Back when I was working on FeedLounge I suggested on more than one occasion that we needed an IMAP equivalent for feeds. This way, users could move between feed readers (mobile, desktop, online, etc.) and their read/unread status would be maintained between all of them. It’s interesting that Google Reader has basically become this solution.
In the last six months I’ve used NetNewsWire on the Mac and iOS, Scoop on the webOS and Reeder on the iOS – with an occasional visit to Google Reader on the web.
I still get uncomfortable that so much of the internet relies on Google, but I can’t argue with the convenience in this case.
Seems like OPML has been pressed into filling this role.
OPML allows you to migrate your subscriptions list – I’m talking more about how apps sync read/unread status for items in those subscriptions.
Yeah, the over-reliance on Google truly concerns me. I use Fever these days, which runs on my server and does have an API that allows read/unread checking. It’s a way for me to stay independent of Google, although I sacrifice some features, including speed. I’m totally limited by what my server can do, but then I’m the only one touching my feeds.
[…] how this has changed since I wrote about it last […]
sounds like you were looking for Hep
http://www.fettig.net/projects/hep/
I was talking about an equivalent standard for feed data, but Hep is an interesting approach.