Mobile updates

Today Feedly is rolling out a new version of Feedly Mobile, with improved discovery, search and sharing features, for iOS and Android devices. Users can search over 50 million feeds and can browse by topic. “The more you use Feedly to search, categorize and follow your favorite feeds, the better our search and discovery will become,” the company writes in its blog post announcing the changes. There’s also a new Must-Reads section. These same search and discovery features will be added to Feedly’s Chrome, Firefox and Safari apps later today.

For former Google Reader users, Feedly has added a new title-only view to its mobile apps “to make scanning of headlines more efficient” (and more similar to Google Reader’s condensed view). The company had already added that list view to its web apps.

Finally, there are some new sharing options on mobile: In addition to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, mobile users can now share to Google+ and Buffer (a site that manages sharing to multiple social networking services) and can save articles to Pocket and Instapaper. Those features were already available on Feedly’s web versions.

What’s next: A paid premium version and a service for publishers

Cofounder Moutran told me in an email that “a significant proportion” of its users say they’d be willing to pay for Feedly. The company plans to launch a premium, subscription-based version of the service later this year. It will include features like better Evernote and Dropbox integration.

In addition, Moutran said, the company sees Feedly as a “marketplace that facilitates the discovery, consumption and sharing of great content…We have been working with publishers, and intend to offer an easy way for our users to discover, purchase and access premium content.”

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Everyone has a device, sometimes multiple devices. It’s been a long time since we have had this rate of change—it probably hasn’t happened since the birth of personal computing 40 years ago. To make the most of these opportunities, we need to focus—otherwise we spread ourselves too thin and lack impact. So today we’re announcing some more closures, bringing the total to 70 features or services closed since our spring cleaning began in 2011

The other projects that are being euthanized include Google Voice for Blackberry, Calendar API, Snapseed for desktop, Search API for shopping and others. However, it is the loss of Google Reader that is going to impact a lot of people — especially those of us who actually love using RSS feeds to plow through hundreds of feeds. I use it in combination with Reeder app on my iPad, iPhone and Macbook Pro to stay on top of the technology world.

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

I take issue with Urs’ comments about usage declining. It declined because the company put no resources into the product and took away social features that made it useful for many. It was a project that was orphaned because it didn’t fit into Google’s vision of a machine-driven reading experience. Despite minimal resources devoted to it, Google Reader was one of the better apps built by the Mountain View, Calif.-based company.

It is probably my second-most used Google service — after GMail — and I have always been befuddled by Google’s lack of desire to make Google Reader into a bigger reading platform. It could and it still can evolve into a Flipboard type service, but that would mean that Google would have to put resources and some real creative thought into Reader.

I wish they would reconsider this decision or, better yet, release the project into the open-source community so that someone can build a follow-on product.

Update: Folks from Feed.ly are offering an option for all of us left at the altar by Google’s decisions.

Google announced today that they will be shutting down Google Reader. This is something we have been expecting for some time: 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 Normandie back end. So if you are a Google Reader user and using feedly, you are covered: the transition will be seamless.

A Feedly spokesperson tells us:

Our goal is to have the API be identical to the Google Reader un-official API. So any client which plugs in to the API should be to easily migrate to Normandy. There are just a few things around authentication and ordering of categories and feeds which might be different.

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In March, the New York-based Betaworks-backed startup, which raised $1 million in seed funding this summer, released its first mobile app on iOS. But even co-founder and CEO Mattias Swenson acknowledges that it was “pretty bad.”

“It was more of a mobile shell,” he said. Swenson and his co-founders launched it to give users of the website – which initially targeted fashion enthusiasts – some way to follow their favorite bloggers on the go. But it only surfaced a limited amount of content and didn’t support any social interaction.

Over the past few months, however, in response to feedback from users (via comments and surveys), the startup has released a series of ongoing updates and, earlier this month, pushed its most complete version yet.  In the past ten days, Swenson said, the app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times and averages a five-star rating in Apple’s App Store. The startup said it has more than 1.8 million members who follow more than 4 million blogs on the site.

The new app lets users view mobile-optimized versions of the most recent blog posts in their feed, and it lets them access mobile versions of other content from those blogs. It also plays up discovery by displaying the most popular posts in every category (from food to fashion to interior design) and lets users “like” content from the app.

