diff --git a/blog/_drafts/2021-07-01-refreshing-newsblur-design.md b/blog/_drafts/2021-07-01-refreshing-newsblur-design.md deleted file mode 100644 index 468682cc5..000000000 --- a/blog/_drafts/2021-07-01-refreshing-newsblur-design.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ ---- -layout: post -title: Redesigning NewsBlur on the web, iOS, and Android -tags: ['backend', 'web', 'ios', 'android'] ---- -Today we're launching a redesigned NewsBlur for all three platforms: on the web, on iOS, and on Android. There's a lot that's new. - -Take a look at the redesigned NewsBlur: - - - -And on mobile: - - - -Amazing! diff --git a/blog/_layouts/home.html b/blog/_layouts/home.html index d52e34ee7..9a1c57841 100644 --- a/blog/_layouts/home.html +++ b/blog/_layouts/home.html @@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ layout: default {% comment %}

{{ page.list_title | default: "Posts" }}

{% endcomment %} diff --git a/blog/_posts/2021-07-01-refreshing-newsblur-design.md b/blog/_posts/2021-07-01-refreshing-newsblur-design.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..32b0588cd --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/_posts/2021-07-01-refreshing-newsblur-design.md @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: Redesigning NewsBlur on the web, iOS, and Android +tags: ['backend', 'web', 'ios', 'android'] +draft: true +--- +This past year we've focused on maintenance and improving quality behind the scenes. It just so happens that the urge to clean is so strong that this work extended to the front-end. After months of work, today we're launching a redesigned NewsBlur for all three platforms: on the web, on iOS, and on Android. There's a lot that's new. + +To start, let's take a look below at the redesigned NewsBlur. + + + +Loads of new features: + + * The dashboard now has multiple, customizable rivers of news + * Image previews are now customizable by size and layout + * Story previews are also customizable by length + * Images are now full bleed on the web (edge-to-edge) + * Controls have been re-styled and made more accessible + * Sizes, spaces, and text have all been tweaked for a more legible read + * Upgraded backend: Python 2 to Python 3, latest Django and libraries, containerized infrastructure + * Both Android and iOS apps have been updated with the new design + +Below you can see the design in action. Notice how easy it is to change where the image preview is located as well as adjust the number of lines of story text to show. + +

+ +

+ +The reading experience itself has also seen improvement. Full bleed images have been ported over from iOS to both Android and the web. This means that images will now run edge-to-edge. And the controls at the top and bottom of the web app have been restyled to be easier to understand at a quick glance. + + + +And on mobile: + + + +This whole redesign weighs in at a whopping 1,316 commits, which [you can view on GitHub](https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur/compare/dashboard3). diff --git a/blog/_site/2021/07/01/refreshing-newsblur-design/index.html b/blog/_site/2021/07/01/refreshing-newsblur-design/index.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000..94b6dc803 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/_site/2021/07/01/refreshing-newsblur-design/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,139 @@ + + + + + + + + +Redesigning NewsBlur on the web, iOS, and Android | The NewsBlur Blog + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+
+
+ +
+

Redesigning NewsBlur on the web, iOS, and Android

+

+

+
+ +
+

This past year we’ve focused on maintenance and improving quality behind the scenes. It just so happens that the urge to clean is so strong that this work extended to the front-end. After months of work, today we’re launching a redesigned NewsBlur for all three platforms: on the web, on iOS, and on Android. There’s a lot that’s new.

+ +

To start, let’s take a look below at the redesigned NewsBlur.

+ +

+ +

Loads of new features:

+ +
    +
  • The dashboard now has multiple, customizable rivers of news
    • +
  • Image previews are now customizable by size and layout
    • +
  • Story previews are also customizable by length
    • +
  • Images are now full bleed on the web (edge-to-edge)
    • +
  • Controls have been re-styled and made more accessible
    • +
  • Sizes, spaces, and text have all been tweaked for a more legible read
    • +
  • Upgraded backend: Python 2 to Python 3, latest Django and libraries, containerized infrastructure
    • +
  • Both Android and iOS apps have been updated with the new design
    • +
+ +

Below you can see the design in action. Notice how easy it is to change where the image preview is located as well as adjust the number of lines of story text to show.

+ +

+ +

+ +

The reading experience itself has also seen improvement. Full bleed images have been ported over from iOS to both Android and the web. This means that images will now run edge-to-edge. And the controls at the top and bottom of the web app have been restyled to be easier to understand at a quick glance.

+ +

+ +

And on mobile:

+ +

+ +

This whole redesign weighs in at a whopping 1,316 commits, which you can view on GitHub.

