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RSS
As many of you may know, Flipboard has started to become a pretty reliable RSS reader. Over the last year or so, it has continually added features and gotten better. In their last update, they added a feature that I thought was pretty neat and really gives the user a way to make Flipboard even better: Flipboard Magazines.
Not only that, but they also added a button you can add to your bookmark bar so that when you are surfing the web, you can add content to your magazine that you make. Then, you can tweak the magazine online to your heart’s content. It just might be the perfect way to share the stuff you love online.
When Google announced it would be shutting down its Reader service on July 1 of this year, it left many customers of the popular RSS service feeling stranded. Many of the most popular alternatives, such as Feedly and The Old Reader, have had to beef up server capacity and bandwidth.
Meanwhile, other company’s, such as Digg, are planning their own upstarts to fill the void. In the meantime, customers have some time to experiment with various services and decide on which they wish to land. One of the newest is CommaFeed, which aims to be a complete alternative to Google Reader, but can also do a whole lot more in addition to being a simple web app. (more…)
Google Reader’s imminent demise has left most of us scrambling to find a new feed reader that hits the spot for us. For developers who were planning new RSS reader apps, it’s been a bigger rush to the market than any of them could have predicted months ago. We’ve gone through tons of RSS apps over the past few weeks in our reviews, many of them brand new apps while others are older services that have matured and added features recently. RSS apps went from a stagnant market dominated by Google to a market of diverse, exciting apps of all shapes and sizes, which if anything is a good side effect for us all.
The latest feed reader on the block is Feed Wrangler, a project that’d already been in the works for several months prior to Google’s announcement and that’s now ready for use. It’s simpler to use than many feed readers, though also more geeky with ways to make your own dynamic feeds from the sites you’re subscribed to. Let’s take a look.
As much as we all were sent in shock and general frustration/unhappiness with Google when they decided to let us know they were pulling the plug on Reader, there definitely has been some good to come out of it. It has shed light on other apps that are out there for RSS and better yet, it has given developers the opportunity to create something different and better than what Reader was. It has given people the ability to take a step back, think about what was good about Reader, and then create something that builds on that legacy.
MultiPlx is one of those apps. It is taking things that were good about Google Reader and then adding another layer to – hopefully – make it better. Currently, it is in beta, but there are doing some good things to make me believe that my RSS feeds won’t just go away when Google kills reader this summer. Let’s take a more in depth look at MultiPlx and what it has to offer.
Competition is always a good thing, right? At least I think so, and this “finding a replacement for Google Reader” scenario presents us with this opportunity. It is good to have choices, to find what we like and don’t like and settle on something that works for us. I bet you can get ten different tech nerds in a room and they would all have their own opinions as to why they like their favorite RSS reader. It’s the nature of the beast and that is okay, it pushes developers to make quality products and apps.
Bloglovin is one that is just a little different than some of the others that I have reviewed. For one, their focus is on reading blogs, but don’t let that turn you away from this web app. It is more than just reading blogs and it takes a fresh approach to the RSS feed reading situation that some may actually like. Let’s take a look at it more to see what it is all about.
There has been much said about Google’s decision to shut down Google Reader, and while for many people it is just another closure of a little used service, for lots of others it means losing a valuable source of news.
If you had come to rely on Google’s news reader to keep up to date with the latest news and posts from your favorite websites – including Web.AppStorm! – you could turn to Twitter to plug the gap. Here we’ll take a look at Twitter lists and show how they can be used as a viable alternative to RSS feeds.
When Google announced that they planned to close Reader on July 1, the online community’s reaction varied from surprised approval, to shocked horror. Google’s decision was based on the flagging number of users who still use feeds in preference to social media.
But as any self-respecting RSS aficionado will know, flicking through your tweets, or browsing your Facebook timeline, isn’t the best way of finding interesting content. Until now, though, there have been very few services providing a halfway house between feeds and social media.
Rockmelt, which was once a socially-orientated web browser, has been reinvented as a social media-based, feed-reading network. But is Rockmelt‘s new course bound for being accepted as a great new way to read the news, or is it heading more in the direction of the doomed FriendFeed? Let’s see.
Yes, this is another post on another type of Google Reader replacement, but this one takes a little different strategy than some of the others that are out there. As you know, we at Web.AppStorm have been scouring the internet for replacements for our Reader fix. A little while back, I did a review on Taptu, which I actually do like and think it can be a solid replacement. But, as always the tech nerd in me is always searching for something better, something that can really meet all my needs for a replacement.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I will honestly find something on the web that will satisfy me unless it syncs with my iOS devices. But, the one that I am about to review today definitely got my attention, enough so that I actually decided to pay for the app. Yes, we have been spoiled with a free service like Google Reader, but in my opinion that is what led to its demise; Google just didn’t want to bother with a product that wasn’t going to make money. But I digress, time to switch gears and talk about Feedbin, a possible RSS reader replacement that you might actually want to pay for as well. Let’s take a look.
Everyone that used to love Google Reader is having to quickly search for a new RSS reader, now that Google Reader’s getting shut down. Many users seem to be headed for Feedly, while some, like our own Mathew Guay, have opted to set up their own servers with Fever, and a few are heading for The Old Reader. All of these services have been under duress since the announcement, feverishly adding bandwidth and servers in an effort to keep pace with their new-found popularity.
Me? I honestly think I am leaning towards startup Feedspot. I have tried both Feedly and The Old Reader. Both are nice, but I can not say much beyond that. Feedspot, on the other hand, may be the app that hits the spot for me. (more…)
Google Reader is essentially a walking skeleton now, with its July 1st death looming in the horizon. I used to use Google Reader daily to check up on the news for the world of Mac and Web apps, but finally switched away to Fever after the announcement that Google is killing Reader.
We’ve been looking at tons of different RSS readers here at Web.AppStorm lately, trying to help you find the best app for your news reading needs. But, I was wondering how many of you actually used Google Reader to start with. Our stats show that most of you subscribe to our RSS feed in Google Reader, but do you actually use it normally? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
