With the recent development of Google shutting down it's RSS reader
(probably in favor of their social network Google+) and all the growth
in social networks and more and websites implementing more social
plugins than RSS feeds, it first seemed a bit strange to launch a new
RSS reader - especially in the core apps.
So what are the differences, advantages or disadvantages of RSS? How
should the /perfect /newsreader look like?
_It appeared to me that I would like the following features:_
*categories/lists: *It should be easy to create groups (like tech news,
economy news, political news, global news, local news, ...). This one
could be implemented in a similar way to tweetdeck or the mobile Google+
client (swipe left/right to change between the lists).
*read information:* In some areas, I like to no miss any news. So an
indicator, if I already read a news item would be nice. Further, some
sort of notification for real-time news would be also nice. But this is
only true for some small lists (or circles or feeds or whatever you want
to call this). For other lists, I would like to turn those features off.
Perhaps some rules like: No longer mark as new when older than 2 weeks
would also be desirable.
*synchronization:* sync all this information between multiple mobile /
tablet / desktop devices. (only if the user whats - otherwise use a
local db)
Then, all the discussions for the messaging apps: We want *one place*
for all our messages - regardless of whether they come from SMS,
WhatsApp, Facebook, GoogleTalk, ...
This let me think about why not doing the same for the newsreader apps?!
We should create one newsreader app which can easily implement new
"newssources" (perhaps implemented by default: rss, twitter, reddit,
facebook, google+) just like the messenger can easily add new messaging
connectors (or whatever they are called).
Then you could implement the following features additionally to the
current rss newsreader roadmap:
*comments:* Perhaps, there should be some sort of commenting
functionality, which is just disabled for RSS.
*share:* There should be some sort of share button for all items, where
you can then select over which service you want to share (email,
twitter, facebook, sms, ...)
What do you think about it?
Is it a good idea to unify the news reading experience like the
messaging experience?
