- It's still written in Ur/Web. And the type-safety of Ur/Web is the reason I started writing it -- I couldn't imagine myself using untyped JavaScript.
Ur/Web is not very practical for reasons other than type safety: the lack of libraries and slow compilation when the project gets big. The language itself is good, though.
Nowadays, I would probably choose OCaml. It doesn't have Ur/Web's high-level features, but it's typed and compiles quckly.
- That's a completely bogus number. I wouldn't work a day job if I had $14m ARR :)
- Interesting, why you're using 3 readers?
Why use BazQux for GitHub and nothing else (it supports Facebook feeds too)?
- Thank you for using the reader. It's a pleasure to see that people like what you do.
- Unfortunately, I don't have enough resources to optimize site for screen readers. I think that mobile/desktop apps handle accessibility better so you could use them with BazQux Reader or other service.
- BazQux Reader [1]. I'm developer (a bit biased for sure) but I like to eat my own dog food everyday.
- Thank you for information. It seems that Salmon is used in Diaspora so it somehow could work.
> But that started with a privacy scandal
What was the privacy scandal?
> The rule of thumb is that the problems stay the same, but the syntax and the name changes.
What problems are? I suspect that there should be problems with spam as anybody could add their comments (although protocols seems to contain some countermeasures) and maybe some kind of DoS of anybody "posting" too many comments. But what other problems are?
- There is a standard <wfw:commentRss> item that exists in almost any Wordpress blog feed. And my feed reader (https://bazqux.com) supports it for years.
But blog post comments is completely another medium from Twitter. It requires you to sign in and, since comment will be there forever, you usually put more effort in it. So comments are more rare and of higher quality. But at the same time you could sign in as anonymous and put your spam link or some ego bullshit -- which frequently happen on popular sites. So it's very dependent from community.
And if you comment on some blog post only readers of this post will see (and they will know the context). When you comment on Twitter -- anybody could see. Together with 280 character limit this leads to completely different kind of discussion.
- I did a feed reader which supports blog comments years ago (https://bazqux.com) and first thing many people asked me is how to turn comments off. There are some good blogs with good communities and interesting discussions in comments but the majority of comments on popular sites are plain junk.
- RSS has <wfw:commentRss> for linking comments feed and <comments> for linking page with comments. Atom has <link rel=replies> or just <link rel=alternate type="application/atom+xml"> for comment feeds.
And I'm visiting blog post pages first to check whether they have Disqus comments (which processed separately via Disqus API) and <blog_post_URL>/feed feeds.
- I've implemented displaying of blog posts comments in BazQux Reader (https://bazqux.com) years ago. But in general it works well only for niche sites with good communities. Popular sites have too many spam/bullshit in comments.
BTW: it's possible to read Twitter in RSS reader too and make it a "slow web".
- Modulo sharing BazQux Reader (https://bazqux.com) has the same Google Reader simplicity plus some additional features. Try it.
- As a developer of a feed reader that supports both RSS/Atom and Twitter/Facebook/Google+/Instagram/VK (https://bazqux.com) I say that making client for well defined API hosted by one provider (silo) was much more simple than support RSS/Atom feeds.
Here is an incomplete list of various problems you'll have if you want to write a feed reader http://inessential.com/2013/03/18/brians_stupid_feed_tricks
It requires a lot of work to make a feed reader that supports all possible feed generators from all possible sites. And it's more related to multiple buggy producers than to multiple feed formats (for example repeating item IDs, different item IDs for the same items, missing IDs -- no matter what format you use you get same issues).
Another complexity is feed updating itself. Silo hosts content and knows what was updated. Feed readers don't. So they need to poll and update a lot of content even if they have just a few users (but with thousand feeds each). There is a PubSubHubbub, but again, lots of providers and implementations could be buggy (for most feeds I just fetch them directly when receiving a push instead of use push data itself since it's more reliable).
So the open nature of web syndication itself dampens its usage by making developing and running feed reader a costly task. It's really simpler (and maybe more profitable if you're lucky) to write a silo.
