RSS readers...

I tried feedly for a couple of days but I just can't get used to the interface. Its never clear how many unread items I have. I don't want a magazine interface. What I'd really like is a river of news, and if thats not available then a google reader type interface.

The second problem I ran into with feedly is that I can't open links in the background. That is a must for me.

I guess that only leaves me with running a RSS reader locally. In the short term I'm probably going to go with planetplanet.org. I've used it before, and really like it once its setup. I just don't like the fact that I have to edit a configuration file and restart the app every time I want to add an RSS feed. In the long term, I might be able to write my own RSS reader, if I ever get time.

Update: Forgot to mention that I am using liferea on Linux, which seems nice, but I haven't used it as much as feedly. Will update later. 

Why RSS is important...

A lot of people have written about the death of Google Reader.

When twitter and facebook started to take off, I moved to those services to get my news. I was thinking along the lines of what Robert Scoble tweeted:

For me Google Reader has been dead since 2009. Here's a post I wrote back then: scobleizer.posterous.com/why-i-dont-use… Social killed it.
— Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) March 14, 2013

However I noticed that the content and news items shared on social networks were lacking in technical content. If you want to get an idea of what kind of technical articles I like to read, take a look at my link blog. I can't get this content via a social network.

Google Reader may be dead, but I hope RSS sticks around.