Google Reader Replacement From Digg Hitting Beta In June

Jozi · April 30, 2013

Digg has released the results of its second Google Reader survey, revealing what services its upcoming RSS feed reader will be supporting, and that a beta of the reader will be launching in June.

Digg is creating an RSS feed reader in the hope it will pick up a great many users of Google Reader when that service closes on 1st July.

Google announced it will be closing Google Reader earlier this year as the service is not profitable and has a limited user base. However the news was met with considerable shock as a core of many thousands of users still use the service everyday. As a result many companies have been preparing to try and grab a portion of the loyal Google Reader user base.

In order to try and hit the ground running Digg has sent out two surveys to try and work out what potential users want before the company builds and releases the service.

The latest survey was sent out to over 18,000 people who had signed up to hear more about Digg's proposed alternative to Google Reader, and the company says it received 8,600 responses - a pretty good sample by any measure. It is these results the company has now released.

Over 40% of respondents said they would be willing to pay for the service, leaving a still hefty 60% unwilling to splash the cash. In response Digg said "Free products on the Internet don’t have a great track record. They tend to disappear, leaving users in a lurch. We need to build a product that people can rely on and trust will always be there for them."

Next, nearly half of respondents said they had never used the social media functions on Google Reader, before they were removed in 2011. This comes as little surprise given even two years ago social media was that much less prevalent than it is today. In response Digg said "ultimately we believe that social features which foster connections between readers will be an important part of the Digg experience."

When it comes to "read later" services, over 1/3 of respondents said they didn't use them, though of those that did it was a fairly even split with Pocket leading the charge with over 25%. Digg has assured potential users that it will support all the services mentioned in the survey.

Finally, over 75% of respondents said they still share news via Email. This compares to around 55% for Facebook and Twitter with around 35% for Google+. Again, Digg says its reader will support all the services mentioned in the survey.

It sounds, then, like Digg's Google Reader alternative will be fairly comprehensive, though given the newly redesigned Digg site, it's a reasonable expectation that the service will maintain a strong focus on clean design. With a June beta release, there won't be long to find out

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2013/04/30/google-reader-replacement-digg-beta-june/1

Nicktrance · April 30, 2013

Now that I've managed to convince myself to stop instinctively going to Google Reader and switched to Feedly, it's actually a really good RSS Reader using the browser version on PC and the app is way batter than the official Google Reader app (about as good as GReader but it doesn't have a Holo theme).