere remotely close to the same cost even if you do happen to have the skills.
posted by adamsc at 2:03 PM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
I like newsblur but if you read the support forum for any length of time you start to see that the dev is often pretty frustrated.
posted by subbes at 3:05 PM on July 28, 2013
posted by subbes at 3:05 PM on July 28, 2013
I think Newsblur's dev could be a little clearer about what the limitations of the product he's offering is, and that would go a long way. That said, there do seem to be a lot of people who think he's a major corporation and can solve any problem in minutes, instead of just one guy.
The thing I like best about Newblur is that you CAN get full text of truncated articles with just one keystroke. Makes a huge deal to me.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:07 PM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
The thing I like best about Newblur is that you CAN get full text of truncated articles with just one keystroke. Makes a huge deal to me.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:07 PM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
Oh hey, I remember I imported to Old Reader a couple weeks ago. I checked today and all my feeds are there, and that's cool.
But, is there a way for the Instapaper "Read Later" button to take an open RSS article in Reader and put it in Instapaper. I tried that just now and it didn't work. Or is there another RSS reader that can do that?
posted by FJT at 4:07 PM on July 28, 2013
But, is there a way for the Instapaper "Read Later" button to take an open RSS article in Reader and put it in Instapaper. I tried that just now and it didn't work. Or is there another RSS reader that can do that?
posted by FJT at 4:07 PM on July 28, 2013
Thirding or fourthing InoReader. It's clean, simple, and straightforward.
posted by bryon at 6:16 PM on July 28, 2013
posted by bryon at 6:16 PM on July 28, 2013
box - the iOS app they recommend for Old Reader is called "Feeddler". I've been using it and it's not terrible. It's someone limited at the moment by the functionality in the Old Reader API, but they've promised more is coming.
posted by web-goddess at 7:52 PM on July 28, 2013
posted by web-goddess at 7:52 PM on July 28, 2013
Thirding or fourthing InoReader. It's clean, simple, and straightforward.
Damn, but thanks for the recommendation of Inoreader, which I hadn't heard of, but just imported my feeds to tonight. It is looking great, though apparently no iPad app yet.
posted by anothermug at 10:07 PM on July 28, 2013
Damn, but thanks for the recommendation of Inoreader, which I hadn't heard of, but just imported my feeds to tonight. It is looking great, though apparently no iPad app yet.
posted by anothermug at 10:07 PM on July 28, 2013
The Old Reader just announced that they're going into 'Private Mode' and kicking out most users who signed up after the Google Reader diaspora. Time to check out some of the other options in this thread...
posted by Gortuk at 11:23 AM on July 29, 2013
posted by Gortuk at 11:23 AM on July 29, 2013
Heh, I was coming back to this thread to post that too.
I have the "you're not in the club" banner at the top of my Old Reader page:
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:39 AM on July 29, 2013 [2 favorites]
I have the "you're not in the club" banner at the top of my Old Reader page:
We have disabled user registration at The Old Reader, and we might be making the website private. If we do, unfortunately your account will not be transferred to the private site, so you might want to export your subscriptions as OPML and start looking for an alternative solution. More details are in available in our blog: http://blog.theoldreader.comProbably for the best; the blog makes it sound like running The Old Reader post-Reader-shutdown has been a never-ending nightmare.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:39 AM on July 29, 2013 [2 favorites]
Damn, those jerks gave me the boot!
