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Digg Reader To Shut Down This Month -- Latest RSS Service To Bite the Dust (betanews.com)

Digg announced this week that it's shutting down Digg Reader, an app which allows users to follow RSS feeds from sites. From a report: Following the closure of Google Reader, RSS fans flocked to the likes of Feedly, The Old Reader, Digg Reader and Inoreader. Now Digg Reader has announced that it is to close, and users are being advised to export their feeds so they can be imported into an alternative service. Users do not have a great deal of time to grab their data and take it elsewhere. The RSS reader is due to close on March 26, meaning there's less than two weeks to go. No reason has been given for the closure, but presumably the venture either didn't prove as popular as expected, or it was rather more costly to run than anticipated.

109 comments

  1. No big deal by glomph · · Score: 0

    I'll just stay on AIM and ICQ, while listening to my 8-track tapes.

    1. Re:No big deal by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      Come on over, I have Groundhog Day on VHS.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    2. Re:No big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're missing out on the hi-fidelity capability of Laser Discs, you really should upgrade.

  2. RSS for the masses? by sqorbit · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Can someone who really uses RSS feeds shed some light on it's benefits for a mass market? Is there any? I find RSS doesn't really fit into any internet habits I currently have. I've never really used RSS other than trying it out a few times and I never found it to be helpful in anyway. I'm sure there are lots of people who love RSS. Not being one of them I'd like to hear the positives from someone who actually uses it regularly.

    --
    Sent from my TARDIS
    1. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I mostly use it to view a collection of articles from various sources, and comics from various sources. Instead of having to visit each and every site and keeping track of which articles I have read and not read an RSS reader does that for me.
      Visiting one link I can view all the slashdot tech articles, lifehacker, dilbert comics, commitstrip, etc. There may be other ways to emulate this on social media platforms but the fact I can pick and choose exactly what I want to read makes it so much easier to keep track of exactly what I want.

    2. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used Google Reader and switched to The Old Reader until it went away. So I used Digg Reader for the last 4 years and have now migrated back to The Old Reader since its back.

      I just reviewed all my feeds in the transition-
      ~90 feeds- tech, humor, politics, sports, local. I found this article from my feed btw.

      Its way easier to peruse those 90 sites headlines via an RSS and if lucky maybe the 1st paragraph or whole article by staying on one site across my PC, Tablet and Phone and they all sync.

    3. Re:RSS for the masses? by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem: Where is the ad revenue in that?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It brings the content (or at least the first few paragraphs or so) of all my news sites into one place, without any ads.

      People who manually click open 20 sites to read them are not geeks. end of.

    5. Re:RSS for the masses? by Boern1138 · · Score: 1

      I have yet to find another means of keeping up to date with news from various sources without visiting them all one after another. This is especially useful for sites that don't update very often. My feedreader will just present me with new articles as soon as they are available. I don't know how I could do this without RSS.

    6. Re:RSS for the masses? by schklerg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I heavily use RSS. It's what brought this article to my attention. I currently use TT-RSS with about 60 or so RSS feeds subscribed. I like it because it gives me one spot to see all of the articles that have been published on sites that I frequent without having to go there. I can quickly scan the title and the summary (when provided) to see if I want to read it. Using TT-RSS I can quickly "star" articles to read later when I get a chance or just ignore ones that aren't interesting. I even use it to follow some Twitter feeds with my RSS reader so I don't have to use that service. I just think it's easier to have something aggregate the news for me. Push emails from sites end up being interpreted as SPAM to my brain, and manually going to 60 sites to see whats new is just arduous.

      --
      Be Excellent To Each Other
    7. Re:RSS for the masses? by DivineKnight · · Score: 2

      Tried it, hated it. What I wanted was a RSS reader that was smart enough to use regular expressions / follow the damn links to the content, but instead got something which was half-email / half-webbrowser.

      For instance, there are, perhaps, several dozen webcomics that use RSS; Dilbert might publish the actual image inside the RSS feed, while Slightly Damned might include a link to their latest webcomic; in either case, it's annoying -> I want to be able to tell the RSS reader to grab ONLY the images (from wherever), and to display it all like on the cartoon pages of a newspaper (back when we had those; use a grid layout or something).

      Same things with major stories: I want paragraphs...the reader I was using would give it to you in a line, like email -> I want the headline + a customizable amount of text following that, ala a newspaper.

      Instead it just became unnecessary work. Reuter's homepage had things more properly organized than I could make them in the reader. As for the comics, I hate having to read a post, to find a link, that says that you have the latest up on your website (so take me there)...it's an unnecessary amount of clicking.

    8. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I don't go to sites to check "is there something new, no, let me come back 5 minutes later to see if there's something new" for multiple sources that would be unmanageable, I follow in Inoreader, the RSS reader that I use, a lot of sources and I can see when new things pop up without having to check different sites, it's very efficient and I can mark items as read or unread so it's easy to manage what I want to read.

    9. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use RSS reading all the time! It beats having to go to multiple locations for news articles... Why constantly check Life hacker, Engadget, Slashdot and other sites for updates when you can have them all in one place. And why have to read the same article over and over (bad enough when you get the same news story from multiple sources) It has always helped me keep up to date with things I want to read about.

