Adobe enters feed reader race
My coworker Jeremiah Owyang says he’s not switching from Google Reader until at least a few other people in his trusted network switch too. In reaction to news that Adobe has entered the feed reader race with “myFeedz”. I briefly checked out the Adobe Reader. It’s missing three things that I find addictive about Google’s Reader: well-thought-out keyboard commands, “read-all-feed-items-at-once in a ‘River of News’” and ability to share feed items with others. If your feed reader has those three things, then I want to hear about it and try it out and see how it compares with Google’s Reader.
By the way, I’m using Google Reader right now to build my link blog. If you haven’t checked out my link blog, I think you’ll find it unique. I go through 541 feeds. In the last month I’ve read 21,991 items and shared 1,169 items. You’ll find that it’s totally different from Digg (cause the only one voting here is me, so you get to see what interested me in the feeds) and TechMeme (which only shows you the most popular stuff — I pick technology items. Really I’m doing this for programmers like Chris Messina and Dori Smith, and busy executives, like my boss who don’t have time to dig through thousands of items trying to find what’s good to read).
How do I do my link blog? I set Google Reader to automatically open in the “All Items” view. That’s the “River of News” view. Then I use the keyboard commands to go through my feed items one-by-one. “J” key goes forward. “K” key goes back. “Shift-S” shares an item.
I wish there were a directory of other people’s Link Blogs. Anyone want to start one on a Wiki?
UPDATE: ironically enough, today Google’s servers are misbehaving and aren’t accepting my shared items. Will try again later.
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February 18th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Couple of things I miss in Google Reader:
- option to annotate shared items
- option to publish a web-based OPML
- option to subscribe to someone else’s OPML and be notified when that OPML changes
- the obvious search capabilities that others have mentioned many times before me.
I mark stuff of interest too using del.icio.us (RSSonate, mostly RSS-related bookmarks). It lets me enter 255-char descriptions so that people know WHY I’m recommending passing links on in the first place.
Before I forget, Robert: sincere congrats on the membership of the Media 2.0 Workgroup.
February 18th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I don’t know why so many people prefer Google Reader over Great News. It’s so much better and intuitive.
February 18th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I’m still a FeedDemon user myself. While it doesn’t have the ability to share blogs with others I don’t believe I’ve ever needed such a feature. If something really is important enough to share I just IM the permalink, mark it in delicious or simply click add a link in my blog.
There seems to be a minority that needs this link gathering, link management ability and they are usually people with high-traffic blogs vs. the average blog reader that has maybe 10 - 50 feeds and probably don’t even have a blog themselves.
A key feature that Google Reader lacks for me is offline support and automatic enclosure downloading. I’ll set FeedDemon to gather all the posts over night or while I’m working and then use the offline feature to read them while on the plane or in a location without wireless (despite popular belief wireless isn’t everywhere quite yet). I also have FeedDemon set to automatically download the BBC podcasts, which in turn get automatically sync’d to my Zune, so each morning I just grab and go.
In an odd twist I know most people would use iTunes with it’s rich podcast support to sync their iPod yet I much prefer to manage all my feeds, whether they are normal feeds or feeds with enclosures (podcasts) in one central area. For one thing I usually discover new podcast feeds via my normal feed reading, so having to switch over to iTunes to add it is rather cumbersome.
Another thing I love about FeedDemon is that it’s directly integrated with NewsGator so my read feeds are in sync yet I still have the richness of a native app vs. the limitations of a browser-based app. If I happen to be someplace without FeedDemon no problem, I can still fall back on the browser-based newsgator.
For me the very few unique features Google Reader has aren’t nearly enough to compensate for the richness of FeedDemon.
February 18th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
enough pimping of your link blog
February 18th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
On another note, Robert… why is Google Reader still in the labs? I think it’s ready for prime time!
See: Google Reader Ready to Leave Google Labs
As for Link Blogging, mine is here.
February 18th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
VRB: are you subscribed?
Tess: I just went and looked at Great Reader. Where are the keyboard commands? Where’s the ability to share with others? Where’s the “River of News” feature?
Those three are MUST HAVES now for any feed reader that’s going to get my business.
Another nice thing? Be able to synchronize post reading on two different OS’s, since I use Windows and Mac.
Why didn’t you mention any of those three in your post?
