Pikareader : new RSS feed reader | Hacker News Reader

Pikareader : new RSS feed reader

pikareader.com

28 pointsmeister29 comments

At the risk of insulting a project someone has worked hard at, I'm a bit worried about this trend.

There's been no fewer than 2-3 "Show HN: I made a Google Reader replacement!" posts a week over the past two months.

They all miss an important point, though: the problem was never a lack of RSS readers (there were already a ton). The problem is a lack of a canonical, fully featured RSS reader that's supported by a large company with lots of money and resources. If Google can't properly afford to operate an RSS feeder, why would someone be able to as a side project?

Plus, having a canonical RSS reader is good for the technology. ThePirateBay does it for torrents, GitHub for git, Reader for RSS, etc -- a central place that pushes the technology forward and provides a model for everyone else, rather than a fractured user base spaced out over dozens of sites made as side projects.

Anyway, sorry @meister -- this comment has nothing to do with Pikareader and all your hard work, and more to do with RSS in general.

I understand your point of view, we saw an avalanche of competitors since Google Reader death announcement. Some projects will emerge as the new leader of this market.

I have launched other projects such as Pikacode.com (Git/mercurial hosting) which is "yet another GitHub" but running since 2008 for thousands of users. So my work can be seen as a side project but with true conviction and dedication for quality and support over time.

Work can be achieved to push the limits of RSS technology. Building offline contents from feeds, mobile readers, media aggregations (for example magazine build from RSS articles)...

We already had a fully featured RSS reader supported by a large company not lacking in money or resources. It got closed down because the company had lots of money and resources: it wasn't a strategic product, and any contribution it could have made to revenue would have been immaterial.

In the medium term, I think canning Reader has hurt Google amongst the technically literate. It certainly has pushed Google from the 'creepy but mostly good' to just 'creepy' for me. It's a notch above Facebook now, and no longer worthy of a logged in session - relegated to a secondary browser, I can feel free to block all Google-related third party requests.

As for a Reader replacement, I'm currently going with Ino Reader. Free and unlimited (thus far). I don't know if or how it will make money, but it's been the best replacement I've tried yet.

And "there were already a ton" of readers? No. Almost all readers had to differentiate themselves from Reader, because it was so good. There's a massive gap in the market, such as it is, right now. It should and will be filled by a small company, probably a lifestyle business.

The true value of Google Reader is that it is a huge archive of past RSS entries, many of which are no longer available from the source. No matter how powerful or beautiful or user friendly your new RSS reader is, you do not have access to these lost entries.

This didn't look half bad until I saw the 5 rss feed limit. I don't even mind looking at ads half the time, but a limit on my feeds is not good. Maybe something closer to a 30-50 feed limit I could deal with. maybe.

Some screen shots to look at the UI wouldn't be half bad either.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have to add some screen shots.

The 5 rss feed limit is part of our business model. Feeds consume resources and resources cost money. So we have to cover our expenses to ensure a reliable and durable service.

Screenshots are an absolute must. I don't want to create an account just to see what it looks like.

Still, if one only needs to monitor five feeds, they have no need for RSS. I've always been of the opinion that the free tier should at least allow one to test the service in a realistic way or to meet the demands of a common use case.

There is no point in even signing up for the free plan. If someone is using RSS, their needs will almost always exceed what is offered by that tier. I would suggest upping the feed limit or just getting rid of it entirely and offering only the paid version. I just dont see how it could accomodate anyone using RSS.

5 is still too low in my opinion. How about giving users a 10-15 day trial of premium version? That way, you won't be wasting resources without any return and users can try reader without limits too!

The 5 feeds limit is now over. You can test the Unlimited Plan as it comes with a 7-day free trial :)

> The 5 rss feed limit is part of our business model. Feeds consume resources and resources cost money.

Unique feeds consume resources. Two customers following the same feed should not double the resources needed to support that feed.

Create a test account that follows the top 10-20 of public feeds already followed by your existing users. That will not consume any more resources (apart from the overhead of an extra row in your users table). Let that be the demo account.

Actually, since you're presenting reading lists as a feature, a demo/guest account can probably just subscribe to that. Then there's the resource overhead of supporting reading list(s) per account.

I would be happy to try this out and to pay your entirely reasonable yearly fee if I like it, but only if you provide a local login option that doesn't rely on google, facebook or twitter. I hate tying services to my other accounts, and I'm not making an exception for you. Not trying to be difficult, just letting you know the reality: tying login to other services loses you customers.

Note also that because of this, I still haven't been able to see what the service is even like, because there is no demo.

Is the form under the social signup buttons not a 'local' signup?

It creates a local account, no need for a social account.

Did you add this after the original post or am I just blind? Anyway, signed up and trying it out! Can you comment on the status of the interface on mobile browsers / using touch?

Local sign up was there since the beginning ^^

We use some responsive design for screen size. I have to optimize some UI action for tablets and mobiles. We will maybe publish a mobile app if customers ask for it.

I do exactly opposite. I prefer to tie services with my Google/FB account so that I don't have to remember too many passwords.

And with recent security breaches, if I'm letting every other App store my information on their server (password etc.), isn't that less secure?

I am just curious why people in general(nothing personal) don't tie their accounts.

I use PwdHash ( https://www.pwdhash.com/ ) to obfuscate my password for me based on the site url so that I only need to remember one password and yet not fear when it gets leaked from one hacked server.

There is a browser extension and a mobile app as well to make it super easy to use. There is one site I use that defeats this by using several hosts for its login, one dedicated to login and another on the main site.

I tried it. It failed on the first site I tried, polygon.com. It didn't discover the RSS. Even the first RSS readers back in the day did that. Yes, I checked the source of polygon.com. The RSS feed is linked correctly for discovery. Then I tried to add the link manually. Pikareader never responded after picking "Add"

I wish them all the success and luck in the world. I'll try again in a few months and see if it works.

We have put hard work in this new project to replace Google Reader as a daily useful tool. Feel free to comment and suggest features or ideas !

Is there a way to play with the service without signing up?

Not at the moment, but you can login in one click ... It is on my todolist :)

One thing which really bothers me is that you are always using a space in front of your exclamation marks. It's happening on Pikareader and your other site PikaCode.

http://english.stackexchange.com/a/4646

Is there any way to show the full content of a feed in a river of news style? I only subscribe to full-text feeds because I use RSS to give me reading material, not headlines.

I add this feature on my todolist ! Thanks for suggestion.

So what are the advantages of using this over other existing services such as Feedly?

You might want to try your landing page on an iPad...

This is a criticism or what? I tried it on iPad and landing page was fine. The text fields overflow a bit but that's the only fault.

Would love if you elaborate or post a screenshot.

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