The NewsBlur Redesign

Here's The Verge's article on the redesign launch: <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/21/4350208/how-sam-clay-and-newsblur-survived-the-google-reader-shutdown-redesign" rel="nofollow">http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/21/4350208/how-sam-clay-and-n...</a><p>Little by little sure does add up. I've been working on the redesign for iOS, android, and both the web app and blurblogs (blurblog example: <a href="http://samuel.newsblur.com" rel="nofollow">http://samuel.newsblur.com</a>) for months now. But by committing every day it builds up. That's been the past four years now.<p>My favorite part of this whole business is the free insurance policy. If I were to get hit by a bus (or god forbid, decide to stop supporting NewsBlur), you or somebody with the necessary resources could have a copy up and running by taking advantage of NewsBlur's open-source repo: <a href="http://github.com/samuelclay" rel="nofollow">http://github.com/samuelclay</a>

Sam, I'm sure the past few months have been kind to you -- and with your dedication to the product, you assuredly deserve it.<p>If you get the chance, I'd love to see some sort of before &#38; after the Reader shutdown a la Patrick McKenzie's "Year in Reviews" (<a href="http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/12/17/bingo-card-creator-etc-year-in-review-2010/" rel="nofollow">http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/12/17/bingo-card-creator-etc-y...</a>). I'm sure you'd have quite a few insights to share.

This could be very well be just me, there are too many clickable things on screen, the UI seems overwhelming.

Great job, I tried newsblur months ago and it didn't click for me. The redesign feels much more natural and snappy. It's a testament to how much features can flourish or suffer from minor performance tweaks and careful design decisions.<p>For instance before, the bottom bar felt much more cluttered and difficult to understand. It created a sense of claustrophobia, with some subtle design tweaks it now feels like a helpful and compelling navigation feature.

I moved over to newsblur after the reader news. One of the main features was that it was open source so what happened with reader wouldn't happen again, I could always self-host. After seeing how easy it is to move from one service to another I'm not so sure.<p>Right now I'm a frustrated customer. All the effort seems to be going into flashy features and redesign while the actual function of a rss reader is not there yet. The basic feed stream doesn't work properly and never has. Items show back randomly after I've already read them and the infinite scroll doesn't work reliably. Bugs about this go ignored. I'll be trying feedbin.me next as I saw several recommendations on hacker news today and it seems to be a no fuss back-to-basics feed reader.

I'm gonna be that guy - I prefer the appearance of the blue version. Things stand out more, it's seems easier to parse. The grey looks all washed out and nothing really sticks outs. The layout of the right-hand panel is an improvement though, definitely.

I've been using NewsBlur with a paid account since pretty close to the shutdown announcement for Reader and finally switched all of my bookmarks over. I'm happy with the web app, and honestly, the Android app is way better than what I was using when I was over on Reader. There's been a few bumps with servers but they've seemed pretty smoothed out for the most part lately.<p>tldr keep up the good work, it's easy to recommend to other people looking to migrate. The redesign just makes it even easier.

NewsBlur is the best of the web-based bunch I've been checking out recently, but it's still... not quite there.<p>For example, this glitch has been around for weeks:<p><a href="http://dirkjan.ochtman.nl/files/newsblur-glitch.png" rel="nofollow">http://dirkjan.ochtman.nl/files/newsblur-glitch.png</a><p>I'm also not sure it's quite fast enough yet. I've used FeedDemon and Reeder (and NetNewsWire before that) for so long I'm really used to low-latency feed UI. I think web UI can match that, but NewsBlur isn't quite there yet.<p>I also think the new design, while much better than the old design, is still quite heavy, in the sense that there is a lot to take in, lots of little details. Personally, I really liked the more sparing design in for example Reeder for the Mac. It would be great if there was an option in the NewsBlur UI to point to a stylesheet (or an inline &#60;style&#62; block) that would allow me to play with customization a bit.<p>Of course, I also haven't found anything better so far, so it looks like NewsBlur will still be my reader of choice for the foreseeable future.

For what it's worth, I have tried to get started with newsblur a couple of times and ended up throwing my hands up. Just now, I downloaded the new android app, thinking it would be better, and I am unable to complete signup. The ui makes it nearly impossible to get focus into the "username" field because I can only see a sliver of it after the soft kayboard scrolls it up, and no matter what I enter, it says "please enter an email address" and makes me start all over. Not to mention it keeps randomly flipping me back to the "I need to log in" mode of the UI, which is quite frustrating. I can't say your signup flow (or your web site on my android browser, which is a total disaster) bodes well for the attention to detail for something as complicated as a news reader.

Love the pricing part of the page (<a href="http://www.newsblur.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.newsblur.com/</a>):<p>Feed poor Shiloh -<p>Free Account: She goes hungry<p>Premium Account: Home cooked meals of green beans, sweet potatoes, carrots, and brown rice

for over 15 years i've scrolled down webpages using the arrow keys. can't do this with newsblur. everything else about newsblur excites me and i want to explore it, but having the down arrow go to next story just breaks my usage so hard...<p>sure i got a mouse. i try to avoid using it too much.

"It’s a full scale redesign, too. And not just one of those redesigns where the icons get glossier and fonts, bolder."<p>I think it looks the same but with different colors. From that description I was expecting something completely different.

I was a little surprised to find no mention of "import" or "OPML" on <a href="http://www.newsblur.com/faq" rel="nofollow">http://www.newsblur.com/faq</a> , even though articles like e.g. <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/computing/101011-6-google-reader-replacements" rel="nofollow">http://www.extremetech.com/computing/101011-6-google-reader-...</a> say it's a feature.

Still looks like too much needless stuff going on, so I still prefer feedly.com as my Google Reader replacement

Sam,<p>Thanks for making a great product (was worried in the early days after the Reader meltdown that you wouldn't scale) into something worth paying for again and again. You're really turning NewsBlur into the one to beat and are making it easier to not miss Google Reader. One feature request: integrate Buffer :)

NewsBlur is good, but I don't care for the dashboard opening each time I visit. I'd rather have it remember what I was reading last and open there the next time I login or visit.<p>I switched to netvibes for now, but I don't like how netvibes wont pick up youtube embedded videos.

I was delaying moving off of Google Reader since nothing else really seemed better (and newsblur was super slow around the announcement). I'm glad I waited -- the redesigned NewsBlur looks awesome, and I'll probably stick with it.

Thanks for hard work! And the fact that it's open source, so I... However I think there are not necessary in it. You should to redesign it more simplicity,because some functions make people more confuse

The design is so complicated to the reader.

i'm happy to pay but want to look at other options too - do any other reader alternatives offer web and android?

It's still nothing like what I'm looking for in an RSS reader, but I'm sure it's good for whoever it's designed for.

The "Try Out Newsblur" button doesn't work in IE8.