    10. Re:RSS for the masses? by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      I have a Logitech gaming keyboard that has a little display that uses RSS to populate some news stories. It is a nice gimmick but not really something I've tried to make more useful, and I don't see a way for it to be monetized, so I don't imagine the remaining services will survive long.

    11. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The RSS feed doesn't have to hold the article/comic/blog, but it can hold a link to the content. Ads can also be put in the the feed too, I follow a few comics that do this.

    12. Re:RSS for the masses? by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      It's a good point.

      For example, I tend to use RSS with comics. It's nice because I get notified when there's a new comic. Of course, what I want is to actually see the new comic. But, like you said, where's the money in that?

      So, yeah, it's not the best. But it certainly beats going to the website to see if there's a new comic.

    13. Re:RSS for the masses? by chispito · · Score: 1

      Tried it, hated it. What I wanted was a RSS reader that was smart enough to use regular expressions / follow the damn links to the content, but instead got something which was half-email / half-webbrowser.

      For instance, there are, perhaps, several dozen webcomics that use RSS; Dilbert might publish the actual image inside the RSS feed, while Slightly Damned might include a link to their latest webcomic; in either case, it's annoying -> I want to be able to tell the RSS reader to grab ONLY the images (from wherever), and to display it all like on the cartoon pages of a newspaper (back when we had those; use a grid layout or something).

      Same things with major stories: I want paragraphs...the reader I was using would give it to you in a line, like email -> I want the headline + a customizable amount of text following that, ala a newspaper.

      Instead it just became unnecessary work. Reuter's homepage had things more properly organized than I could make them in the reader. As for the comics, I hate having to read a post, to find a link, that says that you have the latest up on your website (so take me there)...it's an unnecessary amount of clicking.

      If you know regular expressions, you can probably just write your own reader in your language of choice that has easy XML parsing. Unfortunately--and I'm not sure which--either RSS is a super loose standard, or very few content providers adhere to the standard.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    14. Re:RSS for the masses? by Riceballsan · · Score: 1

      for me I have a tt-rss server going, and there's actually a lot of plugins that help with the issues in particular you mention. Like say making sure comics actually go into the feed for the particular comic etc... It does take a bit of time, finding the addons for that site (or writing them if you are inclined). But it also is a one time task that gets things going quickly for as long as you want to keep using it.

    15. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While there wouldn't be ads in the RSS feed itself, the feed just contains links to actual pages that would host ads.

    16. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You just can write input parser. For some feeds i replace thumbnail pictures with actual large pictures, so i don't have to open them in new tab. Liferea supports that

    17. Re: RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TheOldReader didn't go anywhere. I got it from my Slashdot feed in TOR.

    18. Re: RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol.. Sorry. Should have finished reading.. and realized you were back in TOR. Well, ald least I wasn't logged in, that would have been embarrassing.

    19. Re:RSS for the masses? by DaveyJJ · · Score: 2

      It brings the content (or at least the first few paragraphs or so) of all my news sites into one place, without any ads.

      People who manually click open 20 sites to read them are not geeks. end of.

      Precisely. RSS lets me monitor the content of 33 websites that I frequently find interesting content on a real-time basis in a single small window, rather than having to have 33 tabs open constantly refreshing them. And as you pointed out, it provides a quick-to-read, easily digestible summary to decide to read the full article or not, with a non-visualized simple user experience. RSS is made for information addicts.

      --
      DaveyJJ
    20. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem: Where is the ad revenue in that?

      The above comment is NOT insightful, and anyone who thinks it is does not understand how RSS feeds work.

      The OP's comment reveals a profound lack of understanding of how RSS feeds actually work.

      The RSS feed shows a brief header and if the person reading that feed is interested in reading more, that person must open the web page
      to which the RSS feed links. RSS does not reduce ad revenue - in fact if anything RSS would cause an INCREASE in page hits because RSS allows people to know about a web page they otherwise may never have seen.

    21. Re:RSS for the masses? by Fencepost · · Score: 1

      I just have bookmark folders grouped by roughly how often they update - daily, MWF, weekly/Sunday. In Firefox I just Ctrl-click on the bookmark folder and all bookmarks within it are opened in new tabs.

      Can be a handy way to provide a big load to test a network connection as well, just by doing that Ctrl-click one level higher.

      --
      fencepost
      just a little off
    22. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To me, RSS is a life-changing concept. Literally. The internet is full of valuable/insightful content (not just entertainment). The best of this content (IMO) is medium/long form insightful posts by those invested in a field. These posts are scattered around the internet, and some of the best creators/thinkers post sporadically. Keeping up with all of these creators/thinkers would require checking hundreds of sites regularly. Enter RSS. Once you subscribe to a feed, the content is delivered to you as it become available - which is a profound shift. As a professional artist, my development was drastically accelerated by the ability to follow HUNDREDS of active artists posting insights about their work and process. Many only post a couple times per year - which would be a terribly costly thing to follow without RSS.

    23. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I mostly use it to view a collection of articles from various sources,

      Which makes RSS an excellent tool against fake news/echo chamber.

    24. Re:RSS for the masses? by jon3k · · Score: 1

      I'm a TT-RSS user as well, immediately after the closure of Google Reader. Although I don't have anything near 60 sources. Being able to go to a single site and see a stream of events which I can easily and quickly navigate (with vim keyboard shortcuts even) which shows me in a nice linear form only the items that have been published since the last time I looked is the most efficient way I've found to consume news and other published resources on the web.