Ah well, it looks like there are other options at least. Seriously a bummer though, this is the only one I've tried that works well with the 'mark as unread' and starring feature.
posted by Think_Long at 11:45 AM on July 29, 2013
Ah well, it looks like there are other options at least. Seriously a bummer though, this is the only one I've tried that works well with the 'mark as unread' and starring feature.
posted by Think_Long at 11:45 AM on July 29, 2013
I'm heaving a huge sigh over here. That was an intense read! (And now I need to migrate all over again...)
posted by mynameisluka at 11:47 AM on July 29, 2013
posted by mynameisluka at 11:47 AM on July 29, 2013
Bold move from the Old Reader, I like it. Also honorably done: "You will have two weeks to export your OPML file regardless of our decision". It's a shame they aren't able to turn those users into something profitable for the product, but they're quite clear about how they think about the Old Reader as a business.
posted by Nelson at 11:48 AM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 11:48 AM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
FYI, AOL Reader gets all pissy if you block any content, and gives you a blank screen.
posted by scruss at 12:34 PM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by scruss at 12:34 PM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
The Old Reader just announced that they're going into 'Private Mode' and kicking out most users who signed up after the Google Reader diaspora. Time to check out some of the other options in this thread...
Hmm. I suppose I should feel good than I sent them five (very hard-earned) dollars back when Google announced they were dropping Reader, meaning I'll probably be among those grandfathered in to the private site. Still, though, it's sucky. Not sucky of them -- just, sucky, generally, part of the Atmosphere Of Suck.
It's not that I don't begrudge them their vacations. It's that running a popular site is very hard. They're to be commended for doing it for free for so long. But....
Well, not everyone has $5 to spare. In fact I almost never do. I look at the particular alternate universe me who both didn't contribute, who couldn't contribute, and who had settled on The Old Reader as his Google Reader replacement.
I guess what I'm saying is, once again, Google can go to hell.
posted by JHarris at 12:52 PM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
Hmm. I suppose I should feel good than I sent them five (very hard-earned) dollars back when Google announced they were dropping Reader, meaning I'll probably be among those grandfathered in to the private site. Still, though, it's sucky. Not sucky of them -- just, sucky, generally, part of the Atmosphere Of Suck.
It's not that I don't begrudge them their vacations. It's that running a popular site is very hard. They're to be commended for doing it for free for so long. But....
Well, not everyone has $5 to spare. In fact I almost never do. I look at the particular alternate universe me who both didn't contribute, who couldn't contribute, and who had settled on The Old Reader as his Google Reader replacement.
I guess what I'm saying is, once again, Google can go to hell.
posted by JHarris at 12:52 PM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
I learned about this via meme. I'm so glad I didn't sign up for them, I'd have been pissed. It's free, but that would have royally sucked.
posted by cashman at 1:28 PM on July 29, 2013
posted by cashman at 1:28 PM on July 29, 2013
That livememe is wrong in about 3 different ways: 1) they didn't create a special way to import your google content - they offered the same OPML import as all the other knockoffs looking to suck users from Google Reader, 2) it's not too late to get your content back out of old reader, and 3) they aren't de facto scumbags for shutting down.
posted by mattbucher at 1:36 PM on July 29, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by mattbucher at 1:36 PM on July 29, 2013 [5 favorites]
Huh. I'm in the "migrate" group it seems, but I didn't donate. I only heard about them when mathowie tweeted it as a possible Google Reader alternative. I wonder how I got chosen? I have talked it up a fair bit online... I can't decide whether to stay or go. The social aspects were what I liked most, and booting most of the users will kill the utility of that.
Funny how things like this still make me rage at Google. I know someone who works there, and a few weeks ago at the movies he pointed out the guy who made the "we're killing Reader" announcement. It was all I could do not to throw popcorn at the back of his head all night.
posted by web-goddess at 2:17 PM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
Funny how things like this still make me rage at Google. I know someone who works there, and a few weeks ago at the movies he pointed out the guy who made the "we're killing Reader" announcement. It was all I could do not to throw popcorn at the back of his head all night.
posted by web-goddess at 2:17 PM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
FYI, if you subscribe through Flatter to the Old Reader, you get the coveted green bar ...
posted by scruss at 2:27 PM on July 29, 2013
posted by scruss at 2:27 PM on July 29, 2013
Hmm. I suppose I should feel good than I sent them five (very hard-earned) dollars back when Google announced they were dropping Reader
FYI, if you subscribe through Flatter to the Old Reader, you get the coveted green bar ...