February 18th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Woah! I had no clue that Adobe bought MyFeedz… I work with Okapi Studio (www.okapistudio.com) in Romania, and they are really good friends with the guy that made MyFeedz.com… I’ve actually talked to him a few times. I know Adobe went to Romania and bought out InterAKT (we know those guys too), so I’ll have to ask my friends over there, but maybe MyFeedz was a subsidiary of InterAKT. It’s a nice application though.
February 18th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Shawn, thanks for commenting about FeedDemon here. For the record, the ability the share items is in the works (you’ll be able to share your FeedDemon news bins).
February 18th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Great idea. I nicked it. But you’re calling it the wrong name.
It’s not a ‘linkblog’ - the automated posts from del.icio.us are that. It’s more than just links - it’s the items themselves.
Similarly, it’s not a ‘blogroll’ - it’s not just a list of the blogs you read, but it’s the items themselves.
That’s why, on the right-hand-side of my little blog at http://james.cridland.net/blog (good if you’re into radio’s steps into the multi-platform world, probably boring otherwise) you’ll find… my itemroll. Compiled in exactly the same way as you (but, for me, not pushing everyone away from my site.)
So. Itemroll. It’ll catch on. Not a linkblog. Because it’s better than that.
February 18th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I agree with Marjolein Hoekstra on two major points:
1. No search
2. No tags! Tags or metadata would help me remmember why I subscribed to the feed in the first place. The folder layering is a great way of organisation but I want to be able to slice and dice my feeds by drilling into tag clouds.
February 18th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
I too would love to see a directory of folks’ shared feeds. I’ve come across some in reading Robert’s links. Jeremiah’s for instance. But love this form of reading. A reader’s reader of readers. Or something of the sort.
You can tag individual items in the Google reader. After each post you can “add tags” but maybe you’re looking for more detailed tags? with descriptions?
Reader is definitely not perfect but it works well for me. I don’t have rigorous standards though since I don’t spend my days online. It is more of a reader for the masses and I think Google tries to accomodate the masses more than the geek/tech community—
Accomodating the entire long tail not just the stub?
February 18th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Have you ckecked out Omea Reader from Jetbrains?
It has a “River of News” capability but it does use a Ctrl Key to read.
I have tried a number of off-line readers and found it to be the best.
Also it’s free.
February 18th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
[...] saw a few posts about MyFeedz yesterday and checked it out, and I noticed Robert just gave Myfeedz a test. He is a hardcore feed reader, so I value his opinion (even though we don't always agree on [...]
February 18th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Robert,
I love google reader,the only thing I really miss is the ability to search my read feeds. I did this all the time in with Netnewswire. Strange for Google not to have search in a product.
Google also recently added a nice item called clips of shared items for your blog. I put one on mine. See it here. http://dazilgroup.com/blog/ I use this along with my bluedots to point to things on my blog that don’t need additional info from me. Now I just need to combine them all into one feed for subscribers. This might work for you. It would let others see your shared items right on your blog.
February 18th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
I bet Microsoft is getting ready to launch their feed reader with a similar feature set as the Google Reader. This will probably be the big announcement at Mix07
February 18th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Me looky MyFeedz. Me not likey… Methinks, Adobe can do better.
Clunky interface. Huge Usability issues. Mega-size findability issues.
Why? Why can the content are be clearly demarcated? I don’t want to know what Adobe things about my feeds. I want to tell Adobe what I think about my feeds and then it can take it over from there.
Come to think of it, where did Blogofy disappear?
As for your link blog, man, you read way to much for anyone to follow!! When do you actually work, Robert?
On the other hand, if that’s what you call work, you have a sinecure there!! Lucky, lucky…
Regards,
Shri.
February 18th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Shrinkant: It’s Sunday. You think I actually work on a Sunday? Heheh.
February 19th, 2007 at 12:22 am
I’ve got my link blog at http://del.icio.us/engtech/linkblog that I repost weekly on my main blog http://engtech.wordpress.com/tag/engtechlinks
I’m playing around with republishing it immediately on blogger at http://techilicious.blogspot.com but I haven’t gotten the kinks worked out yet. I’ll probably also republishing choice diggs there as well.
February 19th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Is Technology the Answer for Information Overload?
