brian will . net

I’ve come very late to using webfeeds, having only started a few months ago, but I’ve bought in to syndication to the point of removing all the sites I syndicate from my bookmarks. No more aimlessly wandering through my bookmarks to see if my regular blogs have updates.

My first foray with feeds was using the WizzReader Firefox extension, but I found that buggy with a few interface quirks. Then I used a Java app called BlogBridge for a while, which had some feed display issues and some interface clunkiness. Then I switched to another Java app, RSSOwl, which was an improvement, but it comes stock with a glut of feeds that I felt obligated to sort through rather than delete summarily; my list of feeds in RSSOwl never recovered from its initial clutter and disorganization such that I was scared to open the application.

Finally I discovered Google Reader. Here’s a few reasons why I like Reader:

1. Reader is web based, so I’m not locked to one machine.
2. Firefox 2.0’s new syndication integration feature means I can add a subscription to Reader simply by clicking on a feed link. (Not all readers support this integration yet, but I’m sure they will soon.)
3. The work I put into adding feeds and categorizing them is not trapped with Google because I can export the feeds in a standard format. Sure this is standard for client-apps, but it’s another thing for a web-based provider to not trap you to their service. (Now if only I had discovered the import feature before I did all that work to set up my feeds.)
4. While Reader initially only grabs so far back in a feed’s history when you subscribe to it, scrolling down to the bottom will automatically bring in the older content. If the other readers I tried had a similar capability to retrieve old feed items, I couldn’t find it.
5. Reader lets me tag a feed with multiple tags rather than having to organize feeds into discrete categories. Not that I ever use multiple tags, but I object to hierarchical categorization in principle.
6. I can view all of my feeds, or all my feeds with a particular tag, as one big feed with the items of the many feeds in chronological order.

Here are some mostly small things which could be improved:

1. The name is a problem, as I had vaguely heard of Google Reader, but I assumed it had something to do with e-books. What it should be called is “Google FeedReader” (see the next section).
2. The intro page makes no mention of RSS, Atom, feeds, or syndication. It just says you can “subscribe” to websites. Seems like a smart approach, but it doesn’t help users learn which sites they can subscribe to; if I weren’t in the know, I would think that I could subscribe only to sites that setup a special affiliation with Google. I guess Google’s expectation here is that users will find subscribable sites via Reader’s search feature (a bit confusingly, the search bar is labeled “add subscription” because if you put in a feed url (or a site name that returns just one result) it will ask you if you want to add that feed rather than showing a results page; perhaps this should be relabeled “Search for or add a subscription”.
3. In the expanded view of an amalgamation of multiple feeds, the “from” line doesn’t stand out, so I find it hard to identify at a glance the origin of an item when scrolling by. Perhaps the “from” line should have some kind of highlighting. Better yet, the origin of the item should go on the same line as the title, much like it appears in the list view, or perhaps it can go to the right of the title, adjusted to the right edge of the page. Either way, the visual difference would have the side benefit of reminding users that they are viewing multiple feeds as one. I see why Google hasn’t done it this way though: there’s plenty of room for it on my widescreen display, but other users may not be able to afford the screen real estate.
4. The tagging mechanism has discoverability issues, and once learned, it is clumsy for tagging many subscriptions. There should be a way to change the tags of a subscription when viewing the subscription rather than having to go to the subscription management page. My kludge around this problem is to create a tag I call “unassigned”. After adding a bunch of subscriptions, I can then go into the subscription manager, select all the unassigned with the “select unassigned” button, give them all en masse my “unassigned” tag, then filter for the unassigned tag so I can see just those subscriptions, then go through them individually to tag them all. A much simpler solution here is if Reader automatically put new subscriptions in a category called “Unassigned” or “Uncategorized”. (This would also solve the problem of untagged subscriptions in the subscription list looking too much like they’re part of the last tag group rather than on their own.)
5. It would be nice if Reader allowed me to view a feed without subscribing to it. Sure, getting rid of a feed when viewing it is a simple click away, but I hate the idea of cluttering up my subscriptions with unwanted detritus. (The better solution here is probably to allow better ways of organizing and filtering through my subscriptions, such as being able to sort them by ‘date last read’, or ‘date last updated with new content’.)
6. I’d like to bypass the screen that asks me whether I want the feed to go to my “Google Home” or to Reader. I’m sure some kind of Firefox extension could fix this, but a Reader setting would be the preferred, direct solution.
7. The left sidebar width should be adjustable, like the height of the Wordpress edit windows.
8. The “feed settings…” pull down has only one button, so either add more buttons to it or just make it a button that says “unsubscribe”. Either way, move it down to be level with the line that says, “X new items [show all] All items [show only new] – Mark all as read – Refresh”. While you’re at it, put the “expanded view” and “list view” tabs down there as well. I understand making them tabs is supposed to convey general applicability (switching between views affects all subscriptions you view until you switch back to the other view), but I think conveying that idea is less important than not introducing new kinds of unnecessary widgets and splitting up the buttons that affect the currently viewed subscription. (Besides, tabs are more appropriate for simplifying navigation: they allow the user to navigate between multiple screens without getting lost. Changing display styles is not really navigation.)
9. The ’settings’/'manage subscriptions’ screen should appear as a subscription does, with the subscription list bar on the left. A user would “return” from the settings screen simply by clicking on a feed.
10. Make the manage subscriptions button stand out more or simply put it up top next to “settings”. If this is done, the settings and manage pages should not be the same page: one for tagging and such, the other for the miscellaneous stuff.

Beyond getting readers right, syndication has some problems in general:

1. Name confusion: RSS, RSS1, RSS2, RSS1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom, XML, syndication, subscription, feed, webfeed. Which of these words should you use when explaining the concept to a non-initiate? RSS/Atom/XML are definitely out. My choice would be “feed” because it is friendly and still the most accurate. “Syndication” connotes backroom media deals for sitcom broadcast rights or printing a cartoon in newspapers. “Subscription” connotes signing up and paying money rather than something you can just “bookmark” and get for free. (It occurs to me now that perhaps the real problem is the lack of a term analogous to “bookmark”; come to think of it, we also need a term for a feed entry/item.)
2. I personally prefer feeds that display the whole content, but many feeds provide just a blurb or excerpt. Some do this to save bandwidth, others out of inattention, and still others to encourage readers to visit their sites proper. I’m sure this is hotly debated among syndication users and developers, but it seems what is needed is putting greater formatting power in the hands of feed providers so they can give their feeds a unique look and include ads. (Drawing the line at embedded scripting at this point seems reasonable to me.) On the other hand, I as a user find the sparseness of feeds one of their greatest virtues. Hopefully, this design balance will get sorted out.