New user having a couple of questions: privacy, synching, ordering feeds.

question
#1

Hi, I’m new to NewsBlur. I’m a veteran user of Reeder looking for a way to share stories directly from my feed reader. A couple of questions: 1) Privacy: who can see what I share? Do I have to select who can read my blog or is it open to anyone? 2) Synchronisation: I would very much like to see ALL of my starred item synched in NewsBlur: I understand the option does not yet exist but I can make a request for it?); 3) Synchronisation: how much of what I do in NewsBlur is mirrored back to Google Reader (liking a story for example, does it translate into a favorite in Google Reader)? 4) Ordering the feeds: all feeds are ordered alphabetically. Is there a way to move them around? Thanks a lot!

2 Likes
#2
  1. For right now, your shares are 100% public. I have a great private-account feature coming out in a week. You’ll be able to choose between:
  1. Public (default)
  2. Protected: public shares but only approved followers can reply
  3. Private: private shares and only approved followers can see/reply

  1. Yup, I can do this easily, just tell me your username. Also, if I could figure out *where* to put that one-time option, I would easily expose it. But since it’s only used one time ever, I would probably put it in a hard-to-discover spot. So who knows when it’ll happen.

  2. The Google Reader to NewsBlur equation flows one way – into NewsBlur. After that, it wouldn’t make sense to sync read status back to Reader because of how NewsBlur filters feeds so you don’t have to see every story. NewsBlur is its own universe.

  3. You can sort by Use (Manage > Preferences), so more frequently visited feeds go at the top. Custom ordering is a nice-to-have, but I already removed drag-and-drop ordering because it was unwieldy to use, and it would be a pre-requisite of custom ordering.

Hope that helps!

#3

  1. Concerning the upcoming privacy features: great news! That’s exactly what I was looking for…

  2. I’ll send you an email with my username. Also, it seems to me the preference pane could receive such an option: it’s not a place I intend to visit frequently, only a couple of time at the very beginning when I’m setting up things. Anyway, just a suggestion.

  3. Ok! I understand that. I’m just naturally concerned about the future: what if I spend years “liking” stuff in NewsBlur and one day need or decide to move. What option do I have? I want to avoid the infamous platform-hostage situation.

  4. Ok, I understand. It will take me a while to adjust myself: moving from Reeder where everything is manually organized to a new alphabetical order will prove challenging for the first few days.

Thanks for the quick and accurate answers.

#4
  1. NewsBlur has an open API. You can quite easily export your data into JSON format, which can just as easily be read by anybody else picking up the slack where NewsBlur no longer does. http://www.newsblur.com/api
#5

Good to know. Thanks for answering me.