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%Start Why Is There No Successor To Google Reader? GA S REGULAR Menu Lifewire Tech for Humans Newsletter! Search Close GO Opinion News &gt; Software & Apps <h1> Why Is There No Successor To Google Reader?</h1> <h2> There are plenty, but nobody has heard of them</h2> By Charlie Sorrel Charlie Sorrel Senior Tech Reporter Charlie Sorrel has been writing about technology, and its effects on society and the planet, for 13 years.
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%Start Why Is There No Successor To Google Reader? GA S REGULAR Menu Lifewire Tech for Humans Newsletter! Search Close GO Opinion News > Software & Apps

Why Is There No Successor To Google Reader?

There are plenty, but nobody has heard of them

By Charlie Sorrel Charlie Sorrel Senior Tech Reporter Charlie Sorrel has been writing about technology, and its effects on society and the planet, for 13 years.
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Victoria Lopez 1 minutes ago
lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on April 5, 2021 11:57AM EDT Fact checked by Rich Scherr Fac...
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Ethan Thomas 1 minutes ago
Guess what? There already is: RSS....
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lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on April 5, 2021 11:57AM EDT Fact checked by Rich Scherr Fact checked by Rich Scherr University of Maryland Baltimore County Rich Scherr is a seasoned technology and financial journalist who spent nearly two decades as the editor of Potomac and Bay Area Tech Wire. lifewire's fact checking process Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Software & Apps Mobile Phones Internet & Security Computers & Tablets Smart Life Home Theater & Entertainment Software & Apps Social Media Streaming Gaming <h3> Key Takeaways</h3> Facebook will let you turn off algorithmic ranking in your news feed.It’s easy to follow new news posts from almost any site, using RSS.RSS could benefit from a big-name service to make it popular again. Imagine if there was a way to follow new posts and articles from almost any website or blog.
Hannah Kim Member
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lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on April 5, 2021 11:57AM EDT Fact checked by Rich Scherr Fact checked by Rich Scherr University of Maryland Baltimore County Rich Scherr is a seasoned technology and financial journalist who spent nearly two decades as the editor of Potomac and Bay Area Tech Wire. lifewire's fact checking process Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Software & Apps Mobile Phones Internet & Security Computers & Tablets Smart Life Home Theater & Entertainment Software & Apps Social Media Streaming Gaming

Key Takeaways

Facebook will let you turn off algorithmic ranking in your news feed.It’s easy to follow new news posts from almost any site, using RSS.RSS could benefit from a big-name service to make it popular again. Imagine if there was a way to follow new posts and articles from almost any website or blog.
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Guess what? There already is: RSS.
Noah Davis Member
access_time 15 minutes ago
Guess what? There already is: RSS.
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Ava White 2 minutes ago
Facebook has added new settings for tweaking your news feed to give the simplest and most understand...
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Facebook has added new settings for tweaking your news feed to give the simplest and most understandable view of all—a timeline view. Already available in the Android app, and coming soon to iOS, the new view sorts updates chronologically. It seems ridiculous this isn’t already the default on Facebook and Twitter, but if you don’t like it, there’s already a better way.
Liam Wilson Member
access_time 4 minutes ago
Facebook has added new settings for tweaking your news feed to give the simplest and most understandable view of all—a timeline view. Already available in the Android app, and coming soon to iOS, the new view sorts updates chronologically. It seems ridiculous this isn’t already the default on Facebook and Twitter, but if you don’t like it, there’s already a better way.
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"RSS reading has the traditional values of the internet: it’s decentralized and nobody controls it," Brent Simmons, creator of seminal newsreader app NetNewsWire, told Lifewire via email. "Importantly, RSS readers do not tend to optimize for engagement—which means they don’t contribute to the democracy-killing trend toward extremism that Facebook and similar do." <h2> We Miss You Google Reader </h2> Google Reader began in 2005, and was shut down in 2013. Reader let you follow updates to almost any site on the web.
Natalie Lopez Member
access_time 10 minutes ago
"RSS reading has the traditional values of the internet: it’s decentralized and nobody controls it," Brent Simmons, creator of seminal newsreader app NetNewsWire, told Lifewire via email. "Importantly, RSS readers do not tend to optimize for engagement—which means they don’t contribute to the democracy-killing trend toward extremism that Facebook and similar do."

