Software As She's Developed

Guest-posted this on GigaOM today.

Backstory is I started writing it on Thursday night after seeing all the Reader tweetstorm and figured it’s probably of more general interest, so I submitted it there. The original draft was ~1400 words and I wasn’t sure how seriously they take their guideline fo ~800, so just left it at 1400, but turns out they are, in fact, serious. So we edited it down.

For the record (since some people asked), I used Bloglines for as long as I could cope with its downtime, as I always found Google Reader too magic (unpredictable) with its use of Ajax. Eventually Bloglines was outaging for hours and IIRC whole days, so I made the switch to Reader, but could never get into the web app – too much Ajax magic – and instead used Reeder, sync’d to Reader when it came along. When I switched to Android for my primary device, I couldn’t find a satisfactory app, so just used Reeder on the iPad occasionally.

Meanwhile, with podcasts, I preferred the cloud approach of Odeo and Podnova, but both sadly died. I tried podcasts with Reader, but it just wasn’t the right experience so I mostly used iTunes, and then on Android, mixed it up between several apps (DoggCatcher, BeyondPod, PocketCasts, etc…the usual suspects) until eventually creating my own (still in beta). I really had problems with Listen though, so again, no didn’t do the Reader sync.

So bottom line is I did use Reader “somewhat”, but mostly as an API; and it’s no great loss to me like I appreciate it is to others. The responses to this article certainly demonstrate how passionate people are about a product they get to know and love, and use on a daily basis. It’s never easy giving up on muscle memory. The bright side of the equation is exactly what people like about it: RSS and OPML are open, so at least people can move on to Feedly, Newsblur, and so on. And I truly believe this decision ultimately liberates the standard and allows it to thrive among smaller players.