+ +
+
+ +
+
+ + + diff --git a/blog/_site/assets/redesign-content-preview.mp4 b/blog/_site/assets/redesign-content-preview.mp4 new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7dbfc5254 Binary files /dev/null and b/blog/_site/assets/redesign-content-preview.mp4 differ diff --git a/blog/_site/assets/redesign-full-bleed.jpg b/blog/_site/assets/redesign-full-bleed.jpg new file mode 100644 index 000000000..29eff746f Binary files /dev/null and b/blog/_site/assets/redesign-full-bleed.jpg differ diff --git a/blog/_site/assets/redesign-ios-android.jpg b/blog/_site/assets/redesign-ios-android.jpg new file mode 100644 index 000000000..868274cd0 Binary files /dev/null and b/blog/_site/assets/redesign-ios-android.jpg differ diff --git a/blog/_site/assets/redesign-ios-android.png b/blog/_site/assets/redesign-ios-android.png deleted file mode 100644 index 82b43e8b6..000000000 Binary files a/blog/_site/assets/redesign-ios-android.png and /dev/null differ diff --git a/blog/_site/assets/redesign-web.jpg b/blog/_site/assets/redesign-web.jpg new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2a9966276 Binary files /dev/null and b/blog/_site/assets/redesign-web.jpg differ diff --git a/blog/_site/assets/redesign-web.png b/blog/_site/assets/redesign-web.png deleted file mode 100644 index 5defcafa7..000000000 Binary files a/blog/_site/assets/redesign-web.png and /dev/null differ diff --git a/blog/_site/feed.xml b/blog/_site/feed.xml index 757346eb1..28d89e5fc 100644 --- a/blog/_site/feed.xml +++ b/blog/_site/feed.xml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Jekyll2021-06-28T20:00:13-04:00https://blog.newsblur.com/feed.xmlThe NewsBlur BlogNewsBlur is a personal news reader that brings people together to talk about the world. +Jekyll2021-07-01T15:01:00-04:00https://blog.newsblur.com/feed.xmlThe NewsBlur BlogNewsBlur is a personal news reader that brings people together to talk about the world. A new sound of an old instrument. How a Docker footgun led to a vandal deleting NewsBlur’s MongoDB database2021-06-28T00:00:00-04:002021-06-28T00:00:00-04:00https://blog.newsblur.com/2021/06/28/story-of-a-hacking<p><em>tl;dr: A vandal deleted NewsBlur’s MongoDB database during a migration. No data was stolen or lost.</em></p> diff --git a/blog/_site/index.html b/blog/_site/index.html index e6a734bcc..10fe60ed3 100644 --- a/blog/_site/index.html +++ b/blog/_site/index.html @@ -475,36 +475,6 @@ $ cat /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log | egrep -v "159.65.XX.XX|161.89.XX.XX|<<

Thanks to David Sinclair for putting together this release. Keep up the great work! And if you have ideas for what you’d like to see in the next NewsBlur iOS release, please, please, please submit them to the forum.

- -
  • Jun 1, 2019 -

    - - Updates to the Android app and a new addition to the team - -

    -
    -

    Today we have a nice update, version 9.0, of the Android app that includes a rewrite of the story management backend as well as fixes for some critical display issues.

    - -
    - -

    Here’s the full list of changes for version 9.0:

    - -
      -
    • Fixes black background for stories while reading with the Light theme.
      • -
    • Total rewrite of the backend story management platform. This fixes the oldest issues known in story paging and scroll state. The story rivers should now act like dynamic views instead of static lists.
      • -
    • New feature: renaming feeds directly in the app.
      • -
    • Improved messaging and display behavior for the original text view.
      • -
    • Fixes for the dark theme’s menu color.
      • -
    • Many other bug fixes and performance tweaks.
      • -
    - -

    I’d also like to introduce our newest developer, Caleb Allen.

    - -

    - -

    Caleb will be working on the Android app. Our Android developer Daniel spent the last 5 years with us working many, many versions of the NewsBlur app. I want to thank Daniel for his years of service and we wish him well on his next adventure. And here’s hoping for many fruitful years with Caleb!

    - -
    • diff --git a/blog/_site/page10/index.html b/blog/_site/page10/index.html index c77e8e947..e1145de05 100644 --- a/blog/_site/page10/index.html +++ b/blog/_site/page10/index.html @@ -61,7 +61,57 @@
    -
    • Mar 14, 2012 +
      • Mar 16, 2012 +

        + + Knight News Challenge: NewsBlur + +

        +
        +

        Knight News Challenge: NewsBlur

        + +

        Hey NewsBlurians, I’m applying for a grant from the Knight Foundation. In a previous life I worked on DocumentCloud, a successful Knight grantee, building open-source libraries. I’m looking to continue the fine tradition of building for both users and for other developers.

        + +

        I’m asking for enough to fund a year of development with the help of another engineer. Please vote for the NewsBlur grant application on Knight’s website, reblogged below.

        + +

        Knight News Challenge Entry:

        + +
        +

        1. What do you propose to do? [20 words]

        + +

        To build an intelligent social news reader for web and mobile called NewsBlur.

        + +

        2. Is anyone doing something like this now and how is your project different? [30 words]

        + +

        RSS feed readers exist, none have the sharing model, original site view, and intelligence classifiers of NewsBlur. Since Google Reader phased out sharing, there’s a sizable community looking to share and discuss news.

        + +

        3. Describe the network with which you intend to build or work. [50 words]

        + +

        NewsBlur will surface stories shared by friends and friends of friends by combining the imported networks of Twitter/Facebook with communities on NewsBlur. These communities make it easy to expand your network by showing popular comments from outside your network. NewsBlur also has intelligence classifiers which allow the user to filter and highlight comments across all networks.

        + +

        4. Why will it work? [100 words]

        + +

        Because it’s worked before, just under a different model in Google Reader’s now defunct all-or-nothing community. NewsBlur’s network will be oriented more towards showing relationships and distance between you and the other active commenters on a story. NewsBlur will capitalize on the value of pre-existing networks with an intuitive and clean interface that highlights the distance between users. Surfacing relative connections between people will result in a more active community and increased engagement between like-minded readers. NewsBlur further benefits newspapers, publishers, and individual writers by showing the original site (including ads and design), as well as encouraging reading through NewsBlur’s intelligence filters.

