We all loved Google Reader to add, read and keep track of our favorite sites / blogs online. Consuming our favorite content was easy and clutter free all those years we had Google Reader with us. But unfortunately Google stopped the service and many went on to the extent of filing online petition for Google to reopen it.
Our RSS Reader on Google Play
What is a Google Reader?
Google Reader was an 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 apps which used it as a platform for serving news and information to people.
What is RSS feed?
RSS (Rich Site Summary; originally RDF Site Summary; often called Really Simple Syndication) uses a family of standard web feed formats to publish frequently updated information: blog entries, news headlines, audio, video. … RSS feeds enable publishers to syndicate data automatically.
Timeline
Over years I’ve used many different feed readers and many of them do a decent job. But so many are using web page scrapers to fetch the content and display inside the app, which I do not feel as ethical way of doing things. If an author is providing the feed, that means he would like to share his content that way. But no one actually likes scrapping of their pages and stealing the content.
Design
I always feel minimalistic reading apps bring sanity to the already cluttered world of information. I mean, there is an overwhelming amount of information out in the web and it gets distractive very quickly. We start by reading some quotes, we end up on Facebook, spend some hours liking commenting on photos and end up on YouTube watching few dozen videos and then we realize we did not get much of our works done. Spent precious hours browsing the web carelessly.
With minimalistic approach, we can concentrate only on one thing at a time and there will be less clutter and hence we can consume the content with sanity and without getting distracted by the bells and whistles.
Our RSS Reader app
Finally I decided to develop a simple minimalistic rss feed reading application – specially for WordPress(though works with any other sites) sites. I use it for consuming my favorite sites content online. Today I decided to make it public via Google Playstore, hoping it would help some of you too.
RSS Reader on Google Play
How does it work?
YouTube link: RSS Reader Mobile Application
Feed Page
Add your favorite websites feed directly using RSS feed address or Search and add. You can even collectively subscribe to certain topics.
Home Page
We show 4 articles each from your favorite sites on the home page. If you need more you can visit Feed Page and get more.
You also get Bookmarking facility and settings where you can take backup of your bookmarks and feed list and also change device using options present there.
Hope you enjoy using the app. And if you like it, please give 5 star rating and comment on RSS Reader ( Google Playstore ) page.
