Samuel Clay

Member since: Aug 23rd, 2010

Samuel Clay's Latest Comments

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Download Squad	4 Comments

Recent Comments:

NewsBlur is a slick, impressive, undocumented RSS reader (Download Squad)

Aug 23rd 2010 10:31PM Apps like FeedDemon are front-ends to Google's back-end. NewsBlur is end-to-end, meaning that everything from the front-end to the feed data itself is on NewsBlur's servers. (Ahem, server, singular, for now.)

FeedDemon can't do the AI parsing that I have planned for NewsBlur. They can do some of the explicit classifiers, but the implicit classifiers can only be done on the back-end, which means if Google doesn't do it, good luck getting all of that juicy feed data and parsing it yourself.

The only real way to get the read states to sync would be to setup a very expensive syncer, which would be prone to error. And if you're using a feed reader, you are unlikely to be using two different feed readers. NewsBlur will have an iPhone app soon, and if things go well, maybe an API so companies like FeedDemon can build on top of NewsBlur's rich, intelligently filtered data. One day.

NewsBlur is a slick, impressive, undocumented RSS reader (Download Squad)

Aug 23rd 2010 9:48PM Soon, keyboard shortcuts (like the spacebar) will be configurable.

As for syncing with Google Reader, it's all or nothing. There's so much logic going on at NewsBlur, it wouldn't make much sense to use both. The good news is that I'm continually improving NewsBlur, fixing the bugs that cause grief, and writing new features that make many of us very happy. So it might be worthwhile to try out both for a while, or just switch cold turkey and see how you like it.

Just know that if you have any issues, I'm very receptive to fixing bugs and improving the experience. Including that space bar issue. What site is it?

NewsBlur is a slick, impressive, undocumented RSS reader (Download Squad)

Aug 23rd 2010 4:36PM You can delete feeds, but I didn't want to complicate the UI (like Google Reader). So you have to open the feed, then use the manage menu to delete it.

As for Fark (holy cow, I used to read Fark daily, ten-some years ago), I'm not sure why it would be failing. I'll look into it after this avalanche from DownloadSquad. (Of which I am very, very thankful.)

NewsBlur is a slick, impressive, undocumented RSS reader (Download Squad)

Aug 23rd 2010 4:12PM No documentation! That's the idea. It should be so simple to use that you don't need hand-holding. That's how I built it, anyhow.

I'll work on those static pages so it feels friendlier. :-)