Google's hatred of their own customers; Feedly's utter incompetence



  • So it's finally happened. First they came for Google Buzz, and I did not protest because Buzz was redundant and poorly-designed. Then they came for Google Wave, and I did not protest because Wave was confusing and pointless. But now... now they've pried Google Reader from my cold, dead fingers. And I am sad, and angry, and many emotions. Fuck Google.

    And for everybody who's going to come into this thread like a howler monkey yelling, "BUT IT WASN'T MAKING ANY MONEY!" let me just point out that Google never fucking even fucking attempted to make any money from it. They never served ads on it. They never asked for a monthly subscription. So duh. Duh it wasn't making any money. I would have gladly paid for continued use of it though. Gladly. Considering the alternatives.

    So back when Google made the announcement a couple months ago, I went on a little spree and tried out a bunch of RSS clients. One of those was Feedly. I had it all working, all my feeds were imported from Google Reader, I could see a list of feed items and such, everything good to go. Yay. So I come back to it today, now that Reader is dead, and what do I find? Apparently Feedly didn't ever actually import my subscriptions; what it did was just link to the Google Reader API. Now that Reader is gone, so are the subscriptions I added. Sheesh. Of course that wouldn't be so bad except... oh wait, they haven't yet implemented OPML importing! So there's no way to put my feeds into Feedly, other than fucking copy-and-paste 300 times!

    Fuck. Reader wasn't even a good web app. In fact it was terrible in many ways. But its competition is somehow SO MUCH WORSE.

    Fuck you Google. I hope the few bucks you save per month is worth the lifetime of hatred you've earned from every Reader user. You dicks.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Oh dear. I tried Feedly myself - wasn't encouraged by their UI so ditched them after about 1/2 hour.



    In more encouraging news however, my RSS reader is still working perfectly. Then again, I did move it over weeks ago, and made sure it wasn't dependant on Google Reader still working.



    Don't bother asking which one it is Blakey - you wouldn't like it. In fact you said so if I recall correctly... ah, yes. Here it is. Anyway, as I said, at least it's still working.



  • I couldn't agree more. I'm using NetVibes. It's fine on a desktop, but browsing with my phone to it -- they create some stupid footer that takes up half the screen so I can only see one article title, and it is impossible to scroll.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said:

    Now that Reader is gone, so are the subscriptions I added. Sheesh. Of course that wouldn't be so bad except... oh wait, they haven't yet implemented OPML importing!
     

    I never used Google Reader, but I heard a lot of buzz around Feedly. Many people reccomended it. I gave it a try, just to see what reading some rss feeds in it would be like.

    The first thing I noticed was how their site was boosting that they now how Google Reader integration through APIs or some shit like that.

    Now-- I'm self-admittedly slightly behind the times. I don't use rss anywhere to the extent that I probably should be. I'm not 100% up on all the latest Google APIs and everything-- but even I kinda just stopped for a moment and thought to myself: "Wait, isn't the whole reason there's a massive surge in your userbase because your main competitor is shutting down their services? People aren't looking for a way to use Feedly to interface with Google Reader. They're looking for a way to completely replace it."

    How could I spot that after five seconds of just looking at their website, but it somehow flew past their entire development team. And marketing team. And, well, fuck, everyone on the Feedly team.



  • Bit more of a niche option but Tiny Tiny RSS is quite nice if you have a server sitting somewhere. The UI is very Google Reader like (something I couldn't stand with Feedly), and a decent Android app, along with OPML importing.

    But, once again, need a web server and MySQL/Postgres


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @bardofspoons42 said:

    Bit more of a niche option but Tiny Tiny RSS is quite nice if you have a server sitting somewhere.
    Unacceptable apparently - see link in my previous post. The mobile reader's reasonably usable as well (still lists all feeds, rather than just the ones with unread items in it - while not a deal-breaker it's a bit annoying.)


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Lorne Kates said:

    How could I spot that after five seconds of just looking at their website, but it somehow flew past their entire development team. And marketing team. And, well, fuck, everyone on the Feedly team.
    And one of its users apparently...


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Yeah, I had never used google reader, but I did have lots of feeds on iGoogle, which is also going away this Fall, IIRC. When they announced it, I started looking around. I use "Slick RSS," which is a chrome extension. It works fairly well (and it does support OPML imports).