    25. Re:RSS for the masses? by grahamtriggs · · Score: 1

      Simple - if I didn't use an RSS reader, I would rarely visit any of the sites I'm keeping track of.

      Clicking through to the site when a story interests me and/or I want to comment on it, they are getting more traffic out of me using an RSS reader than if I didn't.

    26. Re:RSS for the masses? by apoc.famine · · Score: 5, Informative

      Something like 90% of my browsing gets done through RSS. I'm happily subscribed to INOreader, in the hopes that it will stay alive for a long time. Here is how I use RSS. On one page, I get the following notifications, bundled into the appropriate folders:

      * All of my mainstream news from a half dozen different websites, with a headline and 1-2 sentence intro. This allows me to decide which ones are worth reading, and which ones to skip. It is super quick to get through a lot of news this way, and I avoid going to all of the different websites, their shitastic auto-playing videos, poorly laid out pages, etc.
      * All of my web comics. About 2/3 display right in the reader, the other 1/3 I have to go to. But all in one folder, so no bookmarking, opening in tabs, etc.
      * The limited social media feeds I follow, both Twitter and Facebook. Just the posts from the creators, none of the reposts, retweets, replies, or any of that shit. It's a minimal way to keep up with asshats who insist on using social media. (Hello local brewery, which only posts their taplist and hours on facebook...)
      * Stupid shit that I keep around for when I need some lowbrow entertainment. Cat memes and failure gifs.
      * STEM websites posting content I may or may not be interested in. The posts build up in that folder until I'm feeling sciency, then I can browse through a bunch of different fields and some of the new stuff coming out.

      Having all of that in one place limits the mental energy it takes to track down all those disparate things. When I want to read my comics, pop open the comic folder, and I can read a couple of weeks of comics. When I want science, I can do that with science. I don't have to bookmark a thousand pages and open them in different tabs, and try to figure out how long it's been since I've been there.

      Most places do a crappy job with archives. RSS lets me save and favorite things for later. And unread things are all in date order, so when I get around to it, I have an idea how old it is.

      Trying to take in most modern websites is brain-fuzzing. Graphics and moving shit, boxes of articles, teasers and the like, infinite scrolling, etc. Every one is different, and they all suck. RSS gives me every website in the same format. Small image, title, couple of sentences.

      Scrolling past a headline and it's marked as read. Unless I unmark it. And if I go to long and have 500 unread articles, I can just mark ones older than X days, weeks, months as read. It really simplifies how one interacts with content on the web. It's just so easy and organized. I really can't be bothered to do the web without RSS.

      Oh, and INOreader has a great mobile app too, so I have the same thing on my browser as on my phone.

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    27. Re: RSS for the masses? by houghi · · Score: 1

      I use RSS for three things.
      1) auto download of tv shows via tprrents
      2) seeing what new videos there are on channels on Youtube without logging in.
      3) sites like /. For the lastone I made my own webpage with several other channels.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    28. Re:RSS for the masses? by Jahta · · Score: 1

      Can someone who really uses RSS feeds shed some light on it's benefits for a mass market? Is there any? I find RSS doesn't really fit into any internet habits I currently have. I've never really used RSS other than trying it out a few times and I never found it to be helpful in anyway. I'm sure there are lots of people who love RSS. Not being one of them I'd like to hear the positives from someone who actually uses it regularly.

      I use QuiteRSS; it's how I got to this article.

      Why do I use it? It allows me to aggregate new posts from a bunch of different sites and home in on stuff I'm particularly interested in; e.g. QuiteRSS can tag articles about development languages and tools I use (using keywords or regular expressions that I specify) making it easy to quickly see new articles about, say, python. There's a lot of new content published every day and a good RSS reader makes that "fire hose" more manageable.

    29. Re:RSS for the masses? by OrangeTide · · Score: 2

      I think if you mainly only visit a handful of sites regularly then RSS doesn't have much value. If you're one of those people that bounces between Slashdot, Reddit, Hackaday and CNN (or whatever news you prefer). Then RSS is not worth setting up.

      If you're like me and you track 40 blogs that are only periodically updated, then RSS is a real time saver. (the blogs are related to my hobbies, not anything news worthy).

      As for how someone monetizes it? I don't care. I'm from the era when nearly everything on the Internet was free and advertisements were nearly unheard of. Use cases that may inhibit the full commercialization of the Internet is not something I worry about. We know the Internet can exist with or without ad revenue, people will always find a way to make it work. I accept that the Internet is bigger and better because of ad revenue, but I'm not going to bend over backwards and inconvenience myself in support of that commercialization.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    30. Re:RSS for the masses? by old_skul · · Score: 1

      This. I use TT-RSS installed on an rPi2 at home that doubles as my proxy from work. You'd be surprised how much compelling content is still out there on RSS - Slashdot included. I have images turned off and it just appears as text.

    31. Re:RSS for the masses? by Trogre · · Score: 2

      The same as every other service - injected into the feed as an article or inline with another article.

      Oh, you mean using analytics to spy on whether I actually read an article or not? Yeah RSS isn't so good for that.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    32. Re:RSS for the masses? by VeryFluffyBunny · · Score: 1

      RSS is my primary source of new, analyses, and opinions. I find blogs and websites that consistently publish well-written, reliable, well-researched content that I'm interested in and find their RSS feed URL. I then add it to my personal list of feeds in my email client (Mozilla Thunderbird) so I can check up on new articles when I've finished doing my emails. The only other places I look for news are /. and Twitter, where I only follow people who consistently find and/or write "good" articles.