A few days ago, I ran into a post by Nova Spivack that talks about the work his startup, Radar Networks, is doing. It’s a long article, but here’s a portion that caught my attention (emphasis mine):
As the Web gets vaster and more complex,…
February 19th, 2007 at 12:45 am
@Robert:
Aaah, right. Missed that one. Here, it is already Monday, and I am at work. :)
Time-Zones are really screwy aren’t they? :D
Thanks and Cheers!
Shrikant.
February 19th, 2007 at 12:48 am
On a different note: Can you edit my comment. I just realised there’s a lot of typos. The third para:
“Why? Why can the content are be clearly demarcated? I don’t want to know what Adobe things about my feeds…”
should actually read:
“Why? Why can’t the content area be clearly demarcated? I don’t want to know what Adobe thinks about my feeds…”
Sheesh, that’s what you get with an overused keyboard, I guess.
Thanks.
February 19th, 2007 at 12:58 am
Link blog again? How about “shamelessly reproduced content from others” ?
If more people out there use the “shared items” feature, I sense that it won’t be long before a number of people kill their RSS feed to avoid being stolen.
As for Techmeme ability to show popular items, you prove once more that you don’t understand how Techmeme works. Techmeme is just a seed of a couple hundred blogs. It cannot by any stretch of the imagination be defined as a “journal of what’s popular”. A “real-time SiliconValley paper” is a closer definition.
February 19th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Stephane: TechMeme has had tens of thousands of sites on it. It’s pretty clear you don’t understand how it works, either.
And, I doubt that anyone will kill their RSS because of my item blog, or link blog, or whatever you call it. Why? Cause everytime I put someone there they get more traffic on their home blog. Why is that? Oh, well, you might get interested in someone that way and want to see the rest of their blog (I only put 1,100 items out of 29,000 read in the past 30 days there). Or, you might want to leave a comment. Google doesn’t let you comment on items from the shared feed.
Anyway, you forget that having a small number of people let you determine what’s popular. You might look into how TV ratings are done.
February 19th, 2007 at 1:25 am
Scoble, you missed the word “seed” I guess. I follow this stuff pretty well, and the difference with another like Tailrank and Meggite are staggering.
Techmeme is a SV paper. Oh, in case you still disagree, this definition is Gabe’s definition.
“And, I doubt that anyone will kill their RSS because of my item blog, or link blog, or whatever you call it. Why? Cause everytime I put someone there they get more traffic on their home blog.”
I don’t buy that, but time will tell. I am ready to take a bet. Wait until more people start stealing others content.
“Google doesn’t let you comment on items from the shared feed.”
That’s ironic, I have commented on this blog about that on this blog (basically asking Google to add a sticky note). But I think, in retrospect, should Google do that, authors would start rebelling, i.e. blocking the Google Reader feed fetcher, because it means that by adding notes you are taking control over someone else’s blog.
I guess we’ll have to wait until more people use it. It’s an interesting study, and I’m glad you’re listening.
February 19th, 2007 at 1:52 am
[...] pie Skobles izlasīju, ka Adobe ir izveidojusi savu barotņu agregatoru - MyFeedz, kas pēc Adobes domām spēs [...]
February 19th, 2007 at 3:58 am
I wouldn’t normally plug our product in such a blatant way, but, you did ask…
FeedGhost is a feed reader for Vista & XP - we’re a synchronizing client application versus Google Reader’s or myFeedz’ web-app. We offer:
* Single-key reading (although we present the articles in “chunks”, which we may change that, since so many people prefer the Google method);
* Tagging of articles and web-pages, with comments, for later reading;
* Publishing of tagged articles on a link blog, webpage, or embeddable gadget;
* Instant search of all the articles you’ve ever read;
* Management of “problem” subscriptions - ones that haven’t been posted to lately, or don’t update, etc.
We can also offer customers a company that you can actually talk to: drop us an email and we will get back to you.
http://www.feedghost.com/
February 19th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Why does Adobe have a reader? Peanut butter’s getting spread a little too thin.
February 19th, 2007 at 10:38 am
[...] saw a few posts about MyFeedz yesterday and checked it out, and I noticed Robert just gave Myfeedz a test. He is a hardcore feed reader, so I value his opinion (even though we don’t always agree on [...]
February 19th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Major usability issues. Major design issues. Cramped clunky interface and have u seen the ridiculous use of Flash on the main page? They use Flash to display section headings….that’s it…wtf?
I use Firefox with the Adblock add-on installed. Adblock lights up all the Flash movies on the page.