        + +

        5. Who is working on it? [100 words]

        + +

        I started working on NewsBlur as a side project in June 2009. Over the past 2.5 years, NewsBlur has become self-sustainable through organic growth (word-of-mouth, blog posts, github activity). Because NewsBlur is open-source, a number of contributors from the NewsBlur community have developed their own pet features which have been integrated back into the website. This also works well for finding typos in documentation and allowing users to submit a simple pull request to get it fixed.

        + +

        6. What part of the project have you already built? [100 words]

        + +

        On the back-end: distributed feed fetchers and parsers. On the front-end: the feed reader itself, intelligence training, and an iPhone app. There is an actively used API, on top of which NewsBlur’s users have built a mobile website, an Android app, a Windows Phone app, and a Nokia MeeGo app. What’s not built is the entire social layer. A prototype has already been developed to surface any network relationships on comments and shared stories.

        + +

        7. How would you sustain the project after the funding expires? [50 words]

        + +

        NewsBlur is free, but there is also a premium subscription that costs between $1 - $3 per month. Users can choose how much they’d like to pay, but that means that NewsBlur is able to pay for its 8 servers. The gap between costs and revenue (also known as profit) is increasing every day.

        + +

        Requested amount from Knight News Challenge: $150,000
        +Expected amount of time required to complete project: 1 year

        +
        + + +
        +
      • Mar 14, 2012

        New mobile app for NewsBlur: Web Feeds for Nokia MeeGo @@ -629,58 +679,6 @@ $ curl http://www.newsblur.com/reader/feeds_trainer?feed_id=172

        I’m also happy to say that as NewsBlur continues to grow, and with a few hundred premium users, it is becoming quite a big network of readers.

        -

    -
  • Apr 1, 2011 -

    - - Explaining Intelligence - -

    -
    -

    If you’re not using intelligence classifiers, you’re only getting half the value out of NewsBlur. 

    - -

    Intelligence classifiers are the phrases, tags, and authors that you like and dislike. Training your sites by choosing classifiers for each feed will automatically highlight the stories you want to read and hide the stories you don’t want to see.

    - -
    - -

    How to train intelligence

    - -

    To train your feeds, you have four options:

    - -

    1) Train everything at once using the intelligence trainer, linked to from the Dashboard:

    - -
    - -

    2) Train a feed individually:

    - -
    -

      

    - -

    3) Train a story:

    - -

    - -

    4) Choose tags and authors in the Feed view:

    - -

    - -

    What’s happening under the hood

    - -

    To get a better picture of how stories are being classified into the red, yellow, and green states, we need to take a look at how NewsBlur is using your intelligence classifiers and applying them to stories.

    - -

    When you select a tag, author, or phrase, NewsBlur looks for an exact match in all other stories in the same feed. It’s a very simple match, and nothing mysterious is happening without you being explicit about what you want to see.

    - -

    Green always wins. If you have 2 green classifiers and 3 red classifiers on a single story, the story will show up green, since it’s clear there is at least *something* you like about the story.

    - -

    However, classifying the publisher (i.e. the feed itself) works slightly differently. If you specify that you like or dislike the feed, all stories are automatically classified according to this preference, unless there is a tag, author, or title phrase that is classified, in which case it wins over the feed’s classification.

    - -

    This offers a neat trick to hide most stories from a feed, even in the yellow intelligence state, except for the few stories that you want to watch. Simply train the feed to dislike the feed itself, but give a thumbs up to the tags/authors/phrases in the stories you want to read. This will result in all stories being either red or green, which keeps the site out of your yellow intelligence setting.

    - -

    What’s in store for the future

    - -

    Right now the intelligence classifiers are pretty naive. But the impetus for building NewsBlur was to passively train your feeds, just based on your implicit preferences. There’s a lot of work to be done to make this happen, and you can follow NewsBlur’s progress over on GitHub at http://github.com/samuelclay.

    - -
    • diff --git a/blog/_site/page11/index.html b/blog/_site/page11/index.html index 90c69b056..da162911f 100644 --- a/blog/_site/page11/index.html +++ b/blog/_site/page11/index.html @@ -60,7 +60,59 @@
    - diff --git a/blog/_site/page4/index.html b/blog/_site/page4/index.html index d2bcc2c5f..fab1bcffd 100644 --- a/blog/_site/page4/index.html +++ b/blog/_site/page4/index.html @@ -61,7 +61,32 @@
    -
    -
  • Oct 7, 2015 -

    - - Join the NewsBlur iOS beta - -

    -
    -

    If you like living on the bleeding edge, you should join the NewsBlur iOS beta program. You’ll get access to the latest releases a few weeks before they go out publicly.

    - -

    All you need to do is add your email address to this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XSerwoY-PEJ7JfglNr0zOKpsoMXqplSomdORSDsZ3_g/viewform?usp=send_form

    - -

    You might be wondering why this is a bit different than the older method used in the past. The old beta program used an enterprise distribution provision profile, which was available as a workaround to install apps on devices without having to go through the App Store. Unfortunately that program has ended and Apple now recommends using their new TestFlight beta program.

    - -

    In order to use TestFlight, email addresses of interested beta testers need to be collected. But the benefit is that you can now easily move between beta and release versions. You will also automatically upgrade to the release version when it comes out. You can also give feedback in a more accurate way, with your device and OS version automatically added to anything you write as feedback.

    - -

    So if you want to try out the latest betas, specifically for iOS 9 and a whole bundle of new features, then add your email to that list and watch your inbox. It can take up to a couple days for these emails to be imported, so be patient.