      Keeping up to date on my fields of interest would be more time-consuming, haphazard, and difficult without RSS.

      --
      Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
    33. Re:RSS for the masses? by cdecoro · · Score: 1

      The reason I saw this article is because of RSS (I use Feedly). In fact, the only way I see *any* /. articles is through my RSS reader. I really don't have the time or the Interest to randomly click around to every site that I subscribe to in order to see if there are new articles. There are about 25 sites that I subscribe to. Perhaps if they went away, I'd "Like" or "Follow" them on Facebook, but scrolling through the Facebook newsfeed would be a lot less efficient than just seeing the headlines in Feedly and deciding in a couple seconds whether there is anything that I want to click on. More likely, if not for RSS, I would never go to those sites.

      I'm curious: what do you do to find articles to read, and in particular, how did you find this article?

    34. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So code one up Mr Complainer! RSS is pretty simple XML

    35. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Liferea has a per-feed checkbox to switch between showing the content in the RSS feed vs. opening the website it links to which fixes most of those issues for me. It also lets you write filter scripts which I've used for things like subsetting a feed (i.e. take only titles matching a regular expression) and converting Twitter feeds into RSS so I can view them without gong to the Twitter website.

    36. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is an intervention.
      Stop abusing yourself like that, use a fucking rss reader.

    37. Re:RSS for the masses? by Gavin+Rogers · · Score: 1

      Yes, using an RSS reader for most sites does reduce ad revenue.

      Instead of visiting the home page of the site, and seeing all the top tier front page ads and the click-bait paid articles and opening a few tabs of interesting content (and seeing the ads again) and generally lingering, you're heading straight into one page of the content.

      Sites make less ad revenue from RSS readers because you're not hanging around.

    38. Re:RSS for the masses? by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      I want to read news from my favourite news sites. I just click open bookmarks, mouseover my favourite site and scan the headlines.

      Welcome to firefox RSS bookmarks integration.

    39. Re:RSS for the masses? by pots · · Score: 1

      For a lot of things like comic strips, it's a bad deal if they publish the strips to the RSS feed. But it works out fine if they only publish a notice and a link, "New strip available, click here to read it."

      From my perspective, this is really all that I want anyway. RSS is a great way to stay notified.

    40. Re:RSS for the masses? by Kris_J · · Score: 1
      I use TinyTinyRRS on an old laptop I leave running at home and have a variety of ways to connect to it from outside the house. It's my main source of news, and in fact the way I was alerted to this Slashdot article. It consolidates feeds from the following sources, allowing me to quicly keep up with a ton of news and other stuff that interests me in one place:
    41. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Similar experience here.

      I'm paying for a NewsBlur premium membership even while I don't use any of the premium features, hoping that it increases the chances for the service to not end up in a Slashdot headline like this.

      On a related note, Slashdot comes in through such an RSS feed. Would be interesting to hear from the powers that be how prominently RSS is used in general to get to Slashdot articles?

    42. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, instead of receiving no revenue because I can't link to their newsfeed from my homepage, they occasionally get me on their site reading an interesting looking article and a few surrounding ads.

    43. Re:RSS for the masses? by XSportSeeker · · Score: 1

      I dunno about mass market, but the RSS reader advantages from early days remain true, and there isn't a proper replacement for it to this day. I might miss some stuff here, but I think they are:

      1. Speed and efficiency - the ability to read through multiple news sources updates fast, in a non-polluted platform. My reader is setup like webmail/Gmail. Most readers offer keyboard shortcuts that once you learn and start using makes going through the list even faster. So it's a really good tool for people who read news from multiple fixed sources. It is by far faster than opening up pages one by one, or even opening a list of bookmarks all at once - no load times, no going through pages all with different designs. It's also lighter on a limited data plan, for instance, or a machine with limited power. And if the blog/portal you read stuff from is properly formatted, you can also pull only the summary of each item, which also helps on speed;

      2. Standardization - most RSS readers offer you a few options of interface. It can look like a regular webmail interface, it can present one article per page, it can give you a list of summaries of the articles. It also offers some standard ordering (chronological, alphabetical, oldest first), standard filters (unread only, all, starred only) among others. The RSS format is largely responsible for news/blog content standardization too - categorizing portions of a news article or blog post into summary, body, title, tags, and a whole bunch of other stuff - some came with the RSS format, most of it is used for it's advantage;

      3. Control - RSS readers will give you a raw full list of everything new that's getting published in a certain news portal, website, blog, or subsection of those. You have tools to filter and manage it by yourself, but you will be doing it yourself. No 3rd party curation, no opaque social network's algorithms filtering and ordering it for you, no business controling what you get to read;

      4. Alerts for new content in infrequent sources - say you have a bunch of sources that publish stuff very infrequently, but it's important for you to know everytime they do. Comics, business websites, artist blogs, a business website you have interest in official updates, press releases of some website, etc. It'll show up for you as a new item reliably, which is why tons of journalists make use of RSS readers. Wanna keep up with the latest announcements of some business that isn't big enough to make the mainstream news, yet they always update a blog or portal - RSS is the way to go;

