Earlier today, Google announced that Reader is going away on July 1.
This is a big deal, and just about everyone has something to say about it. Most nerds I follow are upset.
Marco Arment has an interesting take:
It may suck in the interim before great alternatives mature and become widely supported, but in the long run, trust me: this is excellent news.
As Shawn Blanc points out, there are several alternatives already in the works, and hopefully Marco’s vision of what will happen plays out.
With App.net growing by leaps and bounds, Niels Kobschätzki is keeping up with all of the third-party clients that have sprung up around the service.
For what it’s worth, I’m using Felix on my iPhone, Zephyr on my iPad and Kiwi on my Mac.
Dalton Caldwell:
Although App.net has had only paid account tiers thus far, we initially conceived of App.net as a freemium service. It took some time to get to this point, but we are now ready to make this vision a reality.
The details are pretty cool. Free accounts require an invitation from a paying member, can follow a maximum of 40 users, and get 500 MB of available file storage, with a 10 MB-per-file limit.
Adi Robertson at The Verge:
Some of the best citizen journalism has relied on picking a few moments from long reels of video or snapping reams of pictures in short succession, an approach that doesn’t really work with Vine.
Shocking.
Bob Lord:
This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.
Jeff Sonderman at Poynter:
Think of the impact Twitter has made so far on real-time reporting — making everyone, everywhere, a potential instant eyewitness who can share text or a photo with the world. Now think of how that effect is amplified when the public can easily start sharing videos of the same events.
[…]
This may raise new ethical questions for journalists about how and when to use some citizen-generated videos in their reporting.
Well, this is cool. This package of Google Drive and Twitter API magic keeps an auto-updating copy of your Twitter archive on Drive. If you sync your Drive back to your local machine, you’ll local copy will stay updated, too.
I made my archive public. It’s pretty crazy how easy this was to setup.
My App.net iOS client of choice is out of beta and on the App Store for $5. If you’re a heavy user of the service, check it out.
Kevin Systrom:
Yesterday we introduced a new version of our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service that will take effect in thirty days. These two documents help communicate as clearly as possible our relationship with the users of Instagram so you understand how your data will be used, and the rules that govern the thriving and active Instagram community. Since making these changes, we’ve heard loud and clear that many users are confused and upset about what the changes mean.
Jordan Crook at TechCrunch:
It would seem that the real difference lies in what Instagram does with your personal data. The company promises that you’ll still have complete control over who can see your content and where it is shared, but Facebook and Instagram will certainly be getting a bit more comfortable with one another where user information is concerned.
Blerg.
Adam Brault:
I’ve realized how Twitter has made me break up my thoughts into tiny, incomplete, pieces—lots of hanging ideas, lots of incomplete relationships, punctuated by all manner of hanging threads and half-forked paths. I am perfectly fine with unfinished work—in fact, I doubt I’ll ever be a better finisher than I am a starter. But I’ve found that my greatest joy, deepest peace, and most valuable contributions come from intentionally choosing where to let my focus rest.
Shawn Blanc looks at the latest version of the original Twitter client for iPhone.