I once gave them $100, but I still I get the red bar of death. I've switched to Inoreader anyway, and I wonder how coveted Old Reader's service will ever be anyway.
posted by anothermug at 3:06 PM on July 29, 2013
FYI, if you subscribe through Flatter to the Old Reader, you get the coveted green bar ...
I once gave them $100, but I still I get the red bar of death. I've switched to Inoreader anyway, and I wonder how coveted Old Reader's service will ever be anyway.
posted by anothermug at 3:06 PM on July 29, 2013
I am back on the green list! (They were nice about it: problem was that my Old Reader email is different from my PayPal email.)
posted by anothermug at 5:43 PM on July 29, 2013
posted by anothermug at 5:43 PM on July 29, 2013
> … if you subscribe through Flatter
I meant Flattr, of course.
posted by scruss at 6:40 PM on July 29, 2013
I meant Flattr, of course.
posted by scruss at 6:40 PM on July 29, 2013
Sad to see some of the negative reactions to the decision to go private. A tough call, well handled in my view. While I was, and still am, mightily annoyed with Google for killing their Reader, I can't blame these people for making a choice that suits them and their priorities. Google makes money from us, its users, can't say the same for the Old Reader crowd. They owe us nothing.
I checked on Old Reader and unsurprisingly I have the red bar. However I had moved off Old Reader to Feedly, and are now on InoReader. I am still feeling lost and haven't settled on a RSS reader, but I don't hold a grudge towards Old Reader. As I say, a tough call for them and good on them for making the call they did.
posted by vac2003 at 8:48 PM on July 29, 2013
I checked on Old Reader and unsurprisingly I have the red bar. However I had moved off Old Reader to Feedly, and are now on InoReader. I am still feeling lost and haven't settled on a RSS reader, but I don't hold a grudge towards Old Reader. As I say, a tough call for them and good on them for making the call they did.
posted by vac2003 at 8:48 PM on July 29, 2013
You guys seem to taking it quite well. I'm a bit disappointed, as I took an unscheduled hiatus from RSS both because Google Reader was shutting down and because of stuff going on in my life. Now that I've caught up, I do wish I was given a chance to provide support for the Old Reader. Especially since I know two friends that are on it (though I'm not sure if they are red or green users).
posted by FJT at 12:02 AM on July 30, 2013
posted by FJT at 12:02 AM on July 30, 2013
Ah, it turns out the site I contributed the $5 to was CommaFeed, not theoldreader. I was mistaken above.
posted by JHarris at 12:22 AM on July 30, 2013
posted by JHarris at 12:22 AM on July 30, 2013
"In a blog post, the team behind the RSS reading web app said that they are giving up development on the product because they're simply exhausted from building the product"
Exhausted? Man.
posted by bdz at 12:37 AM on July 30, 2013
Exhausted? Man.
posted by bdz at 12:37 AM on July 30, 2013
I don't really fault them personally, but this is something that kind of bothers me about these sorts of web services in general. They obviously had some money coming in. They could have come up with other ways to get even more money coming in. But they allowed X new signups--without seeming to have actually expanded the team maintaining the website much, if at all. Lots of services seem, to my eye, have done similar: Grow! Grow! Grow! Wait, too big, collapse!
If you're working nonstop for months, you need to either stop allowing new (free) logins or to really genuinely start working on getting some new income in to pay for actual employees to delegate some of that work to. I understand not having a team of a hundred right off the bat, but two? Two people? What was it, something like 80k daily users, and income as of mid-June was not sufficient to pay "several hundred Euros" per month of hosting costs. But they were still taking new registrations. Talk about an Underpants Gnomes kind of business model.