      5. Advanced filtration - Some readers do offer a way to filter through content, commonly by keywords, but you set it up yourself. So if you follow say a tech blog that publishes a ton of content, but you don't want anything from Apple, you can blacklist the keyword. Show me all articles from Slashdot minus anything that has keywords like Apple or iPhone, for instance. I know you can get browser plugins and whatnot to do that, but plugins suck, and RSS feeds are more reliable. Whitelisting is also available in some - you want to read only Apple related news on Slashdot. And as those things are in your control, you can turn on or off whenever is more convenient for you;

      6. Researching - again, something that some readers offer, is to search keywords through your personal feed. It's easier to go back to something you read before that way than using a search engine like Google when you are not exactly sure about the source and whatnot. It's going to look only at the content you are subscribed to, not the entire Internet;

      7. Portability - due to standardization and how the format works, it becomes easy to use an RSS reader in pretty much all your devices - and the content will reliability adapt. It's CSS for content instead of styling/design. Most of them are web based, so you can just access in any device with Internet connection and a browser. Nowadays this isn't a huge deal anymore as most websites works well in any format, but specially in early days of smartphones

    44. Re:RSS for the masses? by XSportSeeker · · Score: 1

      That actually depends on source. Some blogs/websites display full content, some don't. You still have to click through if you wanna make a comment, for instance.

    45. Re:RSS for the masses? by XSportSeeker · · Score: 1

      That's another way to attack the problem, but you can see in itself the advantage for an RSS reader - it doesn't have to load a whole ton of pages and their formats, it's easier on limited dataplans and on the browser itself. :D

    46. Re:RSS for the masses? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately it's way more interesting for them (and reaches a lot more people, too) to ask for your mail address to keep you informed...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    47. Re:RSS for the masses? by zomberi · · Score: 1

      RSS can be monetized in two ways. One - publish only snippets in the RSS so that users will see the ads when they visit the site for the entire article. Two - publish ads directly in the RSS. Most RSS readers use a web browser component which can display ads in addition to images and videos.

    48. Re:RSS for the masses? by SunTzuWarmaster · · Score: 1

      I used iGoogle and now I use NetVibes. They are RSS aggregator "personal homepage" pages. They allow for there to be a single page of all of my favorite RSS feeds (Slashdot, soylent, gmail). There is then another page for entertainment (reddit /r/jokes, /r/firstworldproblems, zenhabits, Art of Manliness, etc.). There is then another page for work stuff (AI news, tech pushes, etc.).

      RSS is the internet plumbing that enables me to see the content from 10+ pages in headline format (click to know more) without actually going to 10 pages. In theory, you can do the same with Facebook, but they censor what you see. RSS is agnostic.

      That said, RSS allows for people to see the content on the page without going to the page... which is probably the primary problem with it.

    49. Re:RSS for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm using feeds (RSS or preferably Atom) all the time on my laptop (Firefox + Feed Sidebar) and mobile (Flym). It's an open protocol, so I can view feeds in the reader I like and not rely on some website supported by spying and ads, or on bloated homepages. And very importantly, I don't have to register on sites (establish identity) and make myself easier to track just so I can "follow/friend" other profiles to see their updates. With feeds, I don't see advertising or pictures, just a list of titles, and can open the ones that interest me. I use feeds for Slashdot, blogs, news sites, sometimes comics.

  3. Directed here from inoreader by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Switched to feedly and later inoreader after google reader shut down...

    But I gather it's hard to turn a profit from people who make a point of using feeds to avoid ads.

  4. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the protocol did not catch on, you're a geek using a niche tech that is dying.

    move on, the rest of us have

    I see those classes teaching you to be a pompous jackass are paying off. Aren't you late for your daily Mac vs PC argument?

  5. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you realize that almost every news and blog site publishes RSS or Atom?

    "Move on" to what? What do you use to aggregate your blogs and news sites, or do you just visit them individually each day?

    If you are using any tool to aggregate your news, you are probably benefiting from RSS/Atom.

  6. If you are looking for a replacement try newsblur by JumpSuit+Boy · · Score: 1

    https://newsblur.com/ Yes is costs a small amount of money but it works well. I have no other relation than being an early and still happy customer.

    --
    Oh really?
  7. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What did you move on to? Desperately scanning the random headlines of your favourite website, hoping to detect new content?

    Meanwhile, I didn't bother with all these crap services and just spun up Tiny RSS on my $5/month VPS.

  8. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by chispito · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the protocol did not catch on, you're a geek using a niche tech that is dying.

    move on, the rest of us have

    What did you move on to, exactly? RSS is still everywhere, by the way.

    --
    The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
  9. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by iggymanz · · Score: 0

    wrong, RSS is dying, look at any graph of # of site, it's plummeted in last 15 years.

    It's dead, Jim

  10. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by iggymanz · · Score: 0

    look it up

    RSS has been dying for 15 years, face reality and facts

  11. Re:If you are looking for a replacement try newsbl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use Inoreader for me it worked better as a Google Reader replacement.