See my posting with a screenshot at http://rake.vox.com/library/post/myfeedz-adobe-labs.html
Pardon the self-advertisement. It’s relevant and I am a new blogger trying to be disciplined….
February 19th, 2007 at 10:58 am
I’ve used many readers, but since putting GreatNews on a USB drive I just stopped using anything else. The News Watch feature in GreatNews saved me from RSS addiction…
February 19th, 2007 at 11:59 am
a directory of link blogs,but only for persian reader
mazidi.wetpaint.com
February 19th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
http://mazidi.wetpaint.com
February 19th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
[...] I do not see myFeedz becoming a regular stopping spot for me. I don’t really need or even want something like this that recommends posts to read based on tags. That might be because if I am going to search for something specific, I will use Google. If I want to find new blogs to read, I almost always do that because I read about them in somebody else’s blog post. For example I found out about myFeedz through Robert Scoble. [...]
February 19th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
i wouldnt say there was a ‘race’ ;)
Flash has a been great for making feed readers for ages in my career. Big ones, smalls ones, pocket ones etc
myFeeds is a nice approach, and not a million miles away from stuff we have brewing at podcast.com -
oh btw :) : http://podcast.com/folder/4531/
all podtech’s feeds in one place, with all the right data ;)
the future for feeds is coming… mu hu huaar
February 20th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Scoble - We are launching a link blog service very soon. It will act as a directory for link blogs and allows tagging. You can create a link blog from many sources, including Google Reader.
http://www.mylinkblog.com/
If anyone would like to test let us know!
February 20th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
User advertising for GreatNews (http://www.curiostudio.com/): There is something about the experience in GN that I cannot replicate in other readers. The main thing is, like Robert’s love of Google Reader, I can get through a lot of news fairly quickly. With the two-column newspaper view, I get to see the content quickly (on a 15″ laptop screen) and can zip through the uninteresting stuff fairly quickly. There is something about the combination of headlines + content that works for me.
Keyboard commands are there, though the developer (one guy) has struggled with making the spacebar work consistently to scroll. Here’s the list of shortcuts I keep bookmarked within GN: http://www.curiostudio.com/blog/21. Since the standard view doesn’t have one article selected, it is difficult to have keyboard shortcuts that related to the article. Beyond scrolling, must article-specific stuff is by clicking.
The default view is a newspaper view that presents two columns of articles from a given feed. I’ve asked (repeatedly) for a strict river of news but have yet to convince him that it’s worthwhile. You can easily switch views and number of items per “page” to give standard one-column full text or even a “brief” view that is strictly excerpts. (I read Scoble this way sometimes.)
Sharing items, and otherwise acting on them, is done via a number of buttons at the bottom of each article. You can email or blog the itme. Or “label” it for memory in the future. There’s options for del.icio.us and furl links. (Don’t know why the others aren’t in there.) One great thing: if you offer a wfw:commentRss feed, GreatNews can track that for you.
February 27th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Recently I did a roundup of offline/desktop feed readers. You guys might want to check it out..
Link
May 29th, 2007 at 5:40 am
[...] it for me and let the one feed he shares substitute for the 622 or whatever number he reads. (See 2nd graf of this post by Robert for details.) Robert, if you want $20 a year for this incredible attention reclaiming service you are [...]
July 16th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
I really like Google Reader for many of the same reasons you do. The read all items at once feature is my favorite and allows me to quickly see just what’s going on in the world today. The keyboard shortcuts, likewise, are a must since it makes navigating through this river of news (great term for it, by the way!) so much easier than if I would have to click on each item. I, also, won’t be switching to Adobe’s myFeedz right away, but I think I will take a look at it. Adobe always seems to end up creating very fine, very useful programs that quickly dominate their industry like PhotoShop, In Design, and Illustrator, so I have high hopes for myFeedz. I do wish they would change that name, though! MyFeedz sounds and looks a bit too much like a professional trying to look cool in front of the kids by speaking the current slang….
July 31st, 2007 at 2:44 am
I used to love Google Reader but hated having to log on each time.
Try Snarfer. It sits on your tray, grabs your fave feeds and is free!
Best part: no ads and crap like in other software
August 24th, 2007 at 1:17 am
I haven’t tried my luck with Google Reader. But I’m really excited to get things up for it. Based on research I noticed that some people are having problems with addition of random feeds into their blog through Google Reader. Is this true?