Slashdot Mirror
Google Launches Google Reader at Web 2.0
Darren writes "Google Reader, an online RSS reader, is currently being demo'd at the Web 2.0 conference. It apparently 'makes it easier to keep up with your ever-expanding reading list of content from across the web.' Here's the tour about how it works."
But does it run on my old Web 1.0 system?
I'm not upgrading until at least Web 2.1.
there's more than one way to do me.
Google Slashdotted?
My Blog
It's active now, but man, is it slow!
It's "PLOAF," not "P-LOAF." Ask about it.
Feeds are feeds I suppose, but why not let Drudge or whoever do it?
Very. Very. Very slow. It imports nested OPML, however.
Web2.0 site is not. Does not reflect very well on Google..does it? Particularly when the product in question appears to be heavily inspired by start.com's article preview feature.
Dare we dream the impossible? Do my eyes see correctly? Slashdot has vanquished the mighty Google, who lies slain by our feet!
This day shall live in infamy!
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
There's an easter egg, if you subscribe to Apple's Hot News RSS -feed.
You mean this isn't a service where Google reads to me?
They now what I search, what I read, what emails I receive and send...
It seems to be loading entire blog posts into the reader, this could steal some readers that would just 'feed off the feed' instead visiting the blog itself... Also, for some screenshots: http://obli.net/item/255
pheuw ... its slow this time ... it takes heck lot of time huh ... i guess it works as an RSS aggregator like described in http://www.developers.net.np/devnet/
I believe RSSOwl does the same.
Aggregators show whatever is in the feed. If a feed contains complete posts, then that's what readers will see. Unless you have ads it really doesn't matter.
I don't read a lot of RSS feeds, I generally visit the sites. But as odd as it sounds, I still think AOL has one of the better feed readers: here's the link
If Google is caching all the blogs locally so that readers never have to visit a blog site, Google is robbing the bloggers and other site's off their advertising revenue, not to mention the fact that Google is robbing the readers off the experience of seeing good creative graphic design of other sites by showing content in its crappy looking interface.
I'm guessing their 10k cluster was probably underused when they started off with just basic search and indexing as their primary functions. Over time, they brainstormed over how else to put their massive resources to use. But now that they've released a large number of presumably *very* resource-intensive services, and are supporting an evergrowing number of users, I wonder if this Slashdotting is a sign of things to come.
Some of their resource intensive services that come to mind (probably in a decreasing order of hogginess):
1. Search/Indexing.
2. Google Earth.
3. Google Maps.
4. Gmail/Google Groups/Blog
5. Google Video (lower because of low usership currently).
6. Google Images.
7. Other assorted stuff.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Geek power!
RSS saves me time. I absorb less garbage stimuli (ads, images, meandering sites) and I can put my limitied time and energy into the things that truly interest me. I am a fan of RSS and cant wait to see if Google can serve it up simply to those who recoil at another intimidating internet acronym.
O.
http://www.google.com/reader is a 404, but a few locations in the script link to it. Nifty.
At least in the launch stages. Same old story - amazing interface, slick navigation, but overall badly borked. Oh yeah, and good luck finding an online/offline news aggregator that exports OPML Google Reader can use...
...they are NOT ready to even call this thing Beta...
The Google Group for this has pretty much all the same comments.
There's even a blog post about it, even though it is somewhat tinny. I have to agree with one of the comments in the blog though:
One more step towards a Googlified world...
[Slashdot Comments We Liked]
Geez. It almost crashed my browser >:(
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
If they can only integrate this with Gmail (which I'm sure they will), then that would be great.
End transmission.
I have spend some time on my own little feed reader (check out Orangoo.com. And testing Googles feed reader, I really feel mine is better for actually reading feeds ;-)
;)
- It is very simple and made for reading feeds - - not finding them. It uses some Ajax to make the interface more dynamic.
- It supports all versions of RSS + Atom.
- It keeps the count on what items you have read
- Bookmark items with del.icio.us
- It's made with Python
- and more
Try it out! Here is a screenshot: http://www.orangoo.com/static/screenshot.png
"makes it easier to keep up with your ever-expanding reading list of content from across the web"
/.?
You mean the hourly posting of Google news on
-Chris
FeedDemon is a lot nicer in my opinion. This doesn't even look as clean as GMail.