We Miss You Google Reader

Google Reader began in 2005, and was shut down in 2013. Reader let you follow updates to almost any site on the web.
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Zoe Mueller 9 minutes ago
You’d just click a button on a page, and it would be added to your Reader. Then, all new posts fro...
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Daniel Kumar 2 minutes ago
It was great, popular, and completely open. And, amazingly, all of this is still possible today. Goo...
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You’d just click a button on a page, and it would be added to your Reader. Then, all new posts from those sites would appear in Reader, instantly and automatically, sorted into folders or tagged.
James Smith Moderator
access_time 12 minutes ago
You’d just click a button on a page, and it would be added to your Reader. Then, all new posts from those sites would appear in Reader, instantly and automatically, sorted into folders or tagged.
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Luna Park 12 minutes ago
It was great, popular, and completely open. And, amazingly, all of this is still possible today. Goo...
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Jack Thompson 1 minutes ago
Pretty much every blog still makes its new posts and articles available as a feed, and this feed can...
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It was great, popular, and completely open. And, amazingly, all of this is still possible today. Google Reader ran on something called RSS.
Thomas Anderson Member
access_time 35 minutes ago
It was great, popular, and completely open. And, amazingly, all of this is still possible today. Google Reader ran on something called RSS.
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Evelyn Zhang 11 minutes ago
Pretty much every blog still makes its new posts and articles available as a feed, and this feed can...
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Brandon Kumar 1 minutes ago
Not only can RSS be hard to explain, but it lacks any kind of identity. "While [Google Reader] certa...
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Pretty much every blog still makes its new posts and articles available as a feed, and this feed can be followed in one of many excellent and up-to-date apps. And yet almost nobody uses it. <h2> Social Commentary </h2> RSS is open, in that anyone can make a newsreader app and tap into all of those feeds, but this openness may be the problem.
Lily Watson Moderator
access_time 8 minutes ago
Pretty much every blog still makes its new posts and articles available as a feed, and this feed can be followed in one of many excellent and up-to-date apps. And yet almost nobody uses it.

Social Commentary

RSS is open, in that anyone can make a newsreader app and tap into all of those feeds, but this openness may be the problem.
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Lucas Martinez 2 minutes ago
Not only can RSS be hard to explain, but it lacks any kind of identity. "While [Google Reader] certa...
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Not only can RSS be hard to explain, but it lacks any kind of identity. "While [Google Reader] certainly wasn’t the only RSS service out there," cybersecurity analyst Eric Florence told Lifewire via email, "having the Google branding certainly helped it to stand over some of the smaller services out there, possibly even overshadowing many of them." When Google Reader was shuttered, users believed it was the end of everything.
Julia Zhang Member
access_time 18 minutes ago
Not only can RSS be hard to explain, but it lacks any kind of identity. "While [Google Reader] certainly wasn’t the only RSS service out there," cybersecurity analyst Eric Florence told Lifewire via email, "having the Google branding certainly helped it to stand over some of the smaller services out there, possibly even overshadowing many of them." When Google Reader was shuttered, users believed it was the end of everything.
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Thomas Anderson 7 minutes ago
In reality, they could have exported their list of feeds and taken them elsewhere. "After Google...
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In reality, they could have exported their list of feeds and taken them elsewhere. &#34;After Google Reader was shut down,&#34; says Florence, &#34;many RSS services such as Feedly and NewsBlur stepped in to fill the void.&#34; However, says Simmons, &#34;people conflated RSS and Google Reader because most people would never have noticed the RSS readers from tiny companies with very little marketing budgets.&#34; Meanwhile, many of those Reader users moved on to Facebook and Twitter, which mix news in with personal updates, making for a very sticky experience.
Nathan Chen Member
access_time 40 minutes ago
In reality, they could have exported their list of feeds and taken them elsewhere. "After Google Reader was shut down," says Florence, "many RSS services such as Feedly and NewsBlur stepped in to fill the void." However, says Simmons, "people conflated RSS and Google Reader because most people would never have noticed the RSS readers from tiny companies with very little marketing budgets." Meanwhile, many of those Reader users moved on to Facebook and Twitter, which mix news in with personal updates, making for a very sticky experience.
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Henry Schmidt 18 minutes ago
Even if you could tempt a Facebook user to adopt a newsreader app, they’ll still use Facebook for ...
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Sofia Garcia 13 minutes ago
Some stories will be surfaced by retweets, but in general, you’ll miss more than you catch. RSS re...
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Even if you could tempt a Facebook user to adopt a newsreader app, they’ll still use Facebook for their family-and-friends stuff. <h2> RSS Advantages </h2> The trouble with reading news on Twitter or Facebook is you have to be there when it happens.
Zoe Mueller Member
access_time 33 minutes ago
Even if you could tempt a Facebook user to adopt a newsreader app, they’ll still use Facebook for their family-and-friends stuff.

RSS Advantages

The trouble with reading news on Twitter or Facebook is you have to be there when it happens.
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Some stories will be surfaced by retweets, but in general, you’ll miss more than you catch. RSS reading has the traditional values of the internet: it’s decentralized and nobody controls it.
Sofia Garcia Member
access_time 36 minutes ago
Some stories will be surfaced by retweets, but in general, you’ll miss more than you catch. RSS reading has the traditional values of the internet: it’s decentralized and nobody controls it.
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Lucas Martinez 9 minutes ago
A dedicated newsreader, on the other hand, makes it easy to stay on top of hundreds of sites. New po...
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Isabella Johnson 14 minutes ago
It’s impossible to miss anything, and you can arrange all those site feeds into folders, or tag th...
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A dedicated newsreader, on the other hand, makes it easy to stay on top of hundreds of sites. New posts appear in feeds, complete with a summary and often an image. And there they sit, until you read or dismiss them.
Ethan Thomas Member
access_time 52 minutes ago
A dedicated newsreader, on the other hand, makes it easy to stay on top of hundreds of sites. New posts appear in feeds, complete with a summary and often an image. And there they sit, until you read or dismiss them.
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Evelyn Zhang 52 minutes ago
It’s impossible to miss anything, and you can arrange all those site feeds into folders, or tag th...
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Christopher Lee 35 minutes ago
Maybe it just needs better branding.