    My main complaint is the fact that chrome likes to cache rss feeds, so I end up clearing my cache and refreshing the feeds. Does anyone know a way to tell chrome not to cache stuff like that? It's especially bad for TDWTF forum feeds. Also, it doesn't deal with bad xml that you occasionally get from some feeds...usually some weird / illegal UTF-8 character, I think.



  • Feedly's been giving mixed signals for some time now.
    It told me various things about "integrating with Reader" and "importing Reader" enough that I didn't trust it to actually save anything.
    It worked in my case, so I guess the Feedly team are aware they should be importing shit but are just incompetent at it.


  • sekret PM club

    Oh man, this is pretty much what I just went through about 10 minutes ago.

    I didn't use Reader much, and only ever had a couple subscriptions in it, but it was something that I kept as a backup to keep me occupied at work when other things ran out.

    Just tried to use Feedly. Android app is slick, but I can't find any way to set categories and rearrange my subscriptions on the app. I Google around a bit, and the only thing I can find is a link to their main web client...which just blank-screens on the work-mandated IE8 on this laptop. Won't even bother loading. Seems like an issue that's been around for a while, and is even affecting browsers as new as IE10 (!), as well as many machines that are behind proxies, content blockers, or VPNs, AS WELL AS any machine that runs AdBlock (Don't start that again), cookie settings other than "allow", script settings other than "allow", and the like.

    Checked out InoReader, which seems like a somewhat serious attempt at making a rather minimal Reader replacement. Works OK, has OPML and Reader Export importing...but no mobile app. (Supposedly it's in "alpha", and the beta's supposed to be coming in 2 weeks.)

    Why the deus isn't there a decent feed reader that has both a web client that isn't broken and a mobile app that doesn't look like fried ass?



  • Microsoft Outlook has supported both RSS feeds and OPML import since 2003. It's not pretty -- well, it is pretty, just much more like Outlook than an RSS reader -- but it's there and it works.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Now-- I'm self-admittedly slightly behind the times. I don't use rss anywhere to the extent that I probably should be. I'm not 100% up on all the latest Google APIs and everything-- but even I kinda just stopped for a moment and thought to myself: "Wait, isn't the whole reason there's a massive surge in your userbase because your main competitor is shutting down their services?

    You ain't wrong. Feedly until recently was just a front-end to Google Reader-- it lived by the Google Reader API and just provided the GUI. When Google announced they were discontinuing Reader, Feedly did a crash-course to built their own back-end so they didn't have to rely on Reader. No secret or anything here, they said that's what they were doing.

    My problem is apparently they never bothered to transition subscriptions from the Google Reader API to my Feedly account, when it "looked like" it worked before it was still running off Reader. Maybe it's because I hadn't logged-in for awhile? It wouldn't be a huge issue if they had a working OPML importer.



  • I'm trying out NewsBlur. I just paid them $24 for a year of service. Because free accounts only allow 64 feeds. So I'm kind of committed.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I'm trying out NewsBlur. I just paid them $24 for a year of service. Because free accounts only allow 64 feeds. So I'm kind of committed.

    ... committed? for $24? for a year? that's $2 a MONTH!

    whatever.



  • @zelmak said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    I'm trying out NewsBlur. I just paid them $24 for a year of service. Because free accounts only allow 64 feeds. So I'm kind of committed.

    ... committed? for $24? for a year? that's $2 a MONTH!

    whatever.

    I KNOW! I'm not MADE OF MONEY!

    (Buys 40 video games on Steam)



  • I used Feedly but didn't really care for it.. it wasn't bad but the way it organized it (and I didn't try to really get in-depth if there was customization) didn't sit well with me.  Kinda sad to see that with all the feedback Google still killed Reader off; that was a great tool.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    So it's finally happened. First they came for Google Buzz, and I did not protest because Buzz was redundant and poorly-designed. Then they came for Google Wave, and I did not protest because Wave was confusing and pointless. But now... now they've pried Google Reader from my cold, dead fingers. And I am sad, and angry, and many emotions. Fuck Google.

    And for everybody who's going to come into this thread like a howler monkey yelling, "BUT IT WASN'T MAKING ANY MONEY!" let me just point out that Google never fucking even fucking attempted to make any money from it. They never served ads on it. They never asked for a monthly subscription. So duh. Duh it wasn't making any money. I would have gladly paid for continued use of it though. Gladly. Considering the alternatives.