Paul Murphy, Betaworks’ Entrepreneur-in-Residence and former Aviary COO, said Bloglovin’s approach to developing for mobile was unusual relative to other Betaworks startups.  Most companies have a clear product roadmap and release their app once it’s mostly baked (or after a few beta tests), but he said Bloglovin continually and quickly iterated in response to user feedback.

Taking the latter approach can be a bit risky because users might not return to an app if they had a poor first experience. But Bloglovin’s success seems to speak to the strength of its community and the depth of their engagement – which is one of the reasons Betaworks has said it was interested in Bloglovin from the beginning.

Swenson said their app ambitions are still just 10 percent of what they want them to be – they plan to build out the iOS app, as well as expand to Android and launch an iPad app, in the coming year. Since taking their investment this summer, he also said that they’ve added two engineers in Sweden (which is where he and his co-founders first launched the company) and a marketing head in New York.

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For all the talk of social media services like Twitter and Facebook replacing RSS, I still find it to be the best way to get news quickly and efficiently, and it seems like Mac developers agree. A quick look at the Mac App Store shows quite a few RSS reader options, but here’s a look at three of the best: Reeder, NetNewsWire Lite, and Pulp.

Reeder ($9.99)

Reeder started its life as an iPhone app, got an iPad upgrade, and now finally has come to the Mac. This evolution helps explain why it looks and works like a Lion app already: It has fade-in scrollbars, multitouch gestures, and there’s even an option for monochrome sidebar icons, just like those found in the new Lion Finder.

Reeder only syncs with Google Reader, so you’ll have to set up a Google account if you want to use it. However, Reeder’s integration with Google’s web app is stellar. The keyboard shortcuts are exactly the same, and you can manage your Google subscriptions within Reeder by deleting feeds, adding new ones, or making folders. Sharing, starring, and noting articles can also be done in Reeder.

Reeder can share articles with numerous third-party services, including Twitter, Instapaper, ReadItLater, Readability, Pinboard, Delicious, and Zootool. Services can be individually disabled as desired, and you can add shortcuts for each in the toolbar.

Reeder offers a bevy of other customization options as well. You can change its appearance by choosing from two presets: one that looks like Reeder for iPhone, and another that uses standard OS X colors. These presets can be customized with a unique slider system, allowing fine-grain control over the UI. Keyboard shortcuts, multitouch gestures, and third-party services can also be customized to your heart’s content.

Reeder is a good app for power users and general users alike. It offers a lot of options, so power users can get their fix, but the interface is simple enough that new users should figure it out quickly. Since Reeder is also available for iOS, it’s a good choice for users with multiple Apple devices, since the Google Reader sync ensures your feeds and read items will be synced across platforms.

NetNewsWire Lite (Free)

Unlike newcomers Reeder and Pulp, NetNewsWire has been around since 2002, when OS X was still learning how to walk. Don’t assume that the app feels out-of-touch because it’s older, though. The latest release is a complete rewrite, and according to Brent Simmons, the developer, it’s the “best code I’ve ever done, by far.”

NetNewsWire has a more traditional interface than Reeder or Pulp, but it’s no more difficult to use, and it still looks great. It doesn’t sync with Google Reader, so all feeds are managed locally. The lack of Google sync could be a dealbreaker for some, but you can import and export your subscriptions in OPML, something Reeder can’t do.

Article Styles let you change the way articles look.

Another thing NNW has that Reeder lacks is Article Styles, which are six pre-defined CSS style-sheets that change how an article is displayed. You can customize these style-sheets, but it involves messing around in the app’s Resources folder, so it’s not exactly easy.

NNW has many limitations. It can only share articles with Twitter, Instapaper, and MarsEdit (a blogging app). It isn’t very customizable beyond moving buttons around and hiding the toolbar. It’s also 64-bit only, so it won’t run on older Macs with Core Duo processors. But if you just need a cheap, no-frills RSS reader, NetNewsWire Lite is your app. The little it does, it does well, and for free. It’s also worth pointing out that NNW is in a transition period, having been acquired by Black Pixel, and a more full-featured version should come out eventually.

Pulp ($9.99)

Pulp is relatively unknown compared to the other two apps mentioned, but it was recently featured in the Mac App Store. Rather than competing on features, Pulp’s big strength is its interface, which mimics a newspaper. It’s organized by pages and columns; each page can have multiple columns, and each column can have multiple RSS feeds.

