Digg Has Made an RSS Reader Its Top Priority After Google Reader Died

Digg
Rebecca Greenfield 517 Views Mar 14, 2013

Here's a little light at the end of a dark Google reader tunnel: Because of Reader's demise the people behind news aggregation site Digg have sped up their own RSS plans to get fans a feed before Google Reader's July 1 death date. "We have been planning on building a reader in the second half of the year," Digg General Manager Jake Levin told The Atlantic Wire. "We're bumping it to the top of our priority list." The Diggsters have been experimenting with "news discovery products" but hadn't planned on a release until the second half of 2013, which would be too late for people hoping to migrate their lists. Hence the post today with its harried tone: "In order to pull this off in such a small window, we’re going to need your help," writes Digg's Andrew McLaughlin. Levine didn't have a confirmation date for when people could expect the finished product. "No details yet on launch specifics," he said. But he did confirm it would hit the Internet before July 1.

An RSS reader makes sense for a site that already puts together news links, albeit in a more manicured way than a Reader type product, that has all the links from a single site. But, it doesn't sound like they'll go the most traditional route, either: 

We hope to identify and rebuild the best of Google Reader’s features (including its API), but also advance them to fit the Internet of 2013, where networks and communities like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit and Hacker News offer powerful but often overwhelming signals as to what’s interesting.

Considering how well the redesign went after its embarrassing sale to Betaworks, Digg might birth the best Reader solution out there. Head here to sign up for an alert when the product goes live. 

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