But I'm pretty happy with Feedly so far, at least.
posted by Sequence at 1:16 AM on July 30, 2013
If you're working nonstop for months, you need to either stop allowing new (free) logins or to really genuinely start working on getting some new income in to pay for actual employees to delegate some of that work to. I understand not having a team of a hundred right off the bat, but two? Two people? What was it, something like 80k daily users, and income as of mid-June was not sufficient to pay "several hundred Euros" per month of hosting costs. But they were still taking new registrations. Talk about an Underpants Gnomes kind of business model.
But I'm pretty happy with Feedly so far, at least.
posted by Sequence at 1:16 AM on July 30, 2013
If you're working nonstop for months, you need to either stop allowing new (free) logins or to really genuinely start working on getting some new income in to pay for actual employees to delegate some of that work to. I understand not having a team of a hundred right off the bat, but two? Two people? What was it, something like 80k daily users, and income as of mid-June was not sufficient to pay "several hundred Euros" per month of hosting costs. But they were still taking new registrations. Talk about an Underpants Gnomes kind of business model.
From what I can tell, it wasn't a business model because it wasn't a business. They made TOR for themselves and their friends. When they got inundated with people it got larger to maintain than they wanted to deal with, so they're going back to its original purpose. They tried to accommodate the influx and realized that to do so would require them to be a business, so they had to make a decision, and they opted not to make this their full-time job. I can totally respect that.
posted by Legomancer at 5:38 AM on July 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
From what I can tell, it wasn't a business model because it wasn't a business. They made TOR for themselves and their friends. When they got inundated with people it got larger to maintain than they wanted to deal with, so they're going back to its original purpose. They tried to accommodate the influx and realized that to do so would require them to be a business, so they had to make a decision, and they opted not to make this their full-time job. I can totally respect that.
posted by Legomancer at 5:38 AM on July 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
"UPD: We have received a number of proposals that we are discussing right now. Chances are high that public The Old Reader will live after all"
You are tearing me apart, OldReader!!
posted by curious.jp at 6:01 AM on July 30, 2013
You are tearing me apart, OldReader!!
posted by curious.jp at 6:01 AM on July 30, 2013
UPD: We have received a number of proposals that we are discussing right now. Chances are high that public The Old Reader will live after all
Seriously. I am trying to learn to be a grownup about free things suddenly changing or vanishing and was all "Okay I will close my account then." which I did last night. Then this! But then, hey, I can sign up for an account again. Hey! It's like it never happened.
posted by jessamyn at 8:54 AM on July 30, 2013
Seriously. I am trying to learn to be a grownup about free things suddenly changing or vanishing and was all "Okay I will close my account then." which I did last night. Then this! But then, hey, I can sign up for an account again. Hey! It's like it never happened.
posted by jessamyn at 8:54 AM on July 30, 2013
I don't really fault them personally, but this is something that kind of bothers me about these sorts of web services in general. They obviously had some money coming in. They could have come up with other ways to get even more money coming in. But they allowed X new signups--without seeming to have actually expanded the team maintaining the website much, if at all.
I suspect it was more of a boiling-the-frog situation: they managed to stay just ahead of the demand curve even across both the Google Reader announcement and the shutdown itself, and maybe that gave them a false sense of "we've got this under control". But then the botched storage migration finally made them realize how precarious it all was.
(Also: the blog speaks mostly to the technical issues of scaling, but the flip side of that growth is that customer support demands scale with it. My guess is they got a lot of nasty email/tweets/comments during the outages and maybe that also factored into their "to hell with this" decision.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:13 AM on July 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
I suspect it was more of a boiling-the-frog situation: they managed to stay just ahead of the demand curve even across both the Google Reader announcement and the shutdown itself, and maybe that gave them a false sense of "we've got this under control". But then the botched storage migration finally made them realize how precarious it all was.