It was linked by Waxy.org/links earlier today.
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
The whole point of RSS is so that aggregators can spindle, fold, mutilate, and (gasp) read it. If you want to force people to come to your site, just don't have RSS, or have a feed with only headlines.
As for creative graphic design, the Web isn't print.
It'll probably have typical Google polish on it, but to be honest, those screenshots aren't really that great. I think I did a better job with my own online bookmarks manager/RSS reader, which is currently under development - moving away from remote scripting using iframes to the usage XMLHttpRequest, dontcha know.
As far Google is concerned, I'm trying to play with the Reader currently, and not having a lot of luck (it's pretty slow.) Brings up an interesting concern about Ajax applications, however - what happens when the load on the server becomes so intense that an XML request takes a fair amount of time? You certainly don't get a whole lot of meaningful feedback.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
My first impressions? It's excrucuatingly slow, counter intuitive, and just generally sucks the big one. I mean if the future of "Web 2.0 is an animated Loading... dialog, then I'll just stick with 1.0 thankyou very much.
Seriously, it troubles me that in the rush to AJAXify everything, we seem to be going back to dialup days just when everything was starting to run smoothly on broadband. Sure I can load a 1000 element javascript array and do sorting and searching on the client side, but with today's connections and server hardware, what's the big deal with a page refresh?
Google reader vs Bloglines illustrates this brilliantly.
gadgetophile.com
So when is Google going to release a web-based web browser?
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/05/22 47207&tid=95&tid=187&tid=4
ascii art
Um, that's the whole point of online RSS readers. If a blog doesn't want you to read their news without visiting their site, then they shouldn't publish an RSS feed. The caching is actually a nice benefit as it decreases the number of repeated hits to your feed. bloglines has been doing this for a while. If a site wants to publish a feed but also wants advertising revenue they can insert ads in their feed or only publish a short portion of the entry in the feed so that someone has to go to the site to see the rest.
Celebrate the finer things in life
The onus is on the publishers to publish feeds which contain precisely the content which they will allow to be syndicated.
Google can only republish what is put out there in the XML file. If you don't want your full text syndicated then don't publish it. The feed publisher has the option to publish headlines, or first [50/100/250] words. You can't bitch at Google for publishing what a blogger has allowed, right?
There is an opportunity for blogs to publish full text along with "sponsored" links in the feeds - there are still ways to make money while publishing full text feeds. Get creative.
Will it be available as an extension for FireFox?
btw didn't RTFA - SUE ME
I really hope they release a button or something that webmasters can place on their websites which says "Subscribe". Something like yahoo has with their MyYahoo Button.
..... For Ballmer to throw a chair across the room.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
The biggest downside is that there's no easy way to get an overview of everything, you can only see headlines from one feed at a time.
The big advantage is that it does keep track of which headlines you've already read, like a newsreader or an email program.
My current favorite feedreader is http://www.netvibes.com/ -- not to say that that can't use some slick features (keyboard shortcuts, f'rinstance), but I like the rearrangable panes, easy configuration, general flexibility.
Overall, I'd say netvibes is a better 'good morning' dashboard.
Design for Use, not Construction!
"RSS saves me time. I absorb less garbage stimuli (ads, images, meandering sites)..."
Pay careful atention to the above attitude concerning ads. As compared to the "I'll watch ads if they give me 'Y'" attitude when discussing TV shows you missed on demand. Now lets look at this from the POV of one offering the TV shows you missed on demand. Will they watch the commercials knowing how they really feel, just so they can get 'Y'. Or will they find some 'RSS'-like solution to filter out the "garbage" and get 'Y'?
"Look! Another Google innovation."
It's so slow now, I've got to wonder if their servers are down. But since it's beta that's perfectly acceptible.
It's already public. It's not even on http://labs.google.com/
It seems to be using my GMail account login, as some other Google services, but I must agree that it is working slow right now. I am sure it will improve in the next days. Way to go, Google! :)
-- Sé libre, usa software libre! Be free, use free software!
So this is essentially a competitor to Bloglines, if I understand the service correctly?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Either it's still /.'d or it doesn't work with Opera (that I can see). The config web page only displays two blank placeholders when I subscribe to two RSS feeds.
So, is there a browser compat issue or... ?
