I will proudly proclaim my use of Google Reader. It may have the occasional duplicate post - but I love the interface. The recent addition of built in e-mailing functionality (pulling from your Gmail contact lists) has been a huge plus for me, too.
Thanks for posting your observation, Robert. I've been wondering how Google Reader is fairing amongst competitors!
daniela barbosa
· 2 years ago
Hell ya. i saw this on Google Reader.
Brent
· 2 years ago
I get about 40% of my traffic from Google Reader and even more from google search. Google is definitely in control here. I too use Google Reader and love it.
Steve P
· 2 years ago
I'm sure if all RSS readers reported a referer when accessing your site, that they would also be at the top. TechMeme and Google Reader are two different animals...
Ricky Cadden
· 2 years ago
I'm 100% a Google Reader user and think that alot of it has to do with the crowd that uses Google. Think about the people that you know who basically run their lives off Google, like myself. Gmail, Gtalk, Analytics, Reader, etc. We're much more interactive as a whole, I think.
Google Reader kicks butt because no matter what internet-connected device I use, it's there for me.
Bruce Reyes-Chow
· 2 years ago
Yep, we are all drinking our own Google kool-aid now. And boy do I LIKE it!
Justin Flowers
· 2 years ago
I don't want to sound like a Google ad here but:
I've tried a number of readers, and Google's is, by far the best. With its shortcut keys and "trends" it makes reading the news and blogs I subscribe to as easy as checking email.
And, I suppose I fit very neatly into the demographic, because here I am leaving a comment.
Prasenjeet
· 2 years ago
What I like about Google Reader is that it combines the "river of news" approach Dave likes so much, with drilldown -- you can choose to drill into a specific feed, or category of feeds, easily.
Now if only they added the ability to search feeds :-S
Thomas
· 2 years ago
I initially tried to use IE as my feed reader, and I did not like the fact that all a feeds content was treated as a single page. It was hard to tell where one post ended and another began.
After hearing Robert mention he used Google Reader, I gave it a shot. The video of watching Robert work was also helpful. When you are just starting out - it is worthwhile to see the workflow of productive people.
Kevin Cawley
· 2 years ago
yep, google knows they are sitting on a gold mine and the acquisition of feedburner makes that pretty clear. all those engaged users in google reader and other readers can click away on the feedburner ads. good stuff.
Thomas Han
· 2 years ago
how did I get here? ah! Google Reader...
Nathen Grass
· 2 years ago
I use to use some desktop rss reader until I watched the Tim Ferriss interview of Robert. I figured I'd give Google Reader a go and haven't looked back since then.
Jonathan
· 2 years ago
I've tried to use Google Reader, I've tried to use IE7 to read feeds, I've tried Akregator from kDE to read my feeds, but still I keep going back to bloglines to read my "feeds" every day. Why? Portablity... I can't use Google Reader in Konqueror correctly, heck I can't even view GMail in Konqi. I guess because I use something other then Google Reader I'm not engaged. Serious echo chamber going on here Robert.
Thomas
· 2 years ago
@Prasenjeet - I agree there definitely needs to be some kind of searching mechanism for feeds. That to me is a high priority feature that is missing.
@Nathen Grass - the interview with Tim Ferris, that is the one I was talking about - it is worth watching.
@Jonathan - Just because Google Readers are engaged, doesn't mean other people aren't. Why does this have to be either / or and not inclusive?
Google Reader is definitely handy. Helps me keep track of my feeds easily. I also agree with Prasenjeet and Thomas, feeds search is needed. :)
Kenny Batson
· 2 years ago
This blog post makes no sense, logically.
How does the fact that the largest group of referers to Scoble's blog are from Google Reader prove that Google Readers are engaged (assuming that visiting Scoble's blog means that the visitor is "engaged").
Assuming that visiting Scoble's blog is a measure of "engagement", what would prove that Google Readers are engaged would be a high percentage of Google Readers visiting Scoble's blog, not a high percentage of Scoble's visitors being Google Readers.
srikanth
· 2 years ago
From google reader. I've to come all the way here to enter comment. I wish I can see and enter comments from google reader itself.
d2
· 2 years ago
do something = Click a link. Leave a comment. Buy. Etc
ha
francine hardaway
· 2 years ago
I have just finished travelling for two days from Phoenix to Penang, through Taipei and Bangkok and LA. At every airport I synchronized my feeds, and on every plane ride I read through them offline. What a kickass experience!
Betsy
· 2 years ago
It could be that Scoble's pimping of Google Reader for months prompted his readers to move to Google Reader. So naturally lots of his referers are from Google Reader, but those may be readers that he already had. But it doesn't necessarily mean "Google Readers are engaged", since it could be the case that 99% of Google Reader users don't visit this blog. :p
Christopher Coulter
· 2 years ago
Don't use Chinese toothpaste.
Readers as a whole, are a worthless lot, lacking basic informational and archive functions. Google Reader, rates no higher, nor any less. Whatever, shop talk circled. It's not the tools, it's what you make of them.
