First, let me thank you for providing a welcome alternative to those of us who were turned off by the "improvements" to Google reader. You made migrating dead-simple and that was a big factor in my choosing NewsBlur over other RSS sites.
My question, though, is that RSS usage seems to have plateaued, and may even be declining. Twitter, especially, has taken a fairly hard line in treating RSS as a second class citizen. Do you think there's a risk that other sites will move away from RSS in favor of social media, and, if so, do you have any plans to deal with that eventuality?
I don't see NewsBlur as competing with other RSS feed readers, many of which are seeing declining use and are either folding or are in the process of folding. NewsBlur, on the other hand, is doing very well because I'm charging people and can afford the popular opinion of "declining popularity" so long as it means revenue keeps increasing.
You have to remember that NewsBlur is unlike any other reader. It shows the original site, it filters and highlights stories, and it's being actively developed. There is a huge swatch of sites for which using Twitter is no substitute. You just want to read every post from those Tumblrs. You don't want to miss what Gruber is saying on Daring Fireball. And Salt & Fat podcasts are only once a week. You sure you want to rely on catching that single tweet a week that gives the link?
As long as the technology is good, I think there's an enormous market, full of people struggling to keep up with a dozen blogs by having to manually visit them all every day.
I'm not going for the expert RSS readers who use RSS in a way I never did. I followed 40-some sites when I started building NewsBlur. I now follow around 110. I never used Google Reader, and I think there's a lot more people like me than the ones who were already hooked on RSS.
My concern is that my ability to get feeds for news I want to follow is being reduced as people move to social networks. As you say, I can't count on catching one tweet or facebook post in the flood of messages. But sometimes people are only posting updates on social media.
I'm a premium subscriber on NewsBlur and love it. I was never satisfied with a reader until NewsBlur came around.
My question, though, is that RSS usage seems to have plateaued, and may even be declining. Twitter, especially, has taken a fairly hard line in treating RSS as a second class citizen. Do you think there's a risk that other sites will move away from RSS in favor of social media, and, if so, do you have any plans to deal with that eventuality?