Too fast for Google Reader?

by on November 13, 2006

Anyone notice this? It seems that I can read faster than Google Reader can mark as read. At least it isn’t very good about marking things as read.

So, what I do is read all the way through my river of news and when I get to yesterday’s stuff I mark all as read.

  • it works great in firefox, don't notice that I can read faster than google can keep up with (and yes, I skim quite fast)

    using the j/k shortcuts for next/previous items marks them as read automatically.
  • This must have something to do with the 1600 subscriptions you were purported to have had (as revealed in Scobleshow interview with Google Reader team). Call it RSS-Zapping.
  • I noticed that straightaway using IE7.

    I tried going over to Google Reader from Bloglines, but this partly put me off and now Bloglines is improved so I'm back with that and I have nothing like 1600 subscriptions!
  • I am not too sure what you mean here. Then again I have it set that it doesn't mark read until I open it, or mark it myself. I use list view versus expanded view.

    The thing I dislike about Google Reader is that it is a memory hog...
  • Doesn't the "too fast" metric vary as a function of the number of text lines you have available vertically on your screen reader and your word-per-minute reading rate?

    I've learned to keep my posts at 40 lines or less (around 400 words) to ensure they appear concisely inside each of the Ajaxy screen items sketched by Google News.
  • This is why I stay with my off-line reader - NetNewsWire. With 200+ feeds, Google Reader was just too slow.
  • "DISCOVERY MARKETING", by Google

    I "discovered" the ease of Googling about six years back, and has been at it ever since. I recently "discovered" the ease of using Google Reader.

    I own a blog at http://ideaburger.blogspot.com, and I am now "discovering" the ease of blogging directly from Google docs or spreadsheets, having multiple blogs under one log in.

    I am also "discovering" the ease of having every communication tool I would probably ever need under one login.

    The greatest marketing paradigm of the 21st century is going to be "Discovery marketing" - by Google, and I look forward to it!

    Here is the Google take on marketing ...Build great offerings, but wait, don't go to town with it. Let potential users mess around and "discover" it. Once they do, they are going to own it...

    Jay, from Bangalore
  • I've noticed this as well. I've even seen the read indicator get stuck way up top. A real pain.

    Overall still best rss reader out there.
  • I have noticed the same thing. It only happens when the blog has 20+ entries that I am trying to read. I found myself having to click the blog link again to refresh. Like I said, it only happens when the blog has a good number of posts.
  • I notice this, too. It just gives up on me and I have to refresh.
  • I've found some moments where I get nothing but the red "Oops, try again later" that means nothing is being saved.

    Which means that the great Google Overlord has decided it's time to walk away from the computer and do something productive.
  • Tate
    It's exactly due to the lag in updating RSS items/folders in Google Reader that I still prefer Attensa via Outlook. You can get a similar river of news format by creating a smart folder for unread RSS items and sorting it by date.
  • I haven't yet run into problems where it wouldn't mark things read, my biggest issue is I get tired of waiting for the "Loading Next 20 Items..." every time I hit the "bottom" of the list.
  • Robert,

    What exactly do you mean by "reading faster than Google Reader can mark things as read"? Even if you move off an entry before we've finished marking it as read, it should eventually complete as long as you don't close that browser window/tab. Feel free to contact me at my email address if you'd like to help us debug this problem.

    Mihai Parparita
    Google Reader Engineer
  • Yesterday, I too noticed that I was "reading faster than Google Reader can mark things as read". Today, this appears to be fixed.
  • Google Reader is too slow to display the content if a feed has more than 20 fresh items :-(
    Still, I prefer Google Reader because it marks the feeds as read only when they have been done so, unlike Bloglines where the moment one clicks on a feed and the page opens all the items used to get marked automatically.
  • I noticed this problem too and I don't subscribe to thousands of feeds. The online issues are also frustrating, coming from SharpReader. I'm used to feeds coming up immediately when I click on them. Overall it's an improvement, though. Much quicker to read through lots of items.
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