    So back when Google made the announcement a couple months ago, I went on a little spree and tried out a bunch of RSS clients. One of those was Feedly. I had it all working, all my feeds were imported from Google Reader, I could see a list of feed items and such, everything good to go. Yay. So I come back to it today, now that Reader is dead, and what do I find? Apparently Feedly didn't ever actually import my subscriptions; what it did was just link to the Google Reader API. Now that Reader is gone, so are the subscriptions I added. Sheesh. Of course that wouldn't be so bad except... oh wait, they haven't yet implemented OPML importing! So there's no way to put my feeds into Feedly, other than fucking copy-and-paste 300 times!

    Fuck. Reader wasn't even a good web app. In fact it was terrible in many ways. But its competition is somehow SO MUCH WORSE.

    Fuck you Google. I hope the few bucks you save per month is worth the lifetime of hatred you've earned from every Reader user. You dicks.

    Trying going to http://cloud.feedly.com to import your feeds.

    OPML Export: http://cloud.feedly.com/#opml

    OPML import is on the way. Still, pretty lame they didn't implement it already. And their export page is pretty ghetto. I have no problems with their UI though. I've been using it since the Reader announcement several months ago. There was a prompt just a few days ago about importing to the Feedly cloud.



  • @twilsonxpert said:

    Trying going to http://cloud.feedly.com to import your feeds.

    Hello person who didn't read my post, despite quoting it in its entirety.

    @twilsonxpert said:

    OPML import is on the way. Still, pretty lame they didn't implement it already.

    Oh you did read my post. What the fuck.

    @twilsonxpert said:

    There was a prompt just a few days ago about importing to the Feedly cloud.

    Ok that's great, but I didn't log in a "few days ago" because a few days ago, Google Reader still ran fine. Since I'd already set up a Feedly account and synced it with Google and all that good stuff, why didn't it JUST FUCKING AUTOMATICALLY DO THE IMPORT instead of waiting for me to click "yes"? That's a huge WTF. And now that I missed my "few days" window, apparently I am just fucked?

    It seriously didn't occur to anybody at Feedly that maybe people would want to import their Reader subscriptions *after* Reader was shut-down? How is it possible to be that clueless and still somehow push out a working software product?



  • For whatever reason I just logged in to Feedly for the first time in probably about 2-3 months and it kept my old Google Reader feeds, but I don't recall ever doing anything to import them.



  • I feel you bro. I've been using InoReader for the past month and I haven't had any problems with it.

    Actually, I'm pretty satisfied with the progress it's making. It has a desktop and jQuery mobile sites which work very well and currently it's free.

    Not sure if InoReader would import OPML because at the time I told it to import directly from my Google account but you should give it a try. The UX is pretty much the same as Google Reader.



  • I gave Feedly a try, and pushed the giant red "Click Here To Import Your Feeds From Reader" button and everything went fairly smoothly from then on.

    But then I committed the unspeakable sin of trying to visit their web site from an iDevice but... prepare to be shocked and horrified... declined to install their app.

    I know, I know.  It's horrific and inconceivable that I might actually want to use a web-based application in a web browser, but some days I'm just up for a little heresy.  Other days I just put babies on spikes (Do you want a rack of babies?  We've got babies on racks!  Mmm, they taste of chicken!) but for some reason I really wanted to break all the rules that day and said no to the app.

    Fortunately the fine folks from Feedly were there to help me.  When I said "No, I do not want to install your app", they thoughtfully redirected me to... the mobile version of their site.  Which prompted me to install their app.  So, undeterred in my quest to undermine the morals of society, I looked through the menus for a list of applications that they provided and how they could be accessed.  Oh look!  A Feedly reader, available on Web, IOS, Android, and Amazon Pants.  And each of those options linked to a different destination where I could, presumably, find the ways to access Feedly's lovely and oh-so-helpful service.

    So, in my folly, I clicked on "Web", expecting to be redirected to the web version.

    Nope.   Time to install the app.  Thanks, Feedly, I had completely forgotten that you had one. How about if I just give up trying to go in through the front door and copy the exact URL I used in the web browser on my desktop with the expectation that, perhaps, I might be able to access to the same content. Through a web browser.  What happened when I entered that address?

    Hey, did you know that Feedly has an App?  Share and enjoy!

    At this point I opened the iOS manual and searched in vain for the correct multi-touch gesture for "Tell The Server Administrators To Go Stick Their Heads In A Pig", failed at that too (I hear it's scheduled for inclusion in iOS 7.0.1), and just gave up on the whole idea.  

    So, yeah.  Thank you, Feedly, for protecting me from the horrible consequences of making my own decisions.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    So there's no way to put my feeds into Feedly, other than fucking copy-and-paste 300 times!