  12. Irony (for me at least) by Snard · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been using Feedly for quite a while now. I originally was a Google Reader user, but that was shuttered a long time ago. Anyway, I have been mostly happy with the free version of Feedly, except that recently they've started injecting "fake" articles in my various feeds, presumably as a source of ad revenue. So, a couple weeks ago I finally got fed up and decided to see what other free readers there were out there. Digg Reader seems to be the best of the bunch, so I exported/imported my feeds and gave it a whirl. The user interface was not quite as nice, but at least there weren't fake articles to skip over. Then, yesterday I got the message about it going away on the 26th. Sigh

    I suppose I could try the pay version of Feedly and ditch the ads, but for some reason, an RSS reader isn't worth 1/2 of the monthly price of Netflix to me (that's just an example). I suppose it's only "pennies a day" but a penny saved is a penny earned, as they say.

    --
    - Mike
    1. Re:Irony (for me at least) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use theoldreader.com. It has a nice clean interface. I pay $20 subscription a year. There are some advantages to the paid account, but I don't think that I'm using any of these. I just pay because I don't want it to end up like Digg.

    2. Re:Irony (for me at least) by Fusen · · Score: 1

      I use Feedly (free, I don't pay anything) and have yet to see any 'fake article' type injected entries.

      Do you use an AdBlocker? I always will have either uBlock or AdBlock Plus depending on which device which may explain it. Although I also use the Feedly Android app and haven't seen anything there either.

      What were these injected ads like?

    3. Re:Irony (for me at least) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try RSSOwl. It's the best of the non-web feed readers. You need to install Java 8 32-bit though.

    4. Re:Irony (for me at least) by Snard · · Score: 1

      The ads show up as an article within a particular feed. There are certain ones that show up over and over. One example is "You've got this. Wow your presentation audience with Prezi." Of course now that I'm looking for other examples, I can't find one. Maybe it's because I accidentally clicked on it so now they are suppressing more ads for X hours.

      --
      - Mike
    5. Re:Irony (for me at least) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use a program (Reeder) on top of Feedly and don’t get any fake articles. It’s faster than the web interface too.

    6. Re:Irony (for me at least) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Check out feedbin.com -- really cheap, fantastic service, and *it just works*.

    7. Re:Irony (for me at least) by trawg · · Score: 1

      Are you sure they're not ads in the RSS content you're reading? I've seen nothing like the behaviour you're describing.

    8. Re:Irony (for me at least) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      install Java

      Hahahahaha lolwut? I’d rather give myself AIDS.

    9. Re:Irony (for me at least) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use the free version of Feedly as well, because I don't see the value in the "Pro" version at 65USD per year. That's pretty steep!

    10. Re:Irony (for me at least) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been using Feedly too since the end of Google Reader. I quite like Feedly but their paid plan is too expensive, and was missing something, i wanted to have aggregated news from feeds i don't follow, so i can check what's going on in the world that doesn't show up in my feeds.

      So i built my own news aggregation / rss reader, a mix between Google News and Feedly: http://aktu.io.

      I would love to have your feedback if you want to give it a try.

      Thanks!

  13. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1

    I found igHome.com after iGoogle closed. If they don't already have the feed you want, you can create it from an RSS url and then share it as a "gadget". The only issue I see is they need to clean out old gadgets that have died due to a change in url. They also have a "black button" link section across the top of the page that can be configured and the buttons relabeled.
    http://www.ighome.com/

    --
    You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
  14. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    no, number of RSS sites peaked in 2006 and it has been dying off since, social media push killed it

  15. why who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I dunno. I just use live subscriptions in Firefox.

    1. Re:why who cares? by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Pretty much this. One of the few remaining reasons to use firefox. The integration of RSS into bookmarks is excellent.

  16. Nextcloud-News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nextcloud-News is a replacement for cloudy RSS services.
    Run your own - 1-click install adds "News" to your nextcloud instance.

    Stop letting cloud services see/decide what you read.

  17. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    look it up

    RSS has been dying for 15 years, face reality and facts

    Just because you don't use something doesn't mean it is "dying".

    If you ever become an adult, you may come to realize that other people may have different needs and desires, which are no less valid
    because you do not share those needs or desires.

  18. NextCloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NextCloud has a fantastic RSS News reader. But you will have to host it yourself. Well worth the time, because you also get a online file storage, contacts, calendar and email client.

  19. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    You're funny, we're not talking about me and my Chrome browser that dropped rss support years ago, but the world:

    https://trends.google.com/tren...

  20. There's always TinyTiny RSS by imcdona · · Score: 1

    I'm an avid user of RSS feeds. When Google Reader bit the dust I moved to TinyTiny RSS along with many others. It's based on the look and feel of the old Google Reader. I login to TinyTiny every morning to catch up on everything from software updates to the latest news. In one app I have access to: The latest news from various sources News from all the open source projects I follow Updates on topics I'm interested in. For example, I have an RSS feed based on Google News keywords such as SIP or VoIP. That way whenever a story publishes with those keywords it's brought to my attention. Product updates. I follow the RSS feeds of various companies for changes and updates to products I own. I have key worlds set in TinyTiny that group together lists of articles that contain key words regardless of source. RSS is a huge time saver. It sure beats visiting 100+ sites daily to get the latest news and updates. https://tt-rss.org/

  21. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

    has netcraft confirmed it?

  22. RSSOwl, TT-RSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I like RSSOwl, if you like windows thick clients. The problem with it is that I don't have it open during the day and some big feeds will only show the last 10 or 20, meaning I miss articles during the day.

    To cover that, I set up a TTRSS on a home server that does run all day, and you can actually either use that direct or have RSS Owl read a feed out of TT-RSS that basically copies it, to still keep everything in one place.

