I hope HN finds NewsBlur useful, especially since it's got native mobile apps on iOS (iPhone+iPad), Android, Windows Phone, and Nokia MeeGo. Native story sharing was launched last Summer and I expect NewsBlur to be around for quite a while.
It's also fully open-source, in case you decide to build your own private community: http://github.com/samuelclay.
I also have a full-scale re-design in the works, but if you can't get to the main site you can try using the beta site: http://dev.newsblur.com
I've been rooting for you and recall enjoying the blog posts about its making - I've always figured that "RSS is dead" and there is no longer money in clients (people used to pay for desktop readers!)..
Except that Google would kill Reader eventually and somebody will soak that userbase of nerds right up. And NewsBlur is clearly the top choice and will hopefully occupy similar mindshare as Reader did for us until now. Congrats, well played. :)
I wonder what the next one along these lines will be as now would be a great time to start building it.
That said I do think that going after markets abandoned by the big guys is an excellent way to go. Usually they abandon it because its not a billion dollar business and isn't worth their time.
I believe now that you need to start attacking their market-share before they close the product down and use the closure as a marketing opportunity.
Now is too late. The right time to have started building it was 2-6 months ago. Now is the time to market an existing solution.
Citing the great gretzky quote, the "puck" is already here.
I mean-- err, yes, totally too late! Don't worry about it.
We've been working on it for the past few months.
With backstitch (http://backstit.ch) we get questioned a lot why Google is no longer supporting these types of services (and if this means there is no opportunity there since they aren't worried about it anymore). We honestly feel like there is a lot of surface left uncovered when it comes to personalized/streamlined content and it just doesn't seem to be part of Google's refocusing (this has been seen with the shutting down of a lot of their lab projects as well).
In my industry merchant accounts are very difficult to come by. We are considered high risk. Even with a year of processing records showing 1 chargeback out of >3k transactions I can't get access to a merchant with decent rates(currently paying 3.7%). All the big players turn us away. There's gold to be mined off the beaten path.
That said, I lament the lack of a desktop app. I've been using Reeder for OS X, and I'd really like to have some sort of desktop app instead of relying on my iPhone or a website. Have you considered talking to existing app makers (e.g. Reeder) to see if they might want to switch over to using your service as their backend?
Conesus: Have you considered running a Kickstarter for a desktop version of NewsBlur, in order to gauge interest? I'd definitely contribute.
I used to use GR every day, then on a whim I switched the free newsblur version. To be perfectly honest, it doesn't offer me a lot more than GR did, but after hitting the 60 feed limit a couple of times I've now gone paid and I'm happy to support a service that does exactly what I want it to do. It would have been nice if it imported by saved(or linked or started or whatever they were called in the end) stories from GR though.
One peeve though, I have no idea how to manage my feeds. Is there any easy way to move them round through drag-and-drop? It appears I have to move them manually one by one, but I have a lot of feeds and I'd rather not do that!
Intigi is a paid service, primarily targeted at marketers, but we do have a number of startups and founders using the product for content discovery and sharing. You can quickly share content you find to social media, a WordPress site, or to an RSS feed (e.g., to connect with IFTTT).
I'm one of the cofounders and happy to answer any questions about the service and would love any feedback, if you decide to give it a test spin. Please email me at mjfern(at)intigi.com.
Might be worth a post or two
It works from the browser, including mobile browsers, and native apps are coming. There's also an OPML importer, though currently experimental, and subscriptions can be consumed as OPML, RSS, etc.
Can anyone confirm that the Android Listen app will cease to function (i.e. refresh your existing feeds) once Google Reader is shut down? Am pretty sure that it relies solely on Google Reader's "Listen Subscriptions" tag for refreshing your podcast feeds, so that's definitely another gap that needs filling.
The project site is here http://rivers.silverkeytech.com and you get the app here http://goo.gl/kShgp.
The app is a bit young but it is maturing rapidly. I deploy a new version every two weeks or so. The next update is due in a few days.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/giving-you-better-goo...
EDIT: And OPML is the other option when you signup. It's an easy import process, since it's really quite important to get that part right.
(1) It lets you add subscriptions to regular websites without an RSS feed.
(2) It lets you search for articles that were published before you subscribed to the feed.
I think you could add (2) simply by redirecting to Google search using the site:sitename.com argument.
(1) may not be that simple to add but it would be an incredibly important feature to have.
It was super simple to import my feeds from Google and I find that the navigation in NewsBlur lets me read/scroll through items (and ignore articles that aren't interesting) much faster than Google Reader.
Anyone looking for a Google Reader substitute, definitely give NewsBlur a try!
I hope HN finds it useful too. It's also fully open-source too: https://github.com/shenfeng
I need, 100%, to see my content in forward-chronological order (most-recent-last).
I've already given $24 for a year of NewsBlur, and I am super excited about being able to share and comment again. But, I know I'm not alone in wanting correct sorting.
Just 1-2 things I miss: - how can I mark an article read/unread? - could I delete an entire folder? - is there a limit on the number of feeds it can handle (I tried to import from reader, and I miss some feeds/folders)
<RSS>"Rumors of my death are much exaggerated"</RSS>I tried to add this feed, for example: http://denver.craigslist.org/search/cto?maxAsk=28000&min...
without success, but it could be your server getting hammered.
I think that's a testament to how functional your app is. The iPhone app, while not up with Reeder (the iPhone app), is still very solid.
I look forward to the redesign too. The beta site looks great!
"NewsBlur experienced an error
The error has been logged and will be fixed soon so you won't have to see this message again."
It lets you display RSS feeds (and bookmarks, tasks and notes) in a similar layout.
(Also plugging a side project of mine :-))
Else, the first thing people try to do is find a way to close/remove/delete it so they can get started, which leads to the down arrow on it, which doesn't work to delete it. And now they're stuck wondering how to delete it...then they close the window without even tasting something they may have enjoyed.
https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur/commit/f5ec4fa37d0a81...
Hopefully it will go back to 64 once things get under control.
The layout feels visually ... cluttered? ... but the functionality is excellent so I'm happy. Also the Google Reader import failed the first time, but succeeded the second.
Make sure there is an export feature, for some reason, I can't find it, and I'll be a daily user.
But it irks me that a service I've been using for however long just one day decides to cut my quota by 80%.
It doesn't exactly spur me to start paying.
Is there a win8 version (win store, not desktop).
tks
Nice app btw. The only good thing from GR closure might be that the dev community comes up with some real great alternatives. And yes, I hope paid ones.
So, no dear this doesn't cut it.