Comments on: Get Your Google Reader Fix Natively

By: NetNewsWire for OS X and iPhone Officially Released

NetNewsWire for OS X and iPhone Officially Released — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:19:50 +0000

[...] functionality that was missing from the initial beta. On the OS X platform there are now a few options brewing for native Google Reader support, providing healthy competition in this area which we all benefit [...]

By: Alfredo Padilla

Alfredo Padilla — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:51:09 +0000

When I mentioned the talk of the death of RSS I was referring to those who think that crowd-sourced news streams like Twitter give you a more relevant collection of news than traditional sources. Although I certainly use Twitter I don’t find the wisdom of the crowds to be particularly wise, and thus I’d rather have curated information from trusted sources come to me via RSS than something like Twitter trends.

By: yamahito

yamahito — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:20:15 +0000

When people say ‘RSS is dead’ they’re talking about file formats, not syndication feeds.

They’re talking about more feeds being based on Atom rather than RSS. Feeds are going to be with us for a long time – maybe even longer than web pages?

By: Eideard

Eideard — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:07:32 +0000

I’ve used the RSS aggregator built-in in Safari for years. Though I preferred V.1.0, it’s still the simplest and easiest to adjust.

By: Edwin Khodabakchian

Edwin Khodabakchian — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:57:11 +0000

Please let me know if you have any questions about feedly (www.feedly.com)

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:40:07 +0000

Add me to the list of people confused by the claims of the death of RSS. I realize there are other, newer, trendier ways to get news on the web now, but none of them seem nearly as efficient to me.

Twitter? I use it, but definitely not for anything remotely approaching what I use RSS for. I follow specific people for their opinions and for interesting links they post. However, they don’t even approach anything close to keeping up on blogs and current events.

Facebook? Hardly useful for anything more than personal communication and social interaction for me. I don’t have a huge list of friends on there though. Knowing what bands or brands are doing via “fan pages” updating to my feed is useful, but again, limited.

Friendfeed? Meh. I can’t even figure out the point of it, frankly.

Besides these three, and similar services, what exactly has risen to replace RSS?

More on target to the article, I love NetNewsWire, and was excited to see Google Reader integration. I more often read my feeds on a Windows PC at work, and I can’t install anything, so FeedDemon (the Windows equivalent of NNW) is out, and I was getting really sick of using NewsGator (the former web equivalent of NNW) due to it being slow and buggy. However, in my experience with the beta of NNW with GReader integration, I’ve found it to behave a bit strange. It wouldn’t sync the read/unread status correctly, and I didn’t see any starring or other “advanced” GReader features. I’ll have to look again, though. Perhaps a new beta has come out since I first tried it.

By: Josh Pigford

Josh Pigford — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:49:40 +0000

But the key there is NewsFire has no syncing with Google Reader…so it’s inherently limited to being consumed in one place. With something that syncs with Google Reader you can consume it anywhere with an internet connection and with any app that has syncing built in (or just use the Google Reader website).

I think it’s ultimately just about options, though I definitely agree that from a UI/UX standpoint, NewsFire takes the cake.

By: Redza Ali

Redza Ali — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:32:34 +0000

RSS is not dead, and Google Reader rocks. To those with opposite views, I’m curious how you stay current and manage feeds/information. Really.

By: loop

loop — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:56:25 +0000

Try Feedly (Firefox only) – it is the best Google reader interface you can get
http://www.feedly.com

By: Enmanuel Rivera

Enmanuel Rivera — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:16:20 +0000

RSS is dead. Long live RSS!

Whenever a new and more exciting technology comes along the technology it is said to replace is immediately pronounced dead. May I remind everyone that snail mail and faxes are still in heavy usage?

Mr. Padilla, have you had a chance to play around with Times? http://www.acrylicapps.com/times/

It has a very different form factor and presentation as the classic desktop RSS readers. I was on an RSS hiatus, and this app was the one that brought me back. May not be as featureful as the other apps which you presented, but keep in mind 80% of the users use 20 of the features, and in apple land, usability and presentation are much more important than in other contexts of software.

By: wendell

wendell — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:44:54 +0000

i’m curious, who said that rss is dying? i get all my news this way. i’ve been doing it for years and i wouldn’t know how to keep on top of as many subjects as i do without rss.

i’d say that netnewswire is a great desktop rss reader. i’d try newsfire but the developer is a jerk.

nice peice..

By: David Klein

David Klein — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:53:19 +0000

This is EXACTLY what I do. Perfect experience.

By: Soapbox440

Soapbox440 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:45:41 +0000

I’m a huge fan of NewsFire too. tried most others but keep coming back to it.

By: Galley

Galley — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:58:59 +0000

I tried NetNewsWire, but it was nowhere near as slick as NewsFire.

By: TCHe

TCHe — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:29:07 +0000

Guess I’m simple. I’m using Safari to access Google Reader and ReaderNotifier sits in my menu bar. That’s all I nee.

On my iPhone I use Safari as well and even like the mobile version of Google Reader better than the “regular” one.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:26:42 +0000

I use Google Reader using Fluid which creates site-specific browsers. It even displays in the dock the number of unread items. I have a userscript that changes the style of the site – currently using Helvetireader at the moment but you can use any compatible Userscripts.