    - -
    • diff --git a/blog/_site/page5/index.html b/blog/_site/page5/index.html index fef691036..b0e905791 100644 --- a/blog/_site/page5/index.html +++ b/blog/_site/page5/index.html @@ -61,7 +61,26 @@
    -
    • Oct 1, 2015 +
      • Oct 7, 2015 +

        + + Join the NewsBlur iOS beta + +

        +
        +

        If you like living on the bleeding edge, you should join the NewsBlur iOS beta program. You’ll get access to the latest releases a few weeks before they go out publicly.

        + +

        All you need to do is add your email address to this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XSerwoY-PEJ7JfglNr0zOKpsoMXqplSomdORSDsZ3_g/viewform?usp=send_form

        + +

        You might be wondering why this is a bit different than the older method used in the past. The old beta program used an enterprise distribution provision profile, which was available as a workaround to install apps on devices without having to go through the App Store. Unfortunately that program has ended and Apple now recommends using their new TestFlight beta program.

        + +

        In order to use TestFlight, email addresses of interested beta testers need to be collected. But the benefit is that you can now easily move between beta and release versions. You will also automatically upgrade to the release version when it comes out. You can also give feedback in a more accurate way, with your device and OS version automatically added to anything you write as feedback.

        + +

        So if you want to try out the latest betas, specifically for iOS 9 and a whole bundle of new features, then add your email to that list and watch your inbox. It can take up to a couple days for these emails to be imported, so be patient.

        + + +
        +
      • Oct 1, 2015

        Let’s all upgrade to version 4.5.0 of the NewsBlur Android app @@ -312,33 +331,6 @@

        The NewsBlur Android app is a free download. And as always, there’s more big ticket features coming soon for Android.

        -

    -
  • Oct 31, 2014 -

    - - A new way to use the Story view while on https (SSL) - -

    -
    -

    Modern browsers are taking your privacy and security seriously with new restrictions for sites that use https. You can choose to use NewsBlur over https, which will encrypt your communications with NewsBlur and prevent eavesdroppers—hackers, the government, other people on the same wireless network as you—from seeing what you see. While that’s not necessary for everybody, SSL/https is a priority for some and NewsBlur supports this beautifully.

    - -

    - -

    However, what modern browsers like Chrome and Firefox do is not allow you to embed an insecure http-only site in an iframe from a secure https site. That means that the Story view in NewsBlur does not load a thing for many users who are reading NewsBlur over an https connection.

    - -

    Today I’m launching a fix for this. It’s not perfect, but this will allow you to still get at some of the content while getting around the https-only issue. This feature will proxy http-only sites in the Story view, resulting in a hacked-together but workable view of the original story.

    - -

    At best, the Story view will look like this:

    - -

    - -

    At worst, the Story view will look like this:

    - -

    - -

    While it’s not ideal, it’s a whole lot better than a blank page. Let me know how this new proxied Story view works for you. And if you want it to work flawlessly and are willing to use an unencrypted connection, just use the http version of NewsBlur instead of the https version.

    - -
    • diff --git a/blog/_site/page6/index.html b/blog/_site/page6/index.html index 3b68a109a..f83935b2f 100644 --- a/blog/_site/page6/index.html +++ b/blog/_site/page6/index.html @@ -61,7 +61,34 @@
    -
    -
  • Apr 24, 2014 -

    - - Unread is a new iOS app with NewsBlur support - -

    -
    -

    NewsBlur has a free and open API that all of the native mobile apps and website are built on. But the API is not just for official apps. Numerous third-party developers have built apps on the API and today I’m proud to announce a new native iOS app has launched with NewsBlur support.

    - -

    - -

    - -

    Unread, by Jared Sinclair, is a unique RSS reader, with a focus on simplicity and cleanliness. Sinclair built Unread because he wanted to see a different kind of reading experience, one where he could focus more on reading well written stories than consuming lots of content. Unread app has a different feel than any other news reader I’ve seen and I think many of the choices made by Sinclair work in a quiet harmony.

    - -

    In Sinclair’s own words:

    - -
    -

    Most RSS apps are patterned after email. Noisy parades of dots, dates, and tags trample over their screens. Their source lists look like overflowing inboxes instead of stately tables of contents. Toolbars bristling with options obscure the text. Putting it bluntly, using these apps feels like work.

    -
    - -

    NewsBlur’s native iOS app certainly does fit this description. And if you want an incredibly well-made alternative, look no further than Unread, available on the App Store.

    - - - -
    • diff --git a/blog/_site/page7/index.html b/blog/_site/page7/index.html index 2733d57be..8ce7838f7 100644 --- a/blog/_site/page7/index.html +++ b/blog/_site/page7/index.html @@ -61,7 +61,41 @@
    -
    • Apr 10, 2014 +
      • Apr 24, 2014 +

        + + Unread is a new iOS app with NewsBlur support + +

        +
        +

        NewsBlur has a free and open API that all of the native mobile apps and website are built on. But the API is not just for official apps. Numerous third-party developers have built apps on the API and today I’m proud to announce a new native iOS app has launched with NewsBlur support.

        + +

        + +

        + +

        Unread, by Jared Sinclair, is a unique RSS reader, with a focus on simplicity and cleanliness. Sinclair built Unread because he wanted to see a different kind of reading experience, one where he could focus more on reading well written stories than consuming lots of content. Unread app has a different feel than any other news reader I’ve seen and I think many of the choices made by Sinclair work in a quiet harmony.

