Replacing Google Reader With Newsblur

With the coming demise of Google Reader, I have spent some time recently trying to find a good replacement for the RSS reader. Despite all of these idiotic proclamations that RSS is dead and apps like Youtube and Instagram not even offering easy access to it anymore, which is beyond frustrating, I am still an ardent user of RSS.

My usage of RSS has evolved over the years; previous to the past few years, I used RSS for almost all of my online reading. With the mainstream popularity of Twitter, I have been able to move a lot of my day to day reading to tweets. Apps like Flipboard let me read more frequently updating websites at my own leisure. These days my usage of RSS is for infrequently updates websites and for tracking various things, like certain Tumblr users I want to make sure I all their content.

After trying out a number of RSS readers including Net Vibes and even going back to the old Bloglines, which still exists, I have settled on Newsblur for my RSS reader. Newsblur is a modern app that works on the desktop, phone, and tablet. It syncs nicely and is constantly updating and getting better in both performance and appearance. Hoping that Newsblur will stick around, I even put down the $24 for a yearly premium account.

Cory Doctorow is also moving to Newsblur, which I take as a really good sign about its promise. Audrey Watters also has some good thoughts and goes through a long run down of various RSS readers.

Amazon Kindle & The Future Of Content Delivery

Veronica’s post last month about the Kindle’s ability to hold hundreds of books contrasted with most American’s lack of reading got me thinking of how Amazon’s new device could be properly used and/or marketed.  Scott writes:

And among the majority of the American reading public (as measured by the NEA), anything over 11 books per year is a lot. It doesn’t really make sense to have an ebook reader that can hold hundreds of titles at once, unless you’re planning on being the one to sell hundreds of books to fill it.

A lot of people I know who own a Kindle note that one of the most pleasurable aspects of it is the ability to have newspaper content sent to them every morning.  That is fine, but why can’t someone just get that via an RSS reader?  I assume if you’re on the move a lot in the morning it’s useful, but wouldn’t you have a Blackberry or IPhone or Android phone for that?

Which comes to my big concern for all of these devices: All of them only do some of the things that the other might not be able to do.  The average reader, if they read at all, is not invested in reading enough to spend hundreds of dollars on a device the way they would be for a high definition television.  My coworkers often share books, passing hardcovers back and forth as each reads them.  I’d be surprised if many of them even own books in the way that prolific readers do.  They are invested in other things.  I’m not sure how to market the Kindle to the common reader, but I am interested in seeing what happens next.