Overnight success
Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2025 9:53 am
At the end of April, the service celebrated its first anniversary, and its creators were full of optimism. “We couldn’t imagine that a project for 50 people could grow to 200 thousand,” the guys said enthusiastically. The day when Google decided to close its famous reader was a complete surprise for them, drawing a line that divided the Ukrainian analogue into before and after. Even under a joint photo, the authors wrote a caption: “The Old Reader team until March 13.”
During the first day, 60 thousand people came to them at once, and before that there were only 10 thousand. At that time, they clarified that they did not have the goal of making money. Quite quickly, they made an API for third-party mobile developers (11 applications are already working), and changed the emphasis in the development of the resource.
Millions of Feedly users
While The Old Reader is looking for work-life balance, the team at a similar service, Feedlyis happy with its success. The reader has gained 8 million users in recent months — twice as many electrical contractors email lists as it had before the announcement of the closure of Google.Reader. In the first 48 hours after the announcement of changes in Google's RSS policy, Feedly was joined by half a million users. This is not surprising — Feedly (as well as The Old Reader) was actively written about by media outlets in different countries. The service's developers added new servers and increased the channel's throughput by 10 times.
The team (and there are a dozen employees) added many different functions and features to the service, including, like its Ukrainian counterpart, an API for mobile applications. Although Feedly could be called a leader in this area before, it worked on iOS and Android, on the web in different browsers.
On Google News Day in March, they said to their new users, "Welcome aboard!" and, unlike The Old Reader, they have no intention of sinking the ship.
The Second Life of RSS Readers
Google.Reader creator Chris Wetherell recently said that if the idea for this service had come to him now, and not many years ago, he would have quit the corporation and started doing this project on his own. It is easy to speak in the subjunctive tense, especially since Chris has not worked at Google for 5 years. In addition, readers were developed at that time not only at Google, Yandex.Lenta, for example, appeared several months earlier than the famous foreign analogue.
The corporation decided to close the project, as it was not popular enough among users. At the same time, the Financial Times newspaper, citing the comScore analytical service, reported that in January 2013, 492 thousand people used the Google Reader mobile client in the US. In October 2012, this figure was 665 thousand unique users. If you remember the 12 million Feedly clients and half a million The Old Reader, the number of RSS feed fans does not seem so insignificant.
Even after Google announced the closure of the reader, the social news portalDigglaunched its own reader analogue, which is now called one of the most notable projects on this market. The Internet company AOL did the same. According to rumors, Facebook is also working on its own mobile reader. If Facebook really comes out with its RSS reader, it will become clear that the famous search engine was hasty in closing Google.Reader…
By the end of the second day after the emotional decision to close the small (compared to Google.Reader) The Old Reader from the public, the creators came to their senses and announced that they were discussing the possibility of leaving the service open to everyone.
During the first day, 60 thousand people came to them at once, and before that there were only 10 thousand. At that time, they clarified that they did not have the goal of making money. Quite quickly, they made an API for third-party mobile developers (11 applications are already working), and changed the emphasis in the development of the resource.
Millions of Feedly users
While The Old Reader is looking for work-life balance, the team at a similar service, Feedlyis happy with its success. The reader has gained 8 million users in recent months — twice as many electrical contractors email lists as it had before the announcement of the closure of Google.Reader. In the first 48 hours after the announcement of changes in Google's RSS policy, Feedly was joined by half a million users. This is not surprising — Feedly (as well as The Old Reader) was actively written about by media outlets in different countries. The service's developers added new servers and increased the channel's throughput by 10 times.
The team (and there are a dozen employees) added many different functions and features to the service, including, like its Ukrainian counterpart, an API for mobile applications. Although Feedly could be called a leader in this area before, it worked on iOS and Android, on the web in different browsers.
On Google News Day in March, they said to their new users, "Welcome aboard!" and, unlike The Old Reader, they have no intention of sinking the ship.
The Second Life of RSS Readers
Google.Reader creator Chris Wetherell recently said that if the idea for this service had come to him now, and not many years ago, he would have quit the corporation and started doing this project on his own. It is easy to speak in the subjunctive tense, especially since Chris has not worked at Google for 5 years. In addition, readers were developed at that time not only at Google, Yandex.Lenta, for example, appeared several months earlier than the famous foreign analogue.
The corporation decided to close the project, as it was not popular enough among users. At the same time, the Financial Times newspaper, citing the comScore analytical service, reported that in January 2013, 492 thousand people used the Google Reader mobile client in the US. In October 2012, this figure was 665 thousand unique users. If you remember the 12 million Feedly clients and half a million The Old Reader, the number of RSS feed fans does not seem so insignificant.
Even after Google announced the closure of the reader, the social news portalDigglaunched its own reader analogue, which is now called one of the most notable projects on this market. The Internet company AOL did the same. According to rumors, Facebook is also working on its own mobile reader. If Facebook really comes out with its RSS reader, it will become clear that the famous search engine was hasty in closing Google.Reader…
By the end of the second day after the emotional decision to close the small (compared to Google.Reader) The Old Reader from the public, the creators came to their senses and announced that they were discussing the possibility of leaving the service open to everyone.