A Big Banner Brand

Take a look at a post from your f...
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It’s impossible to miss anything, and you can arrange all those site feeds into folders, or tag them, and much more. So, why don’t more of us use RSS?
Victoria Lopez Member
access_time 70 minutes ago
It’s impossible to miss anything, and you can arrange all those site feeds into folders, or tag them, and much more. So, why don’t more of us use RSS?
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Zoe Mueller 28 minutes ago
Maybe it just needs better branding.

A Big Banner Brand

Take a look at a post from your f...
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Zoe Mueller 35 minutes ago
There may also be an RSS icon, like an orange Wi-Fi icon turned 45 degrees. Imagine if there were so...
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Maybe it just needs better branding. <h2> A Big Banner Brand </h2> Take a look at a post from your favorite blog, or a news article on pretty much any website. You’ll see follow buttons for Twitter and Facebook.
Ryan Garcia Member
access_time 60 minutes ago
Maybe it just needs better branding.

A Big Banner Brand

Take a look at a post from your favorite blog, or a news article on pretty much any website. You’ll see follow buttons for Twitter and Facebook.
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Sebastian Silva 30 minutes ago
There may also be an RSS icon, like an orange Wi-Fi icon turned 45 degrees. Imagine if there were so...
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There may also be an RSS icon, like an orange Wi-Fi icon turned 45 degrees. Imagine if there were some big-name service that let you &#34;follow&#34; updates, the same way you can easily follow it on Twitter, with a single click. &#34;RSS reading will not be mainstream unless and until a major tech company creates an RSS reader—and it probably needs a social element, as Google Reader had,&#34; says Simmons.
Oliver Taylor Member
access_time 64 minutes ago
There may also be an RSS icon, like an orange Wi-Fi icon turned 45 degrees. Imagine if there were some big-name service that let you "follow" updates, the same way you can easily follow it on Twitter, with a single click. "RSS reading will not be mainstream unless and until a major tech company creates an RSS reader—and it probably needs a social element, as Google Reader had," says Simmons.
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NetNewsWire The reality is you can already do this today. Services like Newsblur, Feedly, and Feedbin let you subscribe to a feed. And then there are many RSS reader apps that can sync with those services.
Nathan Chen Member
access_time 51 minutes ago
NetNewsWire The reality is you can already do this today. Services like Newsblur, Feedly, and Feedbin let you subscribe to a feed. And then there are many RSS reader apps that can sync with those services.
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And yet few people use them. &#34;I’m not really sure that RSS reading was all that popular even with Google Reader,&#34; says Simmons.
Ava White Moderator
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And yet few people use them. "I’m not really sure that RSS reading was all that popular even with Google Reader," says Simmons.
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&#34;But, at any rate, an RSS reader from one of the big tech companies is probably a necessary condition for mainstream use.&#34; <h2> Here To Stay </h2> The good news for lovers of news is that RSS doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Wordpress still has it built in, and most web publishing is built on Wordpress. Simmons’ own NetNewsWire, now an open-source project with a team of volunteers, is a fantastic iOS and Mac app.
Charlotte Lee Member
access_time 95 minutes ago
"But, at any rate, an RSS reader from one of the big tech companies is probably a necessary condition for mainstream use."

Here To Stay

The good news for lovers of news is that RSS doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Wordpress still has it built in, and most web publishing is built on Wordpress. Simmons’ own NetNewsWire, now an open-source project with a team of volunteers, is a fantastic iOS and Mac app.
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It even lets you subscribe to Twitter feeds. Plus, the underlying technology of RSS is more popular than ever.&nbsp; &#34;RSS and RSS reading are not the same thing.
Ava White Moderator
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It even lets you subscribe to Twitter feeds. Plus, the underlying technology of RSS is more popular than ever.  "RSS and RSS reading are not the same thing.
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Dylan Patel 37 minutes ago
RSS is super-mainstream in the form of podcasts," says Simmons. "But note how Apple’s podc...
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RSS is super-mainstream in the form of podcasts,&#34; says Simmons. &#34;But note how Apple’s podcast directory played, and plays, such an important role there.&#34; Was this page helpful?
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RSS is super-mainstream in the form of podcasts," says Simmons. "But note how Apple’s podcast directory played, and plays, such an important role there." Was this page helpful?
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