Hivemind: #Sharebros, Assemble! Build Us A Big Damn RSS Reader #OccupyGoogleReader

Yes, I had to throw in the Despicable Me! and Firefly references. It’s late, and I’m in GReader withdrawal.

RIP: Google Reader No Can Share

I used to scroll GReader constantly. I probably shared too much (there is no overshare in Google Reader, but if there is, I did it). I missed the chance to meet 2 (TWO) of my sharebros in Colorado and now I’ve lost connection with a very small number of interesting people, including several Muslim gentlemen who shared all kinds of interesting tech gadget stories, plus incredible food articles and recipe sites during Ramadan.

I’ll miss those guys, though I didn’t interact much with anyone other than with ***Dave, Les, and Stan. They’re all acquaintances of ***Dave’s via his blog, which I used to read in Bloglines – BLOGLINES, FOR CHRISSAKE – before plain, yet beguiling Google Reader (GReader) came along.

And sooo, I signed up for Bloglines. Can’t share, but it’s the principle. Grrr.

I hadn’t bothered to actively seek out people to follow and be followed by; GReader allowed me to be as social, or asocial, as I wished to be. When I tried to sign in to Google Plus after the “share” button was replaced by the G+, I got bored, frustrated, and irritated, so I stopped trying and watched TV.

A lot of TV.

I think I’ve watched every episode of “Storage Wars” that was queued up on TiVo.

Dammit!! I want my GReader!

However, if this story has it right, I might soon have something to read with.

AND SHARE, DAMMIT TO HELL AND A FLYING PASS AT SANTY CLAUS.

One code-savvy, soon-to-be-former Google Reader user would rather create a new site for the RSS-feeds than switch to Google+. Last Friday, Google announced that it was getting rid of Reader’s social features — the ability to follow other people, to share content within Reader and so forth — in order to encourage more people to use Google+ for those kinds of activities within a week. The backlash online was immediate and visceral, and a small group of protesters even picketed outside the company’s DC offices, calling for an Occupy Google Reader movement. We tried contacting Google a number of times over the past week about how they were responding to the complaints and when the changes would go into place but never received a reply.

Hearing radio silence from Google, self-identified Google Reader fanatic (also known as a Sharebro) Francis Cleary decided to take things into his own hands. Cleary tried using Google+ a bit but says it didn’t feel right. So over the past ten days, Cleary has been devoting every minute of his free time to building his own social RSS site that will keep Reader’s dying features alive. For now, he’s calling it HiveMined.

The service is built to work just like Google Reader but better. On the HiveMined blog, Cleary describes the idea quite simply: “A replacement for Google Reader. Basically an RSS reader with a bit of social thrown in.” Cleary explained the idea further to The Atlantic Wire. “The way to think about it is that the people on the hive are going to mine out the best content on the internet,” said the 26-year-old Pennsylvania native, who settled on the name with the help of 40 other Sharebros.

via The Sharebros Are Building a Google Reader Replacement – Technology – The Atlantic Wire

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