Andrew Herron
· 2 years ago
I'm afraid your argument is flawed... desktop feed readers don't generally show up on your referrer logs because they open the browser separately to view the post. Is there a difference between the total referrer count and the total visits for yesterday? That's the desktop feed reader referrer count. And it doesn't include people like me who read everything but rarely click.
LayZ
· 2 years ago
@24 "I’m afraid your argument is flawed..."
You expected something more from Scoble? When aren't his arguments flawed?
But he does seem to be pimping Google at an alarming rate of late. Adobe is going to pull sponsorship if he's not careful. ;-)
Christopher Coulter
· 2 years ago
pimping Google at an alarming rate of late
Yeah, so much so that I thought another dreadful Channel 9 Google style. But seeing that he's college degreeless, that won't happen. Google hasn't broken that rule for major others, I don't see them breaking it now. Arrogance and the cult will kill Google, as it's really a one-trick pony, and it's search is so noised of late, half worthless.
Robert Scoble
· 2 years ago
Andrew: actually, Wordpress keeps track of how many subscribers that I have. I have about 200,000 subscribers, and most of which aren’t on desktop feed readers. So, they might be engaged, but they are a far far smaller audience (especially if you add Google’s Reader’s audience and Bloglines and NewsGator’s online audience together).
Google isn’t the only audience that is engaged, it just is the MOST engaged one. It’s not just me who’s noticed this, either. Tons of other evidence is coming in from other sites that I can’t name around the Internet as well.
LayZ: when aren’t your arguments flawed? For instance, Adobe doesn’t sponsor me. Second, why would Adobe care what Google’s doing?
Robert Scoble
· 2 years ago
Christopher: you've been saying that Google is noisy ever since I've met you, which was back in 2003. Four years of "noisy" yet it continues to gain market share.
Jonathan Sutherland
· 2 years ago
Google Reader is the best for me. Its speed, shortcuts and simple to use interface are excellent.
Jim
· 2 years ago
I second the comment about online readers.. Firefox's Sage extension has been excellent. All the folks I've told about it love it. And best of all I don't have to tell anyone which feeds I'm subscribed to.
Psymon
· 2 years ago
Google reader is fast, functional and simple, what more does one need? Plus now having using Google gears you can have it offline, wonderous!
Lyndar
· 2 years ago
I'm a day behind on reading "All items" in Google Reader, where I saw this post, but I had to leave comment. I'm not programmer. I tried desktop readers, but it wasn't until Google Reader that I was *really* able to engage with a lot of blogs. It's make it easy for business-types to subscribe to and go through a lot of info.
All Comments
Thanks for posting your observation, Robert. I've been wondering how Google Reader is fairing amongst competitors!
i saw this on Google Reader.
Google Reader kicks butt because no matter what internet-connected device I use, it's there for me.
I've tried a number of readers, and Google's is, by far the best. With its shortcut keys and "trends" it makes reading the news and blogs I subscribe to as easy as checking email.
And, I suppose I fit very neatly into the demographic, because here I am leaving a comment.
Now if only they added the ability to search feeds :-S
After hearing Robert mention he used Google Reader, I gave it a shot. The video of watching Robert work was also helpful. When you are just starting out - it is worthwhile to see the workflow of productive people.
I guess because I use something other then Google Reader I'm not engaged. Serious echo chamber going on here Robert.
@Nathen Grass - the interview with Tim Ferris, that is the one I was talking about - it is worth watching.
@Jonathan - Just because Google Readers are engaged, doesn't mean other people aren't. Why does this have to be either / or and not inclusive?
chck out my blog for daily humor columns.peace.
http://thedailycolumns.wordpress.com
How does the fact that the largest group of referers to Scoble's blog are from Google Reader prove that Google Readers are engaged (assuming that visiting Scoble's blog means that the visitor is "engaged").
Assuming that visiting Scoble's blog is a measure of "engagement", what would prove that Google Readers are engaged would be a high percentage of Google Readers visiting Scoble's blog, not a high percentage of Scoble's visitors being Google Readers.
ha
Readers as a whole, are a worthless lot, lacking basic informational and archive functions. Google Reader, rates no higher, nor any less. Whatever, shop talk circled. It's not the tools, it's what you make of them.
You expected something more from Scoble? When aren't his arguments flawed?
But he does seem to be pimping Google at an alarming rate of late. Adobe is going to pull sponsorship if he's not careful. ;-)
Yeah, so much so that I thought another dreadful Channel 9 Google style. But seeing that he's college degreeless, that won't happen. Google hasn't broken that rule for major others, I don't see them breaking it now. Arrogance and the cult will kill Google, as it's really a one-trick pony, and it's search is so noised of late, half worthless.
Google isn’t the only audience that is engaged, it just is the MOST engaged one. It’s not just me who’s noticed this, either. Tons of other evidence is coming in from other sites that I can’t name around the Internet as well.
LayZ: when aren’t your arguments flawed? For instance, Adobe doesn’t sponsor me. Second, why would Adobe care what Google’s doing?