        + +

        In Sinclair’s own words:

        + +
        +

        Most RSS apps are patterned after email. Noisy parades of dots, dates, and tags trample over their screens. Their source lists look like overflowing inboxes instead of stately tables of contents. Toolbars bristling with options obscure the text. Putting it bluntly, using these apps feels like work.

        +
        + +

        NewsBlur’s native iOS app certainly does fit this description. And if you want an incredibly well-made alternative, look no further than Unread, available on the App Store.

        + + + + +
        +
      • Apr 10, 2014

        The new font and style manager @@ -376,37 +410,6 @@

        Thanks to our Android developer Daniel, the next version is already starting development, so shout out to @newsblur with your feedback and ideas for new features.

        -

    -
  • Oct 28, 2013 -

    - - The NewsBlur iPhone and iPad app meets iOS 7 - -

    -
    -

    Apple’s latest operating system for iOS is a departure from their old aesthetic. So I’ve decided to give the NewsBlur iOS app a slightly new look. But even more than how the app looks is how the app works. Tons of new features made it into this mega-release.

    - -

    - -
      -
    • Entire interface has been redesigned for iOS 7.
      • -
    • Gestures galore: mark stories as read/unread, save stories, mark feeds as read, train feeds.
      • -
    • Long press a feed or folder to choose a mark as read date: 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days. Works offline, too!
      • -
    • Long press a story title to send it to a third-party read later service.
      • -
    • New view layout for iPad: move story titles to the bottom in portrait.
      • -
    • Significantly improved scrolling speeds on the feed list and story list.
      • -
    • You can now unread stories that were read while offline.
      • -
    • Faster marking of folders as read.
      • -
    • Fixed numerous bugs related to reading stories while offline.
      • -
    - -

    The iPad app also has a new view for extra-wide reading while in portrait orientation.

    - -

    - -

    I hope you enjoy this latest update. And stay tuned for the next update coming soon which will include even more iOS 7 features: Dynamic Text Size and Background Updates. The NewsBlur iOS app is and will always be free.

    - -
    • diff --git a/blog/_site/page8/index.html b/blog/_site/page8/index.html index 08f757a9a..d82f352ed 100644 --- a/blog/_site/page8/index.html +++ b/blog/_site/page8/index.html @@ -61,7 +61,38 @@
    -
    • Sep 17, 2013 +
      • Oct 28, 2013 +

        + + The NewsBlur iPhone and iPad app meets iOS 7 + +

        +
        +

        Apple’s latest operating system for iOS is a departure from their old aesthetic. So I’ve decided to give the NewsBlur iOS app a slightly new look. But even more than how the app looks is how the app works. Tons of new features made it into this mega-release.

        + +

        + +
          +
        • Entire interface has been redesigned for iOS 7.
          • +
        • Gestures galore: mark stories as read/unread, save stories, mark feeds as read, train feeds.
          • +
        • Long press a feed or folder to choose a mark as read date: 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days. Works offline, too!
          • +
        • Long press a story title to send it to a third-party read later service.
          • +
        • New view layout for iPad: move story titles to the bottom in portrait.
          • +
        • Significantly improved scrolling speeds on the feed list and story list.
          • +
        • You can now unread stories that were read while offline.
          • +
        • Faster marking of folders as read.
          • +
        • Fixed numerous bugs related to reading stories while offline.
          • +
        + +

        The iPad app also has a new view for extra-wide reading while in portrait orientation.

        + +

        + +

        I hope you enjoy this latest update. And stay tuned for the next update coming soon which will include even more iOS 7 features: Dynamic Text Size and Background Updates. The NewsBlur iOS app is and will always be free.

        + + +
        +
      • Sep 17, 2013

        Offline reading with the NewsBlur iOS app @@ -300,90 +331,6 @@

        Thanks for using NewsBlur and turning my passion project (four years running) into a full-time dream.

        -

    -
  • Mar 17, 2013 -

    - - Three Months to Scale NewsBlur - -

    -
    -

    At 4:16pm last Wednesday I got a short and to-the-point email from Nilay Patel at The Verge with only a link that started with the host “googlereader.blogspot.com”. The sudden spike in NewsBlur’s visitors immediately confirmed — Google was shutting down Reader.

    - -
    - -
    Late night at the office
    - -

    I had been preparing for a black swan event like this for the last four years since I began NewsBlur. With the deprecation of their social features a year ago I knew it was only a matter of time before Google stopped supporting Reader entirely. I did not expect it to come this soon.

    - -

    As the Storify history of the Reader-o-calypse, NewsBlur suffered a number of hurdles with the onslaught of new subscribers.

    - -

    A few of my challenges and solutions

    - -

    I was able to handle the 1,500 users who were using the service everyday, but when 50,000 users hit an uncachable and resource intensive backend, unless you’ve done your homework and load tested the living crap out of your entire stack, there’s going to be trouble brewing. Here’s just a few of the immediate challenges I faced over the past four days:

    - -
      -
    • My hosting provider, Reliable Hosting Services, was neither reliable, able to host my increasing demands, or a service I could count on. I switched to Digital Ocean and immediately got to writing new Fabric scripts so I could deploy a new app/task server by issuing a single command and having it serve requests automatically within 10 minutes of bootstrapping.
      • -
    • It didn’t take long to max out my Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) account’s quota of 10,000 emails a day. So a few hours into the melee I switched to Mailgun, which unfortunately resulted in emailing myself 250,000 error reports. If you tried to email me and couldn’t get through, it’s because 50,000 emails about lost database connections made their way ahead of you in line.
      • -
    • Eventually, I was just plain blacklisted on SES for sending too many emails.
      • -
    • Fortunately, when the PayPal fraud department called because of an unprecedented spike in payments, I was prepared.
      • -
    - -
    -

    Paypal’s fraud department just called, asked me what’s going on. Asked the rep from Omaha if she’s heard of Reader, and then a big Ohhh.