    I thought you were a web programmer. Can't you automate a form submission?



  • @pjt33 said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    So there's no way to put my feeds into Feedly, other than fucking copy-and-paste 300 times!

    I thought you were a web programmer. Can't you automate a form submission?

    I could.

    Or I could use a website that doesn't suck ass.



  • @DCRoss said:

    Hey, did you know that Feedly has an App?  Share and enjoy!

    That's more than happened on my Windows Phone. Thankfully, it didn't prompt me to install an app, because there isn't one. I clicked login, logged in to Google, accepted the app, then got stuck on a Feedly page that has the OAuth logo. i.e, it didn't work.



  • @twilsonxpert said:

    @DCRoss said:

    Hey, did you know that Feedly has an App?  Share and enjoy!

    That's more than happened on my Windows Phone. Thankfully, it didn't prompt me to install an app, because there isn't one. I clicked login, logged in to Google, accepted the app, then got stuck on a Feedly page that has the OAuth logo. i.e, it didn't work.

    try Weave.



  • @DCRoss said:

    Thank you, Feedly, for protecting me from the horrible consequences of making my own decisions.
    Well, what did you expect? You were using an Apple product. And as we all know, "protecting the user from having (and being able) to make his own decisions" is #1 on Apple's list of priorities. So it's no surprise if 3rd parties do it the same way, just to go with the flow and fit in with the "hip" crowd.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @pjt33 said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    So there's no way to put my feeds into Feedly, other than fucking copy-and-paste 300 times!

    I thought you were a web programmer. Can't you automate a form submission?
    Apparently it's difficult when the number of feeds you subscribe to double every two months.



  • I transitioned to http://theoldreader.com/

    Being a free service their OPML import is a bit slow, so it was easier for me to manually enter my subscriptions, but it does exist.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    It seriously didn't occur to anybody at Feedly that maybe people would want to import their Reader subscriptions after Reader was shut-down?

    So you wanted them to be able to access an inactive service to retrieve your data? Perhaps we have two different definitions of "shut-down", and yours is way more generous than mine.



  • @Adriano said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    It seriously didn't occur to anybody at Feedly that maybe people would want to import their Reader subscriptions after Reader was shut-down?

    So you wanted them to be able to access an inactive service to retrieve your data? Perhaps we have two different definitions of "shut-down", and yours is way more generous than mine.

    Funny how when you take this * completely out of context *, it makes Blakeyrat look dumb. However, if you go back and read that he already had an account with Feedly which was already connected to Google Reader it makes perfect sense that they should have been able to anticipate this and import the subs automatically so when someone logged back in to Feedly, it just worked.



  • @JoeCool said:

    @Adriano said:
    @blakeyrat said:
    It seriously didn't occur to anybody at Feedly that maybe people would want to import their Reader subscriptions after Reader was shut-down?

    So you wanted them to be able to access an inactive service to retrieve your data? Perhaps we have two different definitions of "shut-down", and yours is way more generous than mine.

    Funny how when you take this * completely out of context *, it makes Blakeyrat look dumb. However, if you go back and read that he already had an account with Feedly which was already connected to Google Reader it makes perfect sense that they should have been able to anticipate this and import the subs automatically so when someone logged back in to Feedly, it just worked.

    That might be because I agree with the rest of his complaint, and just wanted to point out how the particular sentence makes no sense. If he'd said "...that maybe people would want to read their Reader feeds after Reader was shut-down" I wouldn't have complained.

    I'm using Feedly, and haven't experienced his problem. I do remember one time when I was forced to log back in, and actually install a Firefox addon for feedly. Must have been this that really imported the feed.



  • Man, if only someone could come up with a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opml]standard method of exchanging feed lists between aggregators[/url]. Perhaps then one could periodically back up one’s feed list, then use said backup if one’s aggregator lost the list or disappeared.



  • @Sir Twist said:

    Man, if only someone could come up with a standard method of exchanging feed lists between aggregators. Perhaps then one could periodically back up one’s feed list, then use said backup if one’s aggregator lost the list or disappeared.

    Is this trolling, or retardation or... what's going on here?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Sir Twist said:
    Man, if only someone could come up with a standard method of exchanging feed lists between aggregators. Perhaps then one could periodically back up one’s feed list, then use said backup if one’s aggregator lost the list or disappeared.

    Is this trolling, or retardation or... what's going on here?

