Why Zite is already better than Google Reader
Mark Johnson
Entrepreneur, product builder, and 3x CEO with 3 exits, turned non-profit technologist.
Google Reader is going to die, and I don’t care.
If you use Google Reader, you know the painful drill: you open up Google Reader after the weekend and find 1,000+ unread items. You mark them all as read, wondering what you’ve missed. You hop on a conference call and then to lunch. When you come back, you’ve already got over 100 unread items. Which ones should you read? Which are the most important to you? There’s always so much information, so many stories, so many feeds – Calgon?, take me away!
Zite was born out of our desire to ameliorate the information overload from RSS readers. Instead of a deluge of articles, we wanted an intelligent magazine that could deliver us exactly what we wanted and get rid of the cruft. We wanted to create a discovery engine that found articles that we’d never have normally seen, instead of the same ol’. And, we wanted to do all of that in a slick, clean interface.
As a heavy user of Zite (I’m not just the CEO – I am Zite’s number one fan), I believe that we’ve succeeded. Here’s why:
- Zite solves information overload – Instead of being flooded with every article from every RSS subscription in Google Reader, why not let Zite find the most interesting stories for you. Let Zite do the heavy lifting and just enjoy reading.
- Zite is intelligent – You can tell Zite what you like and don't like and it will get smarter and smarter as you use it. The sources, topics, writing style, article length, and authors you prefer will contribute to Zite's understanding of who you are. Zite is built on years of artificial intelligence research and users are consistently surprised with how well we get to know them.
- Zite focuses on topics, not sources – We think that users want a simple way to consume streams of information. In Zite, we encourage you to add a topic like “Science News” or “Investing” instead of Space.com or The Motley Fool. As you read and like articles, Zite will learn which publications you prefer and recommend them more often.
- Zite helps you to discover fresh voices – not only will Zite learn what you already like, but introduce you to new sources, challenging viewpoints, and stories that you would have never otherwise read.
- Zite is beautiful – Google Reader is great for a small subset of folks (reporters, PR, investment bankers, etc.) who want to scan every single headline. A much better experience for most users is only to see relevant stories in a beautiful, clean format. Zite delivers a far better user experience than Google Reader.
All that being said, we realize that the loss of Google Reader is going to be a pain for folks, so we quickly developed a solution for our users: when you link up your Google Reader account to Zite, we’ll create you a personalized section of the best stories for you in your feed. In the next few weeks, we’ll be adding more features to our quick-and-dirty solution, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, try out Zite for yourself. I bet you won’t miss Google Reader at all after a week.
Risk Analyst
10 年I like the idea behind Zite and also use it. I have been looking at Flipboard and Noowit (html5) because the idea of creating an online magazine with beautiful magazine layout style is, i think, the way we are heading and fits perfectly with the fall of traditional computers and the rise of tablet like devices, but i was a bit disappointed by both Flipboard and to some extent Noowit. It's only either sources chosen for you or articles you can save (static content/articles with the "user defined" Flipboard magazine for instance). It should be possible to create an html5 based online magazine styled page populated by both suggested newsfeeds but also importantly user defined rss feeds, blogs, etc.. Is that ideas that Zite is looking at for future updates?
CEO at Toptrans Group Supply Chain Ltd. Supply Chain Financial
11 年I am learning now....
"I was never more certain of how far away I was from my goal than when I was standing right beside it", Vincent Anton Freeman
11 年Feedly allows me to use iDevices, and desktop browsers. But will check this out too.
Huge fan of Zite! I am slowly moving off of Google Reader, the migration and organization of my 100 or so feeds was not perfect, but the news displayed to be is so meticulously kept and relevant, it hardly matters. I don't want to mess with a thing because I feel a sense of serendipity every time I use Zite, which is about 40 minutes per day. Godspeed and keep up the good work!