Show HN: FeedRebel.com - Your Google Reader Replacement? - Thoughts/Feedback?

[firearch]

hey Everyone,

I built FeedRebel [ http://www.feedrebel.com ] partly because I needed a feed reader myself but mainly because it ties in nicely with an idea that I've been working on. For those of you that are still on the fence when it comes to choosing a Google Reader alternative, I would love it if you could give FeedRebel a try and let me know your thoughts.

I realize that there are quite a few options out there already with some big launches yet to come. I look forward to your comments and thoughts.

Thank you

[dombili]

This is pretty neat. I'll definitely use it for awhile to see if I can get used to it. One small nitpick: After I imported all my feeds, I had to rename my feeds which is not a problem because the names of my feeds are terrible by default. But when I tried to rename them one by one, after each time I changed one of them, the sidebar on the left hand side hide the rest of my feeds. Don't think that's a good practice. I have all this big space[1], why does it have to cut off? I don't think this is good for browsing as well. I wouldn't want to click "show more" every time I log in to the website to see if there's any new items on my feeds that are hidden.

Couple of other points:

- Thanks a lot for the folder support. I've tried a lot of good Google Reader alternatives lately but none of them (for some strange reason) had folder support. That's such an essential feature.

- Chrome/Firefox extensions would be great. Nothing too complicated. Just one to let us know how many unread items we have.

- It'd be much better if you place the notification window right below. It sometimes gets in the way.

- I couldn't see any export option. Am I missing it or it's not there?

- Drag and drop would be much more practical to move the feeds between folders.

Best of luck!

[1] http://i.imgur.com/xJjFOnY.png

[firearch]

Great feedback!! Lemme see if I can answer some of the points you raised.

I agree with the show more feeds link, will be making changes to that pretty soon.

With regards to the space utilization, the reason you see the extra blank space next to a feed is coz it is currently ear marked for showing the feed unread count if you should turn it on in your account settings (by default the unread count display is set to don't show) and also to accommodate the feed settings icon which pops up when you hover over the feed.

I believe I have a solution that will create a better user experience, plan to do that as soon as I'm done with the below.

Chrome/Firefox extension, export and drag and drop are all features that will be added shortly. Currently working on getting a mobile version out.

Thanks again!

[dombili]

My pleasure!

By the way, I wasn't talking about the horizontal space. That's fine as it is and looks OK with the unread numbers next to the feeds. My issue was with the vertical space. Even with a lot of feeds, vertically I have a very big (tall) space available. That's why "Show/Hide feeds" option didn't make any sense to me. Although I can see the need for that option once I have a lot of folders to fill the sidebar, but you can surely automate that option to be available once the sidebar doesn't have any available space left, right? I'm not a programmer but it sounds like that's something technically possible to do (adjusting it for different screen sizes might be a pain though).

Great to hear those features are coming!

One small suggestion: if you want some more publicity, you may want to add Reeder support. I have no idea whether that's something easy to do or not, but feedbin's gotten a lot of free publicity over their support for Reeder.

[firearch]

Ok, I get it now, I'm sure I can do something about the vertical space.

Thanks for the heads up about Reader, sometimes I wish there were more than 24 hrs in a day...

[beshrkayali]

I would defiantly use this. I love how fast it works and how clean the interface is.

Quick notes: - Why required a minimum of 6 letters for a username? - Defiantly needs an option to make Feed Version the default view (unless it's there and I missed it) - It seems like Unicode is not supported (http://d.pr/i/Ptwk)

The last two would make me ditch theoldreader for FeedRebel :)

[firearch]

Thank you, glad you like it.

Yes, you can set the default view to be the feed version. Currently it is at a feed level, simply click on the settings icon for the feed and change the last option Story/Article view to always show the feed version.

Will definitely fix the Unicode issue.

[firearch]

The Unicode issue should be fixed now

[qrohlf]

The product looks great, but one nitpick; when viewed on a 1080p monitor, the JPEG artifacts in your landing page screenshot are pretty awful looking. A losslessly compressed png would be a good alternative.

[firearch]

Clickable link - http://www.feedrebel.com

[Kaizo]

Are you planning on making this a paid service or will it stay free?

[firearch]

The reader will remain free.

Subsequent iterations of FeedRebel will provide additional functionality and features more targeted towards publishers that will have a subscription fee.

[amerf1]

Super idea really easy signup too I loved how fast we can just get started with using it,

Keep it running and good luck

[firearch]

Thank you, would appreciate if you could spread the word.