    - -

    — NewsBlur (@NewsBlur) March 17, 2013

    -
    - - - -
      -
    • HAProxy would serve errors (site is down, maintenance, timeouts, etc) with a 200 OK status code instead of the proper 500 Exception status code because of a ridiculous undocumented requirement to include HTTP Headers at the top of the error template. When your webapp uses status codes to determine errors, you get extremely strange behavior when it loads utter crap into your DOM.
      • -
    • The inevitable file descriptor limits on Linux means that for every database connection you make, you use up one of the 1,024 file descriptors that are allocated to your process by default. Changing these limits is not only non-trivial, but they don’t tend to stick. This is responsible for bringing down Mongo, PostgreSQL, and the real-time Node servers, all at different times of the night.
      • -
    • The support queue is enormous and I’ve had to spend big chunks of my 16 hour days reassuring paying customers that eventually Stripe will forgive me and my unresponsive servers and will send the payment notification that is responsible for automatically upgrading their accounts to premium.
      • -
    - -
    - -
    The sad extent of my St. Patrick’s Day
    - -

    As a one-man-shop it has been humbling to receive the benefit of the doubt from many who have withheld their judgment despite the admittedly slow loadtimes and downtime NewsBlur experienced. Having the support of the amazing NewsBlur community is more than a guy could ask for. The tweets of encouragement, voting NewsBlur up on replacereader.com (If you haven’t yet, please tweet a vote for “#newsblur to #replacereader”), and the many positive comments and blog posts from people who have tried NewsBlur is great.

    - -

    It has also been a dream come true to receive accolades from the many who are trying NewsBlur for the first time and loving it. Since the announcement, NewsBlur has welcomed 5,000 new premium subscribers and 60,000 new users (from 50,000 users originally).

    - -

    <table cellpadding=”12” cellspacing=”12” width=”100%”><tr><td>

    </td> <td>
    </td> </tr><tr><td>
    </td> <td>
    </td> </tr><tr><td>
    </td> <td>
    </td> </tr></table>

    -
    NewsBlur users are intelligent, kind, and good looking!
    - -

    The next three months

    - -

    Over the next three months I’ll be working on:

    - -
      -
    • Scaling, scaling, scaling
      • -
    • Launching the redesign (which you can preview)
      • -
    • Listening to all of you
      • -
    - -

    For those of you who are still trying to decide where to go now that you’re a Reader refugee let me tell you a few of the unique things NewsBlur has to offer:

    - -
      -
    1. Radical transparency. NewsBlur is totally open source and will remain that way.
      2. -
    2. It still feels like RSS, just with a few more bells and whistles. NewsBlur provides actual list of posts, as opposed to the more curated magazine format of some of the other popular replacements. This clean interface makes it easy to see the stories you want. One innovation however is the four different view options you have. NewsBlur can show you the original site, feed, text or story view.
      3. -
    3. It has training. NewsBlur hides stories you don’t want to read based on tags, keywords, authors, etc. It also highlights stories you want to read, based on the same criteria. This allows you to find the stories you care about, not just the stories that the hive cares about. And best of all, NewsBlur will show you why stories are either highlighted or hidden by showing the criteria in green or red.
      4. -
    4. NewsBlur has rebuilt the social community that Google had stripped out of Reader. Users can share stories through their Blurblog and discover new content by following friends’ Blurblogs. The People Have Spoken is the blurblog of popular stories.
      5. -
    5. Because NewsBlur is entirely open-source, if you don’t want to pay you can host your own server. Instructions are on GitHub, where you can also find the source code for the NewsBlur iPhone + iPad app and Android app.
      6. -
    6. Most importantly, NewsBlur is not entirely a free app. The immediate benefits of revenue have been very clear over the past few days. Not only are NewsBlur’s interests aligned with its users, but as more users join NewsBlur, it makes more revenue that can be used to directly support the new users. Not convinced that paid is better than free? Read Pinboard’s Maciej Ceglowski’s essay Don’t Be a Free User.
      7. -
    - -
    - -
    Shiloh during better times. Your premium subscription goes to both server costs and feeding her
    - -

    With NewsBlur’s native iOS app and Android app, you can read your news and share it with your friends anywhere. And with the coming improvements over the next three months, you bet NewsBlur will be the #1 choice for Google Reader refugees.

    - -

    Join NewsBlur for $24/year and discover what RSS should have been.

    - -
    • diff --git a/blog/_site/page9/index.html b/blog/_site/page9/index.html index c6eb93cc0..9c479b568 100644 --- a/blog/_site/page9/index.html +++ b/blog/_site/page9/index.html @@ -61,7 +61,91 @@
    -
    • Jan 3, 2013 +
      • Mar 17, 2013 +

        + + Three Months to Scale NewsBlur + +

        +
        +

        At 4:16pm last Wednesday I got a short and to-the-point email from Nilay Patel at The Verge with only a link that started with the host “googlereader.blogspot.com”. The sudden spike in NewsBlur’s visitors immediately confirmed — Google was shutting down Reader.

