I have noticed that lately I'm getting more and more of my news through email newsletters. Others on the ReadWriteWeb staff are fierce advocates of their favorite RSS readers. Checking our traffic logs though, shows us that the way you visit ReadWriteWeb varies greatly.
How do you read ReadWriteWeb? Are you subscribing to our RSS Feed? Do you receive our Daily or Weekly Email newsletter? Are you following us on Twitter, Facebook or Google+? Is the way you read ReadWriteWeb your preferred way to gather news?
What's your favored method of news consumption?
We asked and culled your responses from Facebook, Google+ and Twitter and presented them back to you with Storify. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.
This time last year I wrote a post outlining how online reading patterns had changed over 2010. The habits and products for reading on the Web have continued to evolve over 2011. This year, for example, Google+ arrived on the scene and changed the way many people find and discuss topical articles. We also saw continued innovation in mobile and tablet reading apps.
In this post I identify two key trends in online reading over 2011, plus two main ways that our online reading habits have changed.
Last week, the Google Reader team caused quite a stir among many users when it launched a redesigned version of the popular RSS feed reading service. The relaunch not only gave Google Reader a new design, but removed the service's content-sharing and social features in an attempt to streamline the product and drive more people toward Google+. While the company did add a "Share" button of its own to Reader today, it still pushes posts to Google+ and doesn't quite restore the way the product used to work.
One of those disappointed users was Web developer Emmanuel Pire. Not content to see the beloved sharing feature go away, Pire built a replica of it on his own server and wrote a script that adds a "Share" button to the new Google Reader interface. This workaround doesn't restore the functionality 100%, but it comes pretty close.
Yesterday, I got an email from a good friend with a subject line that needed no further explanation: "Google Reader." It was sent to a group of mutual friends, bemoaning the recent changes to Reader's interface, thereby kicking off a lengthy discussion thread. Should we move to Google Plus? Would Instapaper make a good substitute? Had anybody heard of Hivemined? What about other RSS readers?
The concerns echoed sentiments that were by then flooding Twitter and other nooks and crannies of the Web. In the process of redesigning Reader, the team decided to kill off the social features long beloved by many power users of the service. Suddenly, friending, sharing and commenting were all gone, as was the outbound RSS feed of shared items each user generated.
Today Google Reader became the latest Google product to have Plus added to it. Now Google Reader users can +1 or share items to Google Plus, from within Reader. Google has made very clear over the past month that Plus will be integrated into all of Google's products over time, so this wasn't a surprising move. However, rather predictably, there has been a user backlash anyway. Writing on his G+ profile, Google Plus Marketing Manager and long-time RSS expert Louis Gray tried to assure everyone that they have choices: "We know that for some people, the changes to Reader will make you think differently about the product, and this may make you seek alternatives."
But are there in fact any viable alternatives to Google Reader?
Flipboard, the social magazine app for iPad, has just launched its first advertising program in partnership with magazine publisher Condé Nast. This campaign displays ads alongside content from The New Yorker, Wired, and Bon Appétit. Later this year, Flipboard plans to expand the progam to other publishers, including independent publishers.
This ad program builds on Flipboard Pages, Flipboard's first step into content that's specific to the reading environment of its app. Instead of showing a Web view, Flipboard Pages display articles using "print-inspired layouts, typography and imagery" built for Flipboard. Beginning with the Condé Nast partnership, publishers can now easily intersperse full-page ads into the Flipboard versions of their content.
Regarding future ad partnerships, Christel van der Boom at Flipboard says, "We are already working with a number of publishers in our Flipboard Pages program that we announced in December."
Document hosting and sharing site Scribd is venturing into the mobile space in order to give its publishers an opportunity to attract more readers. With a new mobile reader application called Float, Scribd aggregates content from news sites, magazines, blogs, and Scribd.com as well as from your social networks like Facebook and Twitter. You can also save items you find online to read later in Float, with the use of a specialized browser bookmarklet.
But what's most unique about this app is the way it reformats the text for the small screen. The "floating text" reading experience, which gives the app its name, reflows text originally formatted for the Web for better reading on mobile devices.
With near half a million Android devices being activated every day, there are a lot of people learning the best ways to use their brand new devices. The natural thing for a new user to do is look up their favorite websites using the native browser on the phone. Yet, a lot of times they will find that the site is not optimized for the mobile Web. This makes for a clunky Web experience that detracts from the perceived value of the shiny new smartphone.
That is where RSS applications designed specifically for Android become incredibly useful and powerful tools. Available through the Android Market, there are a plethora of terrific RSS readers that will render users' favorite sites into delightful, visually appealing feeds. What are the best Android RSS readers in the Market? Let's take a look.
This morning, alternative search engine service blekko announced a partnership with hot iPad social magazine Flipboard to power its content searches. Under the new deal, users looking for new content to subscribe to within Flipboard can discover and browse for items by keyword. The content will come from RSS feeds, the Web feed format used to publish regularly updated news in a structured format. But unlike with traditional RSS readers, like Google Reader, for example, the feeds will not be displayed in the typical inbox-like view often associated with feed-reading services. Instead, the feeds will be displayed in Flipboard's magazine-like format for a more visually attractive experience.
RSS dead? Hardly.
Yesterday XYDO, the service that curates users' Twitter and Facebook streams and adds a layer of social bookmarking a la Reddit or Digg, opened up to the public. After trying it out for a little while today, I realized that something felt wrong, and then it came to me - when I click on a title, I don't get taken to the website hosting that content, I get taken to a page within XYDO that hosts the content.
It's like XYDO has taken my friends' recommendations, let people vote on them and then, right when I go to click on it, stepped in and said "Here, take this instead." But what exactly is wrong with this?
