DISQUS

O wow...great prank..certainly the best one I've come across this April Fool's!

O wow...great prank..certainly the best one I've come across this April Fool's!

Spot on !

I think the Facebook platform craze is dwindling now, and the reason probably has to do with the enormous clutter and annoyance these apps were causing. The upcoming Facebook profile page tabs are perhaps a bit too late.

And I'm surpised the TD Canada Trust app has only 6 active users despite being demo-ed at the last FacebookCamp Toronto in front of a few hundred people..

Spot on !

I think the Facebook platform craze is dwindling now, and the reason probably has to do with the enormous clutter and annoyance these apps were causing. The upcoming Facebook profile page tabs are perhaps a bit too late.

And I'm surpised the TD Canada Trust app has only 6 active users despite being demo-ed at the last FacebookCamp Toronto in front of a few hundred people..

@Robert: How about checking out Alertle (http://www.alertle.com) for your feed reading needs ? You might find that it moves very swiftly and you can go through several feeds and items very quickly and with minimal clicking, pressing. It is actually supposed to be ideal for high-volume feed reading. At the end of the day, you can simply save more time with Alertle and not feel overloaded with news..if that is ever a problem for you :)

@Jeremy: You haven't seen Alertle as yet perhaps. I used to feel frustrated / overwhelmed with other readers, which is why I designed Alertle to be as clutter-free as possible.

Varun

Despite the call for how news should be read, all these news sites won't start offering reverse-chronological view of the news. But what they are doing, as you well know, is offering a RSS feed. So this is the job for the RSS feed reader, to show news in reverse order by date; by interest to the user; by popularity, etc. The RSS reader can slice and dice that data.

Shameless plug here, but I'm one of the geeks behind a new web-based feed reader called Alertle (www.alertle.com). I think it gets the river of news idea just right. Do check it out.

Hey Dave..

Despite the call for how news should be read, all these news sites won't start offering reverse-chronological view of the news. But what they are doing, as you well know, is offering a RSS feed. So this is the job for the RSS reader, to show news in reverse order by date; by interest to the user; by popularity, etc. The RSS reader can slice and dice that data.

Shameless plug here, but I'm one of the geeks behind a new web-based feed reader called Alertle (www.alertle.com). I think it gets the river of news idea just right. Do check it out. What you want has already being done.. :)

@Amar: That was written by me under my name :) I'm just enjoying having the conversation on RSS in quite a few places.

I had a quick look at Alltop and I just re-realized that the box-model of displaying news simply doesn't work. Look at it, its got 3 columns of headlines in little boxes. It is not convenient to scan through the headlines from left to right. Netvibes, Pageflakes make this same mistake.

I love Guy Kawasaki and swear by his book (Art of the Start), but this doesn't cut it. When the page loads, where is the user supposed to look ?

I'm one of the geeks behind Alertle and frankly it is the only feed reader out there with a remarkably different, fresh and simple interface (http://www.alertle.com). Apart from that the choice is between a boxes model and a email-like model. Check out its 2 mt demo on YouTube and you might agree with me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztQJ4ec1aWs

Let me recommend Alertle (http://www.alertle.com), a new-web based RSS feed reader (I'm one of the geeks behind it..).

Its ideal for non-techies. Some key aspects are:
- Unique interface designed to read RSS (not like email)
- Feeds are represented by big, desktop-like icons - easy to find and click.
- When you signup, several top feeds are pre-filled into your account so that it saves you some hassle of finding/adding feeds.
- Can customize it with your favorite feeds.
- Autoplay - slideshow of headlines.
- Can watch photos, videos and listen to some podcasts within Alertle as well.

Hi Whitney

Interesting post..

When we decided on keyboard shortcuts for Alertle (www.alertle.com), a new web-based RSS feed reader, we focused on "intuitiveness".

For example, to move up/down between headlines, simply use the up/down arrow. And to scroll up/down while reading an article, use pgup/pgdown. The way the application was designed and its layout helped in that.