    I'm gonna have to go with pure retardation.



  • @Sutherlands said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @Sir Twist said:
    Man, if only someone could come up with a standard method of exchanging feed lists between aggregators. Perhaps then one could periodically back up one’s feed list, then use said backup if one’s aggregator lost the list or disappeared.

    Is this trolling, or retardation or... what's going on here?

    I'm gonna have to go with pure retardation.

    But you have to admit that if Blakey had just used OPML in the first place, none of this would have been a problem.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Sutherlands said:
    @blakeyrat said:
    @Sir Twist said:
    Man, if only someone could come up with a standard method of exchanging feed lists between aggregators. Perhaps then one could periodically back up one’s feed list, then use said backup if one’s aggregator lost the list or disappeared.

    Is this trolling, or retardation or... what's going on here?

    I'm gonna have to go with pure retardation.

    But you have to admit that if Blakey had just used OPML in the first place, none of this would have been a problem.

    Aaaa! Now you're doing it too!!!



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Aaaa! Now you're doing it too!!!

    Minimum effort for maximum payoff.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Sutherlands said:
    @blakeyrat said:
    @Sir Twist said:
    Man, if only someone could come up with a standard method of exchanging feed lists between aggregators. Perhaps then one could periodically back up one’s feed list, then use said backup if one’s aggregator lost the list or disappeared.

    Is this trolling, or retardation or... what's going on here?

    I'm gonna have to go with pure retardation.

    But you have to admit that if Blakey had just used OPML in the first place, none of this would have been a problem.

           Well played, sir
                 <br>



  • @blakeyrat said:

    So it's finally happened. First they came for Google Buzz, and I did not protest because Buzz was redundant and poorly-designed. Then they came for Google Wave, and I did not protest because Wave was confusing and pointless. But now... now they've pried Google Reader from my cold, dead fingers. And I am sad, and angry, and many emotions. Fuck Google.

    First blakeyrat used a Holocaust reference to describe the loss of a free web service provided by a search engine. Then I noticed that he didn't even make a joke about Anne Frank. This thread sucks.

    Also, didn't you post a thread about this... every month for the past year?



  • @Ben L. said:

    Anne Frank

    She never updates anymore. I unsubscribed from her feed.

    @Ben L. said:

    Also, didn't you post a thread about this... every month for the past year?

    Never fear: Ben The White Knight is here to defend the honour of Google, the Maiden Faire!



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Ben L. said:
    Anne Frank

    She never updates anymore. I unsubscribed from her feed.

    Me too. I hate that deaf, dumb, and blind girl.



  • @Ronald said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ben L. said:
    Anne Frank

    She never updates anymore. I unsubscribed from her feed.

    Me too. I hate that deaf, dumb, and blind girl.

    That would be Hellen Keller. Moron.



  • @Ben L. said:

    @Ronald said:
    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ben L. said:
    Anne Frank

    She never updates anymore. I unsubscribed from her feed.

    Me too. I hate that deaf, dumb, and blind girl.

    That would be Hellen Keller. Moron.

    Someone needs to brush up on his classics



  • @Ronald said:

    Someone needs to brush up on his classics

    Worst sequel ever.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Ronald said:
    Someone needs to brush up on his classics

    Worst sequel ever.

    Not even close.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Ronald said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ben L. said:
    Anne Frank

    She never updates anymore. I unsubscribed from her feed.

    Me too. I hate that deaf, dumb, and blind girl.

     

    It sucks that she stopped her "Attic Addict" blog, but you can still find her on Youtube doing some awesome pinball LPs.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    And now that I missed my "few days" window, apparently I am just fucked?

    In case you're still looking for a solution, Google is now giving until the 15th to export your subscriptions. How generous. </sarcasm>

    [url]https://www.google.com/takeout/#custom:reader[/url]

    And feedly finally has OPML import.

    [url]http://cloud.feedly.com/#cortex[/url]



  • NOW A THIRD PERSON IS DOING IT WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

    Edit: just in case you people are actually this fucking retarded, the PROBLEM (as is spelled out clearly in the OP nobody read) is that Feedly won't *import* the OPML file. Not that I couldn't *export* it from Google.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    NOW A THIRD PERSON IS DOING IT WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR
    I lol'd.

     

    The post right above yours says that Feedly now has OPML import.  Is that not true?

     



  • @El_Heffe said:

    The post right above yours says that Feedly now has OPML import.  Is that not true?
    But then Blakey wouldn't be able to rant.


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