Feedly, a service making claims to the RSS reader throne Google abandoned by shutting down Google Reader, announced today that it’s now opening up its API to all interested developers building RSS-based applications. This is a notable step toward Feedly’s goal of not just being another feed-reading application itself, but rather a platform which will allow an app ecosystem to thrive.
Though to Google, a service like Google Reader with maybe tens of millions of users had only “niche” appeal compared with the size and scale of its other online properties like Gmail, Search, YouTube, and Google+, the Google Reader app had powered a large community of feed reading applications by way of its API – an industry that could have gone under thanks to the Google Reader shutdown without alternative APIs, like Feedly’s, being made available.
Feedly was one of the first companies to have offered an API to third parties early on, allowing developers to focus on building differentiated user experiences and feature sets