Pulp is very easy to use, and offers a good alternative to using folders to sort content. However, the newspaper-like organization is less practical for users with lots of RSS feeds. I’ve had upwards of 4,000 unread articles in a single refresh, and the thought of trying to sort through that many with this interface is daunting.

Another unique UI element of Pulp is the Shelf, a wood-themed drawer that you can drag articles into for later reading. It isn’t going to replace Instapaper for power users, but for the average user, it works. Speaking of Instapaper, Pulp has it as an integrated service sharing option, as well as Facebook, Twitter, ReadItLater, and Readability. That’s not as many options as Reeder provides, but it should be enough to keep most users happy.

Like NetNewsWire, Pulp doesn’t sync with Google Reader, but it does have its own syncing implementation called Pulp Sync. Setup was painless, and worked as advertised on multiple Macs, even preserving my custom column configuration.

Pulp's article view wastes a lot of space.

The one thing I have to complain about in Pulp is how articles are displayed. There’s a huge chunk of wasted space devoted to displaying a reflection of the app’s main screen below the article. Clicking on the reflection brings you back to the main screen, but a simple back button would have sufficed. I’m not sure why the developer thought this was a good idea, and it’s disconcerting that it’s still there, since the app has already seen multiple updates.

Which RSS reader do you like the best? Is there one that isn’t on this list that’s better than these options? Tell us about it in the comments.

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We all want to keep up with the latest news and trends in our industry along with learning more about other areas of interest, like our hobbies. With only so many hours in the day, people often struggle with finding the information they need to be successful while not spending too much time sorting through massive quantities of data. Here are a few tips to help you whittle the information down from a fire hose to a trickle of only the most relevant content.

RSS Readers

If you don’t already use an RSS reader, you should find one, since this is the best way to get only the information that you want pushed to you while being able to easily see which posts you have read and which you have not. Google Reader and Netvibes are good places to start. For the rest of you who already use RSS, there are many ways to make it more effective.

Firstly, change the way you think about RSS; it’s more like a newspaper than email. If you fall behind on the daily newspaper, you aren’t going to keep trying to catch up and read papers that are months old. RSS is just like a newspaper, so don’t worry if you don’t get to everything, and don’t feel like you need to catch up. Right now, I have thousands of unread items in Google Reader, but I am OK with it. If that big number of unread items bothers you, simply take advantage of the “mark all as read” feature once a week if it makes you feel better or, better yet, use an RSS readers that lets you hide the number of unread items.

Secondly, do some pruning and get rid of the dead wood. Spend a couple of hours looking at which feeds give you the most value and get rid of the rest. If you are feeling overwhelmed and overloaded, you are probably oversubscribed. Some RSS readers even have tools to help you find feeds that you rarely read or are rarely updated.

Third, spend as little time as possible in your RSS reader by prioritizing your feeds. I use folders in Google Reader to group my feeds, and I put the most critical feeds right at the top. I make sure that I read through those high priority feeds first to spend more time on what I need to know while hopefully having some time left over to read a little extra. I also encourage you to learn the keyboard shortcuts for your RSS reader, since this can shorten your RSS reading time.

News Aggregation

While RSS readers are great for the things you know you want to read, they are not the best way to find new sources of information or news from unexpected sources; this is where news aggregators really excel. My favorite aggregator is Twitter Tim.es, since it takes the links from the people that I follow on Twitter and displays them in newspaper-like format, with the links that have been posted by more of my friends appearing as headlines on my Twitter Tim.es page. I also use Techmeme to find the topics that people are discussing online. Depending on your interests, you might be able to find other news aggregation sources focused on your areas of expertise.

Filtering

Filtering RSS feeds takes a little work, but it is worth it in the long run if it helps you find only the information on the topics that you want to see. While there are many filtering tools, my tool of choice is Yahoo Pipes. I use Yahoo Pipes to find out when people are talking about me or the topics that I am most interested in. For example, I have Pipes that comb through industry analyst feeds looking for a few specific keywords, which allows me to find the reports from analysts on those topics while ignoring the rest.

The best thing you can do to avoid overload is to stay focused on the most important information while not worrying about what you might be missing. If you can become more efficient at finding and consuming the right information for your needs, you can easily stay informed while minimizing the feeling of being overwhelmed. Read what you can and don’t stress about what you don’t have time to read.

What are your tips for managing content information overload?

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Photo by Flickr user See-ming Lee 李思明 SML, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license

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