But I think Google Reader can't have up/down arrow as its keyboard shortcut for moving between the headlines because they use it to scroll on the page! Thus they have "j", "k" for it..

Check out a comparison between Alertle and Google Reader at this link: http://blog.alertle.com/?p=10

Full list of Alertle's shortcuts are here: http://wiki.alertle.com/doku.php/hotkeys

@Jevon: Glad that you liked Alertle and thanks for your feedback :)

I think RSS is becoming increasingly mainstream and would be widely used within the next few years, just like other common software tools (like word processor, email, browser, etc). Millions of websites already publish RSS feeds, so the technology infrastructure is already in place. Now, "where" those RSS feeds get read is still a very nascent market though. The approach taken by existing feed readers hasn't quite been 'good enough' in my opinion. So Alertle grew from that need - to look at RSS from a fresh perspective. And with its interface and features, I think its ideal for reading feeds. Its simple, yet powerful enough for both mainstream and power users alike. Infact, we've had users telling us how they preferred it over both Netvibes and Google Reader.

So we're really excited and looking to continuously improve and grow Alertle and make it available on different platforms as well (such as the iPhone) in the weeks and months ahead ! We are planning on demo-ing Alertle at the next DemoCamp in Toronto..

Thanks

PS: The name of our startup is actually "Zytran". "Alertle" is the name of our product :)

@Jevon: Glad that you liked Alertle and thanks for your feedback :)

I think RSS is becoming increasingly mainstream and would be widely used within the next few years, just like other common software tools (like word processor, email, browser, etc). Millions of websites already publish RSS feeds, so the technology infrastructure is already in place. Now, "where" those RSS feeds get read is still a very nascent market though. The approach taken by existing feed readers hasn't quite been 'good enough' in my opinion. So Alertle grew from that need - to look at RSS from a fresh perspective. And with its interface and features, I think its ideal for reading feeds. Its simple, yet powerful enough for both mainstream and power users alike. Infact, we've had users telling us how they preferred it over both Netvibes and Google Reader.

So we're really excited and looking to continuously improve and grow Alertle and make it available on different platforms as well (such as the iPhone) in the weeks and months ahead ! We are planning on demo-ing Alertle at the next DemoCamp in Toronto..

Thanks

PS: The name of our startup is actually "Zytran". "Alertle" is the name of our product :)

Hi

Check out www.alertle.com. Its a new generation RSS feed reader. Doesn't tell you how many articles you have NOT read. A bit less annoying :)

@Robert: I'm one of the geeks behind Alertle and I saw you linked a link to it in your link blog. Since you are looking to get back to reading feeds, if you haven't yet, how about trying Alertle.com out :) It is perfect for reading a high-volume of feeds. Infact, on Alertle, you can go through ~1000 feeds within a few minutes with minimum use of the keyboard and the mouse ! (It has a unique feature called "Autoplay" which enables that).

Here's a newer demo: http://blog.alertle.com/?p=14
There is also a post on the blog on how it compares to Google Reader. This is why you can easily move to Alertle:
- You can import your 600 (or so?) feeds via OPML.
- You can then create a 'feedpack' called 'Scoble' and share all your feeds with others. Those who are interested in reading what feeds you are reading can simply subscribe to it.

You can read more in Alertle in the same time and can then post to your link blog via the 'other' feed reader :)

Its been 3 days since our launch and we do plan on adding features to share articles and comment on them from within Alertle.

@rizzn: Thanks for the feedback.

There was an issue pre-launch which affected performance. But that was resolved then and since then the service has been running smoothly, even though we have had quite a few people trying it out.
You might want to try it again.

In Alertle, you can go through ~1000 blogs within few mts. It is optimized for high-volume feed reading. Also, the very first time you use Alertle, the icons get cached in your browser, so that the next time you use it, they open up instantly.

Specifically, Alertle gives Google Reader a run for its money. Here's a detailed write up on why: http://blog.alertle.com/?p=10

I'm very interested in figuring out that why would anyone still want to use Google Reader since Alertle is now available :)