        + +
        + +
        Late night at the office
        + +

        I had been preparing for a black swan event like this for the last four years since I began NewsBlur. With the deprecation of their social features a year ago I knew it was only a matter of time before Google stopped supporting Reader entirely. I did not expect it to come this soon.

        + +

        As the Storify history of the Reader-o-calypse, NewsBlur suffered a number of hurdles with the onslaught of new subscribers.

        + +

        A few of my challenges and solutions

        + +

        I was able to handle the 1,500 users who were using the service everyday, but when 50,000 users hit an uncachable and resource intensive backend, unless you’ve done your homework and load tested the living crap out of your entire stack, there’s going to be trouble brewing. Here’s just a few of the immediate challenges I faced over the past four days:

        + +
          +
        • My hosting provider, Reliable Hosting Services, was neither reliable, able to host my increasing demands, or a service I could count on. I switched to Digital Ocean and immediately got to writing new Fabric scripts so I could deploy a new app/task server by issuing a single command and having it serve requests automatically within 10 minutes of bootstrapping.
          • +
        • It didn’t take long to max out my Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) account’s quota of 10,000 emails a day. So a few hours into the melee I switched to Mailgun, which unfortunately resulted in emailing myself 250,000 error reports. If you tried to email me and couldn’t get through, it’s because 50,000 emails about lost database connections made their way ahead of you in line.
          • +
        • Eventually, I was just plain blacklisted on SES for sending too many emails.
          • +
        • Fortunately, when the PayPal fraud department called because of an unprecedented spike in payments, I was prepared.
          • +
        + +
        +

        Paypal’s fraud department just called, asked me what’s going on. Asked the rep from Omaha if she’s heard of Reader, and then a big Ohhh.

        + +

        — NewsBlur (@NewsBlur) March 17, 2013

        +
        + + + +
          +
        • HAProxy would serve errors (site is down, maintenance, timeouts, etc) with a 200 OK status code instead of the proper 500 Exception status code because of a ridiculous undocumented requirement to include HTTP Headers at the top of the error template. When your webapp uses status codes to determine errors, you get extremely strange behavior when it loads utter crap into your DOM.
          • +
        • The inevitable file descriptor limits on Linux means that for every database connection you make, you use up one of the 1,024 file descriptors that are allocated to your process by default. Changing these limits is not only non-trivial, but they don’t tend to stick. This is responsible for bringing down Mongo, PostgreSQL, and the real-time Node servers, all at different times of the night.
          • +
        • The support queue is enormous and I’ve had to spend big chunks of my 16 hour days reassuring paying customers that eventually Stripe will forgive me and my unresponsive servers and will send the payment notification that is responsible for automatically upgrading their accounts to premium.
          • +
        + +
        + +
        The sad extent of my St. Patrick’s Day
        + +

        As a one-man-shop it has been humbling to receive the benefit of the doubt from many who have withheld their judgment despite the admittedly slow loadtimes and downtime NewsBlur experienced. Having the support of the amazing NewsBlur community is more than a guy could ask for. The tweets of encouragement, voting NewsBlur up on replacereader.com (If you haven’t yet, please tweet a vote for “#newsblur to #replacereader”), and the many positive comments and blog posts from people who have tried NewsBlur is great.

        + +

        It has also been a dream come true to receive accolades from the many who are trying NewsBlur for the first time and loving it. Since the announcement, NewsBlur has welcomed 5,000 new premium subscribers and 60,000 new users (from 50,000 users originally).

        + +

        <table cellpadding=”12” cellspacing=”12” width=”100%”><tr><td>

        </td> <td>
        </td> </tr><tr><td>
        </td> <td>
        </td> </tr><tr><td>
        </td> <td>
        </td> </tr></table>

        +
        NewsBlur users are intelligent, kind, and good looking!
        + +

        The next three months

        + +

        Over the next three months I’ll be working on:

        + +
          +
        • Scaling, scaling, scaling
          • +
        • Launching the redesign (which you can preview)
          • +
        • Listening to all of you
          • +
        + +

        For those of you who are still trying to decide where to go now that you’re a Reader refugee let me tell you a few of the unique things NewsBlur has to offer:

        + +
          +
        1. Radical transparency. NewsBlur is totally open source and will remain that way.
          2. +
        2. It still feels like RSS, just with a few more bells and whistles. NewsBlur provides actual list of posts, as opposed to the more curated magazine format of some of the other popular replacements. This clean interface makes it easy to see the stories you want. One innovation however is the four different view options you have. NewsBlur can show you the original site, feed, text or story view.
          3. +
        3. It has training. NewsBlur hides stories you don’t want to read based on tags, keywords, authors, etc. It also highlights stories you want to read, based on the same criteria. This allows you to find the stories you care about, not just the stories that the hive cares about. And best of all, NewsBlur will show you why stories are either highlighted or hidden by showing the criteria in green or red.
          4. +
        4. NewsBlur has rebuilt the social community that Google had stripped out of Reader. Users can share stories through their Blurblog and discover new content by following friends’ Blurblogs. The People Have Spoken is the blurblog of popular stories.
          5. +
        5. Because NewsBlur is entirely open-source, if you don’t want to pay you can host your own server. Instructions are on GitHub, where you can also find the source code for the NewsBlur iPhone + iPad app and Android app.
          6. +
        6. Most importantly, NewsBlur is not entirely a free app. The immediate benefits of revenue have been very clear over the past few days. Not only are NewsBlur’s interests aligned with its users, but as more users join NewsBlur, it makes more revenue that can be used to directly support the new users. Not convinced that paid is better than free? Read Pinboard’s Maciej Ceglowski’s essay Don’t Be a Free User.
          7. +
        + +
        + +
        Shiloh during better times. Your premium subscription goes to both server costs and feeding her
        + +

        With NewsBlur’s native iOS app and Android app, you can read your news and share it with your friends anywhere. And with the coming improvements over the next three months, you bet NewsBlur will be the #1 choice for Google Reader refugees.

