So Long Google Reader. Hello Feedly, InoReader

by Dietrich Schmitz

If you depend on Google Reader, hopefully you've made plans for the switch being turned off, Monday July 1, 2013.

It was one of those tools that I found indispensable and used for the longest time.  I started using Akgregator, then BlogLines because it was always available from any PC with a login to the subscription.  Then I discovered Google Reader and have been using it since around 2006 to present.

The good news is that there are a few really good choices for you to consider as a replacement for Google Reader.

The first is Feedly.  I started using Feedly last year because it read my Google Reader subscription of RSS feeds automatically and the magazine format was nice and easy to use and read.

Feedly extension shown running on Google Chrome 28

Feedly comes in plugins for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox and the Feedly mobile application is available for Apple's iPad and iPhone and Android devices.

Another excellent contender for doing full-time duty and will probably be liked by many who are accustomed to the Google Reader layout and interface is INOReader.

I've got it installled and it automatically imported all of my Google Reader settings and was instantly usable because of its familiar layout, look and feel.

INOReader running on Google Chrome 28

It would behoove you to go directly to your Google Reader account to export to a file all of your RSS feeds, so that you can import them to another aggregator of your choice.  To do that open Google Reader, click the wheel at the far right, then click 'Settings':

Click the wheel on far right, then click 'Settings'

The click on the Import/Export tab in the Setting screen and click on "Download your data through Takeout" link.

Click "Download your data through Takeout"

Once you've clicked the link for Takeout, your screen will transition to Google Takeout where pressing the red button marked "Create Archive" will generate an archive.  Then click the Download button to download to your local drive:

After pressing Create Archive, select Download to download the archive to your local drive

That takes care of exporting all of your RSS feeds from Google Reader.  The OPML format is readable by many applications, so your reader should be able to import it without difficulty.

Well, if you've become as dependent on aggregators like Google Reader as I have, then you'll be relieved to know you have options now that Google Reader goes off-line on Monday.

Good Luck and happy feed reading!

-- Dietrich

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The Fourth Open Source Incline?

By Guest Writer +Dana Blankenhorn

I recently wrote a piece for TheStreet.com which likely drew little notice, because it was really aimed at y'all.

I've covered open source software since 2005, and spent a lot of time tracking how companies manipulate the rules of open source to suit themselves. While I was pushed out of ZDNet at the end of 2010 and now find myself doing financial journalist at TheStreet, SeekingAlpha and MotleyFool (with more offers coming in), I am still at heart a reporter, and still devoted to the technology beat, peering around each corner to see what might happen next. (Credit image right: Wikipedia.org)

Anyway, about the open source inclines.

One of my earliest pieces for ZDNet theorized the existence of such an incline--the idea being that the more even-handed the license, the more likely it was people would contribute code and other help to a project. You might call this the Open Source License Incline.

I wrote it because I was friendly at the time with the folks at  Appcelerator, who started in Atlanta but quickly moved to Silicon Valley. They had decided to license their mobile app code under the General Public License, or GPL, in order to draw contributors, and it seemed to be working, since the GPL is more “even-handed” than more “permissive” licenses like Apache, requiring that all contributors get access to all contributions.

A few years later, I returned to the subject and wrote the Open Source Development Incline, the idea being that a project's development model can impact how code contributors react to it.

This was just at the time when OpenStack, the open source cloud infrastructure, was starting up. Rackspace was then its corporate sponsor, but it was feeling pressure, to which it later succumbed, and placed the code into a separate foundation other companies could join. Off that, I believe, I was asked to keynote an Apache Foundation development conference, one of the great honors of my life. Can't say I did great, but I learned a lot.

In 2010 I completed my ZDNet trilogy with the Open Source Copyright incline--the idea being that where copyright is assigned also matters to contributors.

This was around the time Oracle tried to use copyright to seize control of open source projects it bought with Sun Microsystems. How open is any code, even GPL code, if a company can assert proprietary rights to what others wrote for it through copyright? Fortunately, courts have not seen fit to make open source a dead letter over this claim.

Thus, we come to my fourth revelation about open source inclines, the Open Source Access Incline.  Even if a project is open source, even if it's established, it can collapse if corporate contributors simply decide not to support it, or to restrict support of it by outside developers.

The news peg here is Google's decision to not only close out Google Reader, but, as CNET notes, all support for the Real Simple Syndication or RSS standard it uses. The aim, as Felix Salmon writes at Reuters, seems to be to keep users from regularly accessing data outside the Google walled garden.

I made this into a business story, as is the nature of my current work, but this was really a technical point: 

When a corporate sponsor controls a code base, when they're the ones making a market in it, they may as Google did try to kill the code base by withdrawing their support. Investors may see this as strength, but technical folks like y'all may also see it as weakness.

Which brings me to what Microsoft has done with its Kinect interface--as Fast Company writes, making code supporting the interface open source under the Apache License.

Microsoft's move, in a business sense, is weakness. But is it, in an open source sense, strength?

When I first wrote about the Open Source Incline, you may note that I illustrated the story with a right triangle–the whole thing was very Euclidean. With this latest piece, it seems like it's more like quantum mechanics, that there are at least four dimensions under which the rules of open source can be tweaked by companies hoping to seize its value and get some coder love for themselves.

And now that I've given you some of my time, perhaps you might offer some of yours in return and reflect on what drives open source contributions, what corporations can do to increase or decrease adoption, and where you see the state of play in the game of contributor vs. corporation.

-- Dana Blankenhorn

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And in Other News: Crickets

by Dietrich Schmitz

Okay.  So Google pulled the plug on Reader.  This is a major disappointment.

But it's not the end of the world.  There are options everyone should know exist to help them get their daily regimen of Internet news to stay on top of things.

As for myself, I am and have been a Reader user for several years.  Since Reader will not be turned off until July 1, 2013 you have some time at least to plan for transitioning to something else.

Keep in mind, in Reader settings (gear symbol) on the import/export tab, you can export all of your collective rss feeds to a file which can in turn be used by most other feed aggregators you'll find.  It would be prudent to make an export today so you don't forget about it later, and in the unlikely event you need it, it will be in your documents to retrieve for recovery.

Alright.  So, what to do?  Well, I am happy to report that you are going to be fine.

For one, I have been using a superb product named Feedly for over a year now and must say that, since making the switch to it, I have never once gone back to Reader.  This should tell you something about the quality of Feedly.

Essentially, Feedly takes your existing Google Reader account and reformats the information in a way that from my perspective makes its reading and management far easier than any other rss feed aggregation tool I have ever used.

It is really nice and you will also be happy to know that Feedly have applied 'due diligence' and are actively engaged in porting Google Reader to their platform.

The result will be that, come July 1, if you are currently using Feedly with Google Reader rss feeds, Feedly will gently take over the reigns and your transition will be a seamless process.

That is great because, as I mentioned, Feedly is my tool of choice and is truly a great way to digest and process your daily news.

You might know already from experience, Feedly isn't static and a refresh will result in your seeing updates throughout the day--in realtime--as news arrives, you'll be the first to know.

Because RSS has become so fast (seconds to minutes at most waiting for an rss feed to propogate), I rely less on following Twitter news feeds.  Twitter has its place, of course, but you'll be happy to also know that Feedly comes in an extension (plugin) for both Chrome and Firefox.

So, fear not.  If you hear those crickets, I am willing to bet you, you forgot to open your Feedly page.

Get on it.  Get Feedly.  Feedly has your back.

-- Dietrich

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