The interface stinks. I much prefer BlogLines.
my god google, i already have a bunch of rss feeds on my personal homepage - how the fuck isn't there an option to instantly use those.
its same nonsense with google maps! why arn't my weather locations instant options for local searches on google maps!?
honestly, as handy as google is for finding stuff on the rest of the web, each part of its emerging web-platform seems completely incapable of acknowledging the other.
The news post is misleading by only noting that it's an RSS reader. Google Reader also reads Atom feeds. As per the FAQ: http://www.google.com/help/faq_reader.html#rss
I wonder if you would feel that way if, either:
A) You're paying effectively by the byte.
B) You're on a very slow connection.
Depending on others to do what benefits you is...undependable.
...why the inteface is totally broken?
r eader.jpg
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a84/deathbyzen/g
Windows open and close much faster. In my OS X dock, the Safari icon hardly has a chance to bounce more than once before the web loads right up. I don't know what Google has done "under the hood," but Web 2.0 is TONS better than Web 1.0.
The only thing which doesn't work faster is Orkut, which chugs along and randomly barfs server errors just as always.
Anyway: thanks, Google! That's twice you've Changed Everything (tm) this week!
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
The google link returns a 502.
You slashdotted google! You bastards!
As memory, storage, and bandwith increase, the available room always gets filled. The question is in how we fill it. To me it seems that in an increasingly mobile, always-on Internet, there will still be factors militating in favor of bandwidth-optimized applications. Although as the user experience becomes "richer" the bandwidth requirements will necessarily increase. The trick is finding the balance between necessary elements of a good user experience, and fluffy code that does nothing to enhance that experience.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
when it was called my.yahoo.com
With an interface like that, it *definately* needs scroll-wheel support. It almost hurts to use it without.
*shudders*
I'm trying Google Reader right now. Sure, AJAX is cool (if it worked all the way, and I'm in Firefox!), but a much simpler, easier reader would be bloglines.com
"Seriously, it troubles me that in the rush to AJAXify everything, we seem to be going back to dialup days just when everything was starting to run smoothly on broadband."
Well seriously dialup still outnumbers broadband in the US. And the rest of the world may have similiar statistics.* Ultimately Google is a commercial company and can't afford to alianate one group because the other group's asthetic sensabilities are offended.
*And let's keep in mind that just because someone has a fast connection doesn't mean they want to be wasteful with it.
Works well on one feed, like my http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/ all_rss/">main dictionary entry and citation feed, but how will it handle the 1100 other feeds I subscribe to? Love the "blog this" option that interacts with Blogger (they I haven't used Blogger in years). Needs an OPML import and export. Pops up a window on links in the reader, no matter what, which some people might hate.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
I would love to be able to do a find "restaurant/market/theatre/etc" closest to "Driving directions" from "work" to "home"
Tonights forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning
I still think that submission-based RSS Search Engines w/ Integrated Readers are the way to go. You can add, categorize, and subscribe to your favorite RSS Feeds. You can then view the latest links from multiple feeds, as well as search and bookmark RSS Feed links from X months ago.
Once I get this dedicated server situation sorted for rssbot.org, we'll see how it goes, although it's hard to compete w/ google. It's also hard to deter google-fanatics to accept an alternative, so it all may be pointless, now. =(
Well I went across to have a look. Imported my OPML from Bloglines.
Waited for some articles to roll in. They did.
Now I like to read by which feed sent in - read the more important ones first.
How do I do this with Google? I can't - I can sort by "relevance" or date. That's it.
USELESS!!
Its not mentioned in the Tour or the article, but it does Podcasts.
/ /attheappointedtime.libsyn.com/rss
It lets you listen to the podcast using a web based mp3 player.
For example: try this:
http://www.google.com/reader/preview/*/feed/http:
The player looks neat too, very Real Player -esque
Error - come back later, or words to that effect.
... there is a problem with the plans of Google and their pals. They all depend on fast, stable, 24/7 internet access. Maybe that's the reality in the fevered world of Silicon Valley but elsewhere the internet is not a particularly reliable beast. Google is now trading at $312 a share. I wonder if Google and it's followers aren't rather overestimating the internet's capabilities. Even one share seems an awful lot for yet another rss system, to add to the scores and scores already out there.