        + +

        Join NewsBlur for $24/year and discover what RSS should have been.

        + + +
        +
      • Jan 3, 2013

        A blurblog of one's own: new privacy controls @@ -407,56 +491,6 @@ io.sockets.on 'connection', (socket) -> -

    -
  • Mar 16, 2012 -

    - - Knight News Challenge: NewsBlur - -

    -
    -

    Knight News Challenge: NewsBlur

    - -

    Hey NewsBlurians, I’m applying for a grant from the Knight Foundation. In a previous life I worked on DocumentCloud, a successful Knight grantee, building open-source libraries. I’m looking to continue the fine tradition of building for both users and for other developers.

    - -

    I’m asking for enough to fund a year of development with the help of another engineer. Please vote for the NewsBlur grant application on Knight’s website, reblogged below.

    - -

    Knight News Challenge Entry:

    - -
    -

    1. What do you propose to do? [20 words]

    - -

    To build an intelligent social news reader for web and mobile called NewsBlur.

    - -

    2. Is anyone doing something like this now and how is your project different? [30 words]

    - -

    RSS feed readers exist, none have the sharing model, original site view, and intelligence classifiers of NewsBlur. Since Google Reader phased out sharing, there’s a sizable community looking to share and discuss news.

    - -

    3. Describe the network with which you intend to build or work. [50 words]

    - -

    NewsBlur will surface stories shared by friends and friends of friends by combining the imported networks of Twitter/Facebook with communities on NewsBlur. These communities make it easy to expand your network by showing popular comments from outside your network. NewsBlur also has intelligence classifiers which allow the user to filter and highlight comments across all networks.

    - -

    4. Why will it work? [100 words]

    - -

    Because it’s worked before, just under a different model in Google Reader’s now defunct all-or-nothing community. NewsBlur’s network will be oriented more towards showing relationships and distance between you and the other active commenters on a story. NewsBlur will capitalize on the value of pre-existing networks with an intuitive and clean interface that highlights the distance between users. Surfacing relative connections between people will result in a more active community and increased engagement between like-minded readers. NewsBlur further benefits newspapers, publishers, and individual writers by showing the original site (including ads and design), as well as encouraging reading through NewsBlur’s intelligence filters.

    - -

    5. Who is working on it? [100 words]

    - -

    I started working on NewsBlur as a side project in June 2009. Over the past 2.5 years, NewsBlur has become self-sustainable through organic growth (word-of-mouth, blog posts, github activity). Because NewsBlur is open-source, a number of contributors from the NewsBlur community have developed their own pet features which have been integrated back into the website. This also works well for finding typos in documentation and allowing users to submit a simple pull request to get it fixed.

    - -

    6. What part of the project have you already built? [100 words]

    - -

    On the back-end: distributed feed fetchers and parsers. On the front-end: the feed reader itself, intelligence training, and an iPhone app. There is an actively used API, on top of which NewsBlur’s users have built a mobile website, an Android app, a Windows Phone app, and a Nokia MeeGo app. What’s not built is the entire social layer. A prototype has already been developed to surface any network relationships on comments and shared stories.

    - -

    7. How would you sustain the project after the funding expires? [50 words]

    - -

    NewsBlur is free, but there is also a premium subscription that costs between $1 - $3 per month. Users can choose how much they’d like to pay, but that means that NewsBlur is able to pay for its 8 servers. The gap between costs and revenue (also known as profit) is increasing every day.

    - -

    Requested amount from Knight News Challenge: $150,000
    -Expected amount of time required to complete project: 1 year

    -
    - -
    • diff --git a/blog/assets/redesign-content-preview.mp4 b/blog/assets/redesign-content-preview.mp4 new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7dbfc5254 Binary files /dev/null and b/blog/assets/redesign-content-preview.mp4 differ diff --git a/blog/assets/redesign-full-bleed.jpg b/blog/assets/redesign-full-bleed.jpg new file mode 100644 index 000000000..29eff746f Binary files /dev/null and b/blog/assets/redesign-full-bleed.jpg differ diff --git a/blog/assets/redesign-ios-android.jpg b/blog/assets/redesign-ios-android.jpg new file mode 100644 index 000000000..868274cd0 Binary files /dev/null and b/blog/assets/redesign-ios-android.jpg differ diff --git a/blog/assets/redesign-ios-android.png b/blog/assets/redesign-ios-android.png deleted file mode 100644 index 82b43e8b6..000000000 Binary files a/blog/assets/redesign-ios-android.png and /dev/null differ diff --git a/blog/assets/redesign-web.jpg b/blog/assets/redesign-web.jpg new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2a9966276 Binary files /dev/null and b/blog/assets/redesign-web.jpg differ diff --git a/blog/assets/redesign-web.png b/blog/assets/redesign-web.png deleted file mode 100644 index 5defcafa7..000000000 Binary files a/blog/assets/redesign-web.png and /dev/null differ