(Also: the blog speaks mostly to the technical issues of scaling, but the flip side of that growth is that customer support demands scale with it. My guess is they got a lot of nasty email/tweets/comments during the outages and maybe that also factored into their "to hell with this" decision.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:13 AM on July 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
It's a lot easier to be sanguine about a couple of guys deciding to close off their hobby web service that blows up unexpectedly than when Google does it. Also, now there's a lot more alternatives to go to for web-based RSS reading, so it's not so disastrous. Whatever happens, I wish them well.
posted by JHarris at 8:50 PM on July 30, 2013
posted by JHarris at 8:50 PM on July 30, 2013
... aaaand now they're saying that they're "... quite confident [emphasis mine] that public The Old Reader will be available in the future, now with a proper team running it."
agh, I just got Feedly set up to my liking.
posted by mon-ma-tron at 10:10 AM on July 31, 2013
agh, I just got Feedly set up to my liking.
posted by mon-ma-tron at 10:10 AM on July 31, 2013
Moving forward from here, I think I might just maintain two RSS setups simultaneously.
posted by box at 10:24 AM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by box at 10:24 AM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
There are plenty of options now, each with their own advantages: CommaFeed, Feedly, AOL Reader, Digg Reader, and those are the ones that just leap to mind. After all, if Google let us down, we should probably be careful not to rely on one service for this in the future. Although it sucks a bit that read articles won't be mirrored between different sites.
posted by JHarris at 12:20 PM on July 31, 2013
posted by JHarris at 12:20 PM on July 31, 2013
Moving forward from here, I think I might just maintain two RSS setups simultaneously.
I've been going back and forth between Feedly and Old Reader today to compare, and Feedly is posting updates sooner. Not that it makes a huge difference when most of my feeds are comics, sewing, food, home dec/improvement, and Dogshaming — but I could see it being problematic for someone who needs to keep on top of breaking news or something.
posted by mon-ma-tron at 1:02 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
I've been going back and forth between Feedly and Old Reader today to compare, and Feedly is posting updates sooner. Not that it makes a huge difference when most of my feeds are comics, sewing, food, home dec/improvement, and Dogshaming — but I could see it being problematic for someone who needs to keep on top of breaking news or something.
posted by mon-ma-tron at 1:02 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I've been keeping Inoreader in my back pocket.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:33 PM on July 31, 2013
posted by Chrysostom at 2:33 PM on July 31, 2013
Moving forward from here, I think I might just maintain two RSS setups simultaneously.
Yeah, I basically joined and imported my feeds to ALL the free RSS services in the month before Google Reader was euthanised—and saved a copy of the XML file to my desktop just in case. I'm using Feedly for the moment, but it seemed prudent to spread my bets.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:16 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I basically joined and imported my feeds to ALL the free RSS services in the month before Google Reader was euthanised—and saved a copy of the XML file to my desktop just in case. I'm using Feedly for the moment, but it seemed prudent to spread my bets.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:16 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
AOL Reader turned to crap on me. Despite the fix pushed out on 8/1, articles are hopelessly out of order.
posted by mullacc at 7:01 AM on August 5, 2013
posted by mullacc at 7:01 AM on August 5, 2013
So can you search your feeds with The Old Reader? And can you get in now? Feedly just announced $5 a month if you want to be able to search your feeds. They also have a $99 lifetime subscription for the first 5,000.
One of the commenters makes the point that I was thinking. How could I ever think that lifetime even means anything. I wouldn't have thought google reader would be gone. And 10 years from now, even 5 years from now in 2018, rss may be completely obsolete.
posted by cashman at 7:29 AM on August 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
One of the commenters makes the point that I was thinking. How could I ever think that lifetime even means anything. I wouldn't have thought google reader would be gone. And 10 years from now, even 5 years from now in 2018, rss may be completely obsolete.
posted by cashman at 7:29 AM on August 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
I wonder what percentage of people who bought those $150 lifetime paid LiveJournal accounts still use the service.
posted by box at 7:39 AM on August 5, 2013
posted by box at 7:39 AM on August 5, 2013
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posted by Ad hominem at 6:07 PM on July 27, 2013