Hmmn
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
ive been using it since last night and it seems rather nice still working as screen shows but slowing down: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/perrym/work ing.jpg
Gmail is generally also very sluggish, they can't handle the bandwith there either i guess.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Damn, it does have import. Time to give this sumbitch something to chew on...
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
The main thing I noticed is that there are no ads anywhere on the page. It is a much better, if slow, way of browsing the actual news articles. The question about copyright violation is only in effect if the actual feed does not include the information. Does anyone know if the data is gathered from the site itself or from just the feed?
As soon as Google buys del.icio.us... :)
Screenshot!
Slashdot+Google+Firefox+Linux=yay!
I wonder if they'll integrate it with personalized home? It would be nice to be able to import those feeds to get you started.
The server was down for some time because of Apache (maybe too big overload?)
Anyway, I just launched the service today... So it's great to test out the application like this.
FYI:
I now run on CherrPy's own server - and this seems to work pretty fine!
no...no overlord joke...but its working fine for me. I dumped my OPML file from Sharp Reader and imported it fine. It's a tad slow right now, but it comically enough pointed me to this article.
What's the point of this, when they already have the Google Personalized Homepage with RSS feeds? Yea, you can't see the article text through there, but you can also organize your stuff better and view your Gmail inbox, weather, etc. I don't get the point.
Click on Your subscriptions -> Add a feed -> import subscriptions.
"My Ass has finally decided, to Eat, my Hand!
It hungers, For More!"
I really like the use of AJAX in Google's (and others) web applications. The downside is of course that older and text based browsers won't be able to render the pages.
e s-new-rss-reader/
I have tried Google Reader and it looks good so far. I am currently importing my Bloglines RSS feeds to the Google Reader, but it takes its time. I will post an update on my site when I have done som more extensive testing of the service.
http://johnny.chadda.se/2005/10/07/google-announc
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
... a Goole product that is really Beta!!!
Now if only RSS wasn't based on a DDoS protocol, we'd be set right? More bandwidth requires us to find new ways to waste it I guess.
Slashdot - Google news (and some other stuff on Tuesdays) for nerd.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Funny they are not calling this a beta product. I copy/pasted an RSS feed link (http://www.rediff.com/rss/inrss.xml), and my broswer stuck for a very long while with the "loading..." dialog (still stuck). My browser is firefox 1.07. Does anybody have a similar experience ?
The best definition of Web 2.0 I've ever seen was posted by some wag in reply to this blog post.
Eh, not slow for me. Then again, I didn't jump on-board the moment the story broke. Anyway, I have to say this is one hella slick web app. My only hangup was the CustomizeGoogle Firefox extention. It breaks Reader pretty thouroghly and until it gets patched, anybody using it will need to disable it if they plan to use Reader.
This sig rocks the casbah.
The label "read items" (pronounced "red items" as in "items i've already read") is a bit confusing; i 'read' it to mean "read items" (pronounced "reed items", as in "click this to read some items"). Bloody English.
When is English 2.0? I thought you Americans were going to fix English? That's why we gave you your puny 'democracy' ideas in the first place isn't it? The queen still has her **** right up yer **** you know.
----
Of course I mean 'flag' and 'pole' there.
I have checked this out and still prefer gmailrss - something I rolled up using perl scripts, that sits on top of gmail and used the gmail UI to make it behave like an rss reader read. check it out
I will not have an RSS Reader that is not on my own computer. How would I use it if I were to lose connectiv...
Oh, hell.
Subscribing to my own site, BetaDot's RSS feed has served problems. I find that it works on some tries, but on others it loads an RSS feed from a completely different site... usually unrelated... it appears I may be exposing what OTHER PEOPLE are syndicating.
It's probably because my feed is malformed, either way, it's a bug.
*searches for all kinds of porn* *double-checks that "post anonymously" button...*
Oh, you want the GenTernet. It took a while to compile all those Top Level Domains and things, but once I got it all built, my beigebox Celeron 2.4 TOTAL FLIES online. It's amazing!
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
The Google Reader is totally kludgy, not at all up to their usual standards, but the search is great. I don't think I'm up to it, but surely it wouldn't be difficult for someone to write a Firefox extension which would convert the search results into a live bookmark. That would be totally cool!
I have a nice review of Google Reader vs Feed On Feeds at my site. Feed On Feeds is my current feed reader.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."