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Speed in the Feed: Google Reader and PubSubHubbub

Written by Dana Oshiro / August 5, 2009 4:07 PM / 8 Comments

google_pushbutton_aug09a.jpgGoogle Reader is about to get much faster for developers. You'll be pleased to note that Reader has just adopted the PubSubHubbub protocol for shared items. This means that instead of repeatedly requesting that Reader's shared items reload from the server, the feed automatically updates via a distributed hub model. Rather than waiting on the back and forth pings of update notifications and polled Atom URLs, feed subscribers can receive both the notification and the message from a hub.

Subscribers get the latest content on their favorite feeds in near real time (sans repeated links), while publishers let the hub handle the subscription load. This distributed model allows publishers and subscribers to reduce the number of actions required to serve up feeds and is what Anil Dash eloquently describes as the Pushbutton Web.

This latest Reader effort is a 20% Google project of Mihai Parparita, Brett Slatkin and Brad Fitzpatrick. Slatkin and Fitzpatrick co-created PubSubHubbub to increase efficiency across the cloud and decentralize services. Fitzpatrick is best known as the founder of LiveJournal and co-creator of Memcached and OpenID. Given that Memcached speeds database-driven websites and OpenID decentralizes the social graph, PubSubHubbub fits nicely into the group's accomplishments.

Friendfeed is already benefiting from the PubSubHubbub experience. If you're currently sharing Reader items in your Friendfeed account, your Friendfeed subscribers can already see your updates in real time.

For more information on PubSubHubbub check out a great post by Dave Winer, the father of RSS.


Comments

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  1. that was quick.

    Posted by: bucabay | August 5, 2009 4:23 PM



  2. Sounds like great news for Feedly!

     Posted by: Michael Author Profile Page | August 5, 2009 4:53 PM



  3. The great news is that any service that is a PubSubHubbub client will benefit from that, including http://superfeedr.com ;) (We also push any feed we fetch via our own Hub)

     Posted by: julien Author Profile Page | August 5, 2009 7:57 PM



  4. This seems to be a good news,which the client will benefit on this.

    keep up the good work,
    so much also with posting!


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  5. http://wwwstreetinvestigatorscom.blogspot.com/

    Posted by: Bruck_DLc | August 6, 2009 1:35 PM



  6. There is only one thing that Google Reader is good for: Letting me synchronize Feed Demon on two computers.

    If you have only one computer, don't bother with Google Reader. Just use Snarfer.

    Posted by: Derek D | August 13, 2009 8:35 AM



  7. I love you more ideas. it seems like another blog I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

    Posted by: raungrit Author Profile Page | December 4, 2009 9:33 PM



  8. This PubSubHubbub protocol thing is kinda cool.At least the feed automatically updates via a distributed hub model instead of repeatedly requesting that, readers shared item reload from the server. This is great news for friendfeed and also clients using this.VPS Hosting

    Posted by: mozoella | February 7, 2010 6:54 AM



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