Type of site | news aggregator |
---|---|
Available in | English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Catalan, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Greek, Slovene, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish, Chinese [1] |
Owner | Levee Labs [2] |
URL | theoldreader.com |
Registration | Required |
Users | 450,000+ [3] |
Launched | 12 June 2012 [4] |
Current status | Online |
Written in | Ruby on Rails [5] |
The Old Reader is a web-based news aggregator that delivers website, blog, and other Internet content to a web-based inbox. The service sprang up when Google removed social features from Google Reader; [6] [7] the site supports social media sharing, including the ability to "like" content, and find friends via social media networks.
The Old Reader was started as a hobby project by Olena Bulygina, Dmitry Krasnoukhov, and Anton Tolchanov. In March 2013, it had only 10,000 users, but it started gaining popularity quickly after Google announced that month that it would retire Google Reader. [8] By the end of April 2013, the project already had 200,000 users and Anton had to quit, leaving just Elena and Dmitry. [9]
In August 2013, a month after Google Reader was shut down, two remaining co-founders were struggling to keep The Old Reader running in the face of a large influx of new users. On July 29, The Old Reader team stated they had 420,000 registered users, with as many as 60,000 registrations in a single day. [10] The team announced their intention to close the public version of the reader, leaving only a private website for a limited number of people. [11] [12] [13] [14] However, a few days later, another announcement stated that the website will remain public, with support from an unnamed "corporate entity in the United States". [15] [16] [17] [18] In November 2013, the team mentioned that the new owner was Levee Labs. [3] [2]
The new team invested in hardware upgrade and changed the hosting provider, [19] implemented a number of new features, including long-awaited browser bookmarklet. [20] The founders of the site had publicly rejected ad-based tactics to support the service; [21] the new team shares their vision, and in order to finance operations for the otherwise free application introduced a Premium service in February 2014. [22]
The Old Reader is free for up to 100 feeds and offers a Premium version with full-text search and up to 500 subscriptions and 1 year of post storage. Former users of Google Reader or other RSS readers can import feeds via OPML export. [23] A browser bookmarklet lets users send web pages directly to The Old Reader account.
The service is integrated with Facebook or Google to help users find friends also using the site. [24] There is also support for Readability, Instapaper, and Spritz, a service to help read content faster. [25]
The Old Reader has made its mobile API freely available to facilitate support for mobile applications. [26] The service is supported by a number of mobile applications for all major platforms, including Reeder [27] and Feeddler [28] for iOS, Greader for Android [29] (no longer available as of 2018 [30] ), Old Reader for Windows Phone [31] and ThOR for Symbian. [32]
The Old Reader's reception was generally positive. PC Magazine praised its simple design and social aspects, but noted it lacked some of the features of its competitors. [33] Dave Winer, one of the creators of RSS and other technology pundits have praised The Old Reader team's commitment to open web standards and delivering ad-free services,[ citation needed ] although as of 17 March 2015 the service includes "sponsored posts" inline with aggregated content[ citation needed ].
RSS is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many different websites in a single news aggregator, which constantly monitor sites for new content, removing the need for the user to manually check them. News aggregators can be built into a browser, installed on a desktop computer, or installed on a mobile device.
Google Reader is a discontinued RSS/Atom feed aggregator operated by Google. It was created in early 2005 by Google engineer Chris Wetherell and launched on October 7, 2005, through Google Labs. Google Reader grew in popularity to support a number of programs which used it as a platform for serving news and information to users. Google shut down Google Reader on July 1, 2013, citing declining use.
Google Voice Search or Search by Voice is a Google product that allows users to use Google Search by speaking on a mobile phone or computer, i.e. have the device search for data upon entering information on what to search into the device by speaking.
A mobile operating system is an operating system used for smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical/mobile laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used on them are generally not considered mobile, as they were originally designed for desktop computers that historically did not have or need specific mobile features. This line distinguishing mobile and other forms has become blurred in recent years, due to the fact that newer devices have become smaller and more mobile unlike hardware of the past. Key notabilities blurring this line are the introduction of tablet computers, light laptops, and the hybridization of the two in 2-in-1 PCs.
The following is a comparison of RSS feed aggregators. Often e-mail programs and web browsers have the ability to display RSS feeds. They are listed here, too.
Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS is a descendant of Psion's EPOC, and was released exclusively on ARM processors, although an unreleased x86 port existed. Symbian was used by many major mobile phone brands, like Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and above all by Nokia. It was also prevalent in Japan by brands including Fujitsu, Sharp and Mitsubishi. As a pioneer that established the smartphone industry, it was the most popular smartphone OS on a worldwide average until the end of 2010, at a time when smartphones were in limited use, when it was overtaken by iOS and Android. It was notably less popular in North America.
Pearltrees is a visual and collaborative curation tool that allows users to organize, explore and share any URL they find online as well as to upload personal photos, files and notes. The product features a visual interface that allows users to drag and organize collected URLs, and other digital objects that themselves can be further organized into collections and sub-collections,(URLs). Users of the product can also engage in social/collaborative curation using a feature called Pearltrees Teams.
Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud, synchronize files across devices, and share files. In addition to a web interface, Google Drive offers apps with offline capabilities for Windows and macOS computers, and Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. Google Drive encompasses Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides, which are a part of the Google Docs Editors office suite that permits collaborative editing of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, forms, and more. Files created and edited through the Google Docs suite are saved in Google Drive.
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on desktop computers, and web applications which run in mobile web browsers rather than directly on the mobile device.
Pocket, previously known as Read It Later, is a social bookmarking service for storing, sharing and discovering web bookmarks. Released in 2007, the service was originally only for desktop and laptop computers and is now available for macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Kobo eReaders, and web browsers.
Feedly is a news aggregator application for various web browsers and mobile devices running iOS and Android. It is also available as a cloud-based service. It compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customize and share with others. Feedly was first released by DevHD in 2008.
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store or Play Store and formerly Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit (SDK) and published through Google. Google Play has also served as a digital media store, offering games, music, books, movies, and television programs. Content that has been purchased on Google Play Movies & TV and Google Play Books can be accessed on a web browser and through the Android and iOS apps.
Microsoft mobile services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices; they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone platforms, BREW, and Java. Microsoft's mobile services are typically connected with a Microsoft account and often come preinstalled on Microsoft's own mobile operating systems while they are offered via various means for other platforms. Microsoft started to develop for mobile computing platforms with the launch of Windows CE in 1996 and later added Microsoft's Pocket Office suite to their Handheld PC line of PDAs in April 2000. From December 2014 to June 2015, Microsoft made a number of corporate acquisitions, buying several of the top applications listed in Google Play and the App Store including Acompli, Sunrise Calendar, Datazen, Wunderlist, Echo Notification Lockscreen, and MileIQ.
Google Keep is a note-taking service included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google. The service also includes: Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms and Google Sites. Google Keep is available as a web application as well as mobile app for Android and iOS. The app offers a variety of tools for taking notes, including texts, lists, images, and audio. Text from images can be extracted using optical character recognition and voice recordings can be transcribed. The interface allows for a single-column view or a multi-column view. Notes can be color-coded and labels can be applied to notes to categorize them. Later updates have added functionality to pin notes and to collaborate on notes with other Keep users in real-time.
NewsBlur is an American software company based in New York City and San Francisco. It runs an online RSS news reader service accessible both online and via a free open-source mobile app for offline reading. Furthermore, the software powering NewsBlur is available and is published in an open-source application, licensed under the MIT License. Limited access to the service is free for up to 64 sites; unlimited access is available for an annual subscription fee.
Digg Reader was a news aggregator operated by Digg. The reader was released on June 26, 2013 as a response to Google Reader shutting down. The reader was web-based and also had iOS and Android applications as well as a Google Chrome extension. The beta for the reader has received mostly positive reviews. On March 26, 2018, Digg shut down Digg Reader.
Google Play Newsstand was a news aggregator and digital newsstand service by Google. On May 8, 2018, Google announced at Google I/O that Google Play Newsstand was being amalgamated with Google News. Launched in November 2013 through the merger of Google Play Magazines and Google Currents, the service let users subscribe to magazines and topical news feeds, receiving new issues and updates automatically. Content was offered for reading on a dedicated Newsstand section of the Google Play website or through the mobile apps for Android and iOS. Offline download and reading is supported on the mobile apps.
Inoreader is a web-based content and RSS feed reader, a cloud-based service for web browsers and mobile devices running iOS and Android. It compiles news feeds from online sources for the user in unified layout to customize and share with others. Inoreader was first released by Innologica in 2013.
Crashlytics was a Boston, Massachusetts-based software company founded in May 2011 by entrepreneurs Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert. Crashlytics helps collecting, analyzing and organizing app crash reports.
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