    It's a little convoluted. I would just use RSS Owl, except for the higher volume stuff.

  23. Heavy User of RSS by digiital · · Score: 1

    I'm a heavy user of RSS feeds, after google pulled the plug I installed TT-RSS on one of my servers. I have 487 Feeds, collected over the yrs. I have found RSS feeds for job hunting to be a MASSIVE asset . It saves hours and hours of going from job hunting site to site. Build a RSS feed from a keyword on say for example indeed and put into a RSS reader and it saves me from going to indeed and searching for each keyword for new job postings.

  24. Writing on the wall by fulldecent · · Score: 1

    I need to understand why RSS is not working in the real world.

    It is because people just don't read any more? Or because publishers don't care about less-engaged RSS visitors versus high-engaged direct website visits and facebook referrals? Or because the hub is too expensive to run versus the advertising revenue (which Digg didn't have)?

    ---

    Originally RSS was thought to be a many-to-many protocol. Apply quickly taught the world that many-to-one-to-many is a superior model and it is how you get push notifications on your phone. Fortunately, RSS works with the this model (PUBSUB) using Digg Reader et al. And unfortunately, Facebook also fills this role.

    Staying informed is very important to me so I want to learn why RSS is failing in the market. RSS is a unique way for me to read what I want, in chronological order, without censorship, and without giving out my personal information. But I can see this value is not important to everyone.

    --

    -- I was raised on the command line, bitch

    1. Re:Writing on the wall by will_die · · Score: 1

      Twitter has taken up the role RSS use to have. I use to have Google Reader page setup with blogs and tech sites that were infrequent but published good material. At that point I dropped it and went to just a news sites.
      Recently tried to duplicate that capability to track some authors and had to get a twitter account because notifications of new articles was sent through that.

    2. Re:Writing on the wall by glomph · · Score: 1

      Totally - just create a Twitter list of sources (or multiple topical lists) and group your interests there (Sports / Tech / General News / Sleaze). Virtually all info sources (real and clickbait) publish regularly there with links to content. For most users at least as good as RSS readers.

  25. Dilbert by sanf780 · · Score: 1

    RSS died the moment Dilbert strips were not shown in Dilbert RSS.

    1. Re:Dilbert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny - for me it was just the opposite. I am still using RSS, but I only go to the Dilbert site once in a while; maybe 3 or 4 times a year. It really ticked me off, and I missed Dilbert at first, but life went on...

  26. I'm an RSS dinosaur by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

    Open the door, get on the floor
    Everybody walk the dinosaur

    I don't really get why people don't use it more to aggregate content from many sites. These days you don't even have to install a special app to do it, it is build in some browsers or you can get a web based one like Feedly and visit it from your phone and desktop browser.

    I think it will be easy for me to be an RSS dinosaur as long as popular frameworks for blogging continue to support it. I doubt the RSS support in a project like WordPress is very high maintenance so what incentive is there to remove the support?

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    1. Re: I'm an RSS dinosaur by mencial · · Score: 1

      I use NewsBlur and GrazeRRS On Android. Free, never miss the stuff I care about. Never see a headline twice: go down the list, swipe right on the stuff I want to read, dismiss the rest. I can read it on the London tube with no network, or in a PC, it is all synchronized. I have been doing this for 15 years (GrazeRRS used to work with Google Reader, it was called NewsRob back then). I haven't found a better option.

  27. Tiny Tiny RSS, then MiniFlux by kbahey · · Score: 2

    I was dependent on Google Reader for the daily news (including Slashdot).

    When it shutdown, I did not want to go to yet another online service that can shutdown, so I opted for a self hosted solution.

    First, I used Tiny Tiny RSS for a few years. It worked well. I ran it on my home server. Written in PHP and using MySQL made it easy to host.

    One day, it was choking on feeds from a certain site, and stopped updating.

    So I switched to the original MiniFlux reader. Again, it is written in PHP, so easy to host. It can use either SQLite, MySQL, and other databases.

    The same developer has gone in a different direction, with MiniFlux 2, which uses Go, and PostgreSQL (only!). The developer describes it as 'opinionated!'

    Using Go is an odd choice here, since this is not an application that has to be super fast. The slowest parts will be retrieving feeds (limited by the speed of the network and servers that host the feeds), or reading the database. Moreover, being a single executable, it does not integrate with your existing Apache or Nginx (if you already have them and want to use existing SSL certificates, ...etc.) and therefore has to run on a different port. PostgreSQL only is higher maintenance than MySQL, and if I don't not run PostgreSQL already, then I will not install, configure and maintain PostgreSQL just for the this one application.

    So for now, the original MiniFlux does the job adequately, running behind SSL and password protected, so not much chance for a vulnerability getting exploited. Tiny Tiny RSS had a better user interface, but you get used to MiniFlux quickly. It even uses short cut keys that are like vim (j, k, ...)

  28. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you knew what social media was and why you'd need it we wouldn't be on /.

  29. Better financial model to suppoort RSS by shanen · · Score: 1

    Imagine that the people who wanted to use this RSS service were routed to an ongoing-cost project to support the service. If enough of the people who want to use it agree to pay the costs, perhaps $10 each, then the service would continue.

