Comments on: Google Reader: Ajaxian RSS reader

By: andy

andy — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:05:35 +0000

Finally tried Google Reader and overall I like it – although I can’t see myself using it so much when I’m at home. I have got one gripe though… In Gmail you can set up a filter that will label mails automatically – I’d like to be able to do the same in Reader, but I can’t see how it’s done. Am I missing something?

(btw Shalofin – when posting, you can enter html tags to set new lines and paragraphs as well as formatting:

for new paragraph

for new line

for bold

- Hope you find this more helpful than annoying)

By: graham

graham — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:25:31 +0000

hello
how
are
you

By: Chris Beams

Chris Beams — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is great – and unusually good timing, too; I was actually just thinking yesterday how much I wish my RSS reader supported vi keybindings.

Looks like it’s a little slow (probably under the *huge* load of ajaxian readers now hitting it after reading this post ;-)

Anyway, it’s good to see Google embrace RSS with open arms. I was beginning to wonder whether they would.

By: Logan Kriete

Logan Kriete — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve not a comment about the Google Reader (which is great), but more about the wording of your title: “Google Reader: Ajaxian RSS reader”. Why are you labeling “Ajax” applications as Ajaxian? Ajaxian is the name of your site and blog; be happy for that, don’t try and make it a term which more and more people use.

By: songzhen

songzhen — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ajax labling application

By: grumpY!

grumpY! — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

a somewhat weak offering in my opinion.

seems slow, and the paging and navigation seem somewhat clunky. also how do i expose other types of feeds like calendar feeds? netvibes makes this much easier. i am typically a fan of the clean and functional google approach, but i can’t see this tool replacing netvibes for me.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I tried it out and found it to the most unintuitive feed reader interface I’ve ever used.

It’s slow, a pain to move through and just plain weak. They should have labeled it “alpha” or even ‘pre-alpha’ instead of ‘beta’.

I’ll stick with Bloglines.

By: Robb Irrgang

Robb Irrgang — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wonky interface, but the hotkeys make up for a lot. However, I’m 100% sure that it ate my imported OPML file overnight, though. Reimporting right now. the jury is still out….

it’d be nice if it looked like gmail, though.

By: Shalofin

Shalofin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t used Google’s Reader much and don’t have much experience with other online readers, I have always used a local program. One thing I like about their reader is the ability to add my own tags to the messages, in addition to any tags supplied by the author.

By: Jay Batson

Jay Batson — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Google reader is ok. There are other good ones, too.

But what I wanted to react to is your offhand comment at the end about having the Google reader work offline.

This is one of those “now that I have a hammer, everything I see is a nail” problems.

I’m a big fan of Ajax. I’m adding Ajax-style interfaces to my application in my next release.

But let’s keep out heads on. Why are people seemly so anxious to see so many applications become browser-based? I’m sooooooo freaking tired of this whole push to putting everything into a browser.

Geez — as soon as we do that, our “thin client” applications will become as “thin” as our “thick” clients, and in the process we’ll have become stuck behind the limitations of Javascript, we’ll have big bloated software that is all written in an interpreted language (remember the speed of desktop java?), and we won’t have *really* done anything except eliminate the software installation step. (And with modern software distribution techniques, we have made this a lot better for thick clients.)

So let’s keep some perspective. Ajax-style applications are good for lots of things. And it can even be good for the web-equivalent of desktop thick clients *when we need them* (e.g. when I have to use a browser when travelling and want to access my office email).

Otherwise, please build me nice, sophisticated, comfortable, fast, thick clients. I like my caching, thick-client RSS reader. It’s efficient, and lighter weight to use than Firefox.

Don’t try to take my power toys away from me – I might bite you.

(PS – the preview of this post shows it all in one block, no newlines. I couldn’t figure out how to add them (no and ). So if this is dense in the actual post, my apologies.)