And there are more problems that are not related to feed format at all: relative complexity of subscribing, not everybody need syndication (many people prefer occasional visiting of the site instead of reading each article), new forms of "syndication" (related videos, algorithmic feeds), less blogs (maybe it's good -- let people post cat pics in social media), less popularity (not a part of big sites, browsers), less education (social media and messaging apps is the only Internet some people know) and so on.
But there are people who want to follow every article from interesting sources in software optimized for this task. And feed readers are the best thing here. For example, some people use my feed reader for Facebook/Twitter feeds only (no RSS feeds at all) just because it's more convenient to read them here.
In the end, I think, process of reading subscriptions is more important than underlying format. If RSS will die (quite unlikely) another methods of getting articles will appear.
- Thank you for the kind words!
Clickable link https://bazqux.com
Actually BazQux Reader removes some simple tracking like 1x1 pixel images/iframes and filters out images containing ".ads.", "feedads", "google-analytics" and few more common ads/tracking sites. I've implemented it many years ago when tracking fighting wasn't mainstream mostly to improve reader speed.
I'm also planning to implement image proxy to make everything HTTPS (no mixed HTTP/HTTPS content) and to resize overlarge images (speed again) and thinking to add proxying of audio & video too. So site owners would not know that you've loaded anything from them at all.
The only thing that BazQux Reader tracks is feature usage: Add/remove subscription/star/unstar/tag/search/share/etc. And only fact of usage is tracked, no details (e.g., no records of what article was starred/shared, only fact that star/share was used). It helps me to get statistics of overall reader usage but of course I don't plan to sell it (and I don't think that anybody needs it).
BazQux Reader gets its money directly from clients. It's plain stupid to sell data of client paying $20-$30 a year for .000001 cent and loose all the trust (and money and self-respect).
- I would shamelessly suggest to try my web based reader - https://bazqux.com - simple business model, no ads/tracking, just read your feeds effectively.
But in general that's bad. Having feeds support in a browser is a good way to get more people to know about RSS. And the more people know about RSS the better for humanity.
People must know that there are another ways to get content than liking something in a silo. And more importantly - the medium is the message - content that you get in RSS feeds is different from social media. It's not oriented to be likeable or shareable or to make money in any way. It's more about ideas, opinions and utilitarian (not emotional) news. Yes, you could still get junk in RSS feed, but there are much less chances to get it.
- Almost finished mobile version of site (you could check it in beta.bazqux.com -- landing page/menus are not ready yet, but the reading itself is more or less OK). Planning to add feeds management and reading statistics, themes, bookmarking, improved sharing, mailing lists support, many little things and to open source it.
- Settings menu (in top right corner) => Subscriptions => Export OPML. Or just bazqux.com/opml
- Can't resist to recommend my own BazQux Reader https://bazqux.com
It's a paid feed reader (so if you like to move between closing free readers every few years it's not for you).
- I'm running BazQux https://bazqux.com paid feed reader. It's my only source of revenue.
I wanted to read comments in feed reader (there were few forums with very interesting discussions) and Google Reader only allowed to read blog posts. So I've started developing my own feed reader.
I believed that comments reading feature is killer and thought that Internet is big and many people will like it and I will be rich soon ;) I saved some money and quit my job to focus completely on my product.
Guess what? After initial release nobody purchased my product. I was quite disappointed and started asking people what they didn't liked (turned out to be the most important thing to do). And I've started to add features they've missed, asked again, improved again. And got first purchase few months later and second purchase few more months later.
Few times I thought to abandon project. But then Google announced it will discontinue Google Reader. By that time I had more or less usable product and got a lot of new clients and a lot of feedback (which is very important). Worked like crazy for a few months and after Google Reader was closed I've had enough clients to pay the bills.
It's still in active development with a huge TODO list.
Can't say that it is success. I would make more if I go to day job (and won't worry as much about what to do next to have income in the future) but I'm working on my own project, talking with my own clients, using technologies selected by me and can work on my own schedule (although after being burned out and birth of baby I returned to working 5 days a week in office -- my own office indeed, with piano ;)
Having one-person online business is definitely possible but it's not as romantic/easy as it sometimes shown. "Wow, this guy could work on the beach" is actually "damn, I must work even on the beach".
Personally, I'd prefer a fully typed language.