    My take is that the problem is bad financial models, and if you [Opportunist] actually earned that insightful moderation it is only for a light touch on the root of the problem. I think advertising is fundamentally lies, and it is crazy even to try to fund truth (in journalism) with lies (in advertising).

    The general financial model that I advocate would also work for funding new features. If enough people agreed they wanted a new feature enough to buy a "charity share", then it would be funded and created. AtAJG, DSAuPR.

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  30. offline rss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Personally I use r2e and read rss in notmuch-emacs, in this way I have a good search solution,
    a good archive solution if I want to keep an article that may also be deleted online and I can also
    easy share it via mail.

    The real problem I feel today is that any free service disappear. Email are free and any corp try
    to replace it with proprietary solution from WhatsApp to team chat &c, rss are free and you can
    choose whatever you want, instead today is common to serve "graphic walls" of s*it that can
    make you loose time on it but do not really control or even know anything you read. Newsgroups
    are the same, substituted by proprietary platform from Disqus to /. ...

    This is a BIG problem in general because IT it's not a game anymore, is the nervous system of
    our society and have it in few hand is definitively NOT good.

  31. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by LarryRiedel · · Score: 2

    I don't know about peaked, but about 90% of the news sites and blogs I go to have RSS. I get 500+ articles a day from about 100 feeds. For sites which only use Twitter inoreader incorporates them into the feed.

  32. NNTP Newsgroups for the masses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    RSS is an aggregater as much as newsgroups were an aggregater. Netcraft confirms both are dying.

  33. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

    They move onto some flashy app that just uses rss in the background. A flashy app is good for keeping uncool technologies away from the ultra cool masses.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  34. Re:If you are looking for a replacement try newsbl by mmascari · · Score: 2

    https://newsblur.com/ Yes is costs a small amount of money but it works well. I have no other relation than being an early and still happy customer.

    Bonus, because it costs money instead of selling ads, you're the actual customer and not a product being sold to someone else.

    Also a customer, with 165 feeds, including Slashdot.

  35. G2Reader by stinkyj · · Score: 1

    I tried a couple readers after Google Reader shutdown, most were flashy, i wanted something i could read quickly, not flashy graphics. I settled on G2reader. Very minimalist, good support from developer. I did like the Old reader, but they seemed concerned about social groups. If g2reader shutdown, i'd head back to the old reader.

    1. Re:G2Reader by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey,

      if you're still looking for other options, i built my own news aggregation / rss reader, a mix between Google News and Feedly: http://aktu.io

      I would love to have your feedback if you want to give it a try.

  36. Re:face it you RSS dinosaurs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It may be dying, but it's still the best way to use internet by far.
    Just because people don't use it, doesn't mean it's not great, and as long as it works, I'll keep using it.
    Sometimes people are stupid, people voted for the most obvious scam artist in history, I rest my case.
    Inoreader is great.

  37. Problem.. by XSportSeeker · · Score: 1

    The problem with the RSS model is how companies can't find a good way of profitting out of it, which is unfortunate.
    I've been using RSS readers before Google Reader even existed (I remember using Foxmail and some other types of RSS readers in the past), currently on Feedly, but already have TinyTiny RSS reader as a backup strategy and I'm trying to also see if I can make my Synology NAS work with Selfoss... no success so far.

    For those wondering what's good about it, once you are used to the format it's kinda hard to use anything else. It displays feeds in an e-mail like format, chronological order, and it enables you to go super fast through the news - even more when you get used to keyboard shortcuts and use it to reshare, republish or store. Depending on what reader you are using there are also features like filters, search options, and whatnot. And then there's a bunch things you can do with it if the service is also available on automation services like IfTTT.

    I would be perfectly fine with the system dying off.... IF there was a proper replacement to it. But that's the real problem with Google Reader and now this one dying. I absolutely and completely do not want to rely, nor I will ever, on social networks as news sources. They make an absolute mess of it, not reliable at all, comparatively ultra slow, cumbersome, inconvenient, increasingly invasive and without any tools for sorting and research.
    But I think since Google Reader's demise, plenty of open source self hosted readers popped up in response. I think there's at least half a dozen options nowadays... I wanted something that worked well with my NAS, but if that doesn't work out I might just get a devboard or spare computer, install some linux distro on it, and install one of the open source options to do the job.

    It's unfortunate that the format isn't still going on, don't have a mass appeal, and isn't profitable to be kept up. But people who do use it won't be giving up anytime soon. I guess lots of people don't know about this, but journalists specially rely a whole lot on them.

  38. Re: face it you RSS dinosaurs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FreshRSS

  39. When RSS supports offline storage... by zomberi · · Score: 1

    The main advantage of RSS is the anonymity it provides. I used to use Opera as feed reader on my PC. It stores the article snippets offline on the computer. Even if the site goes out, I still have article links, which I can use on the Internet Archive's cache. For Android, I did not like these apps that store my data online. So I wrote my own offline feed reader and added it to my app - Subhash Browser. With Opera, I just need to copy the .opera folder if I move to a new PC. I like RSS so much that when Twitter removed their RSS service I wrote a localhost Twitter web server providing both HTML & RSS output.

  40. Newsblur by ericdano · · Score: 1

    Newblur.com

    Switched to it when Google Reader died. Haven't regretted it. RSS is a HUGE part of my daily internet. Allows me to keep on top of thousands of sites.

    --
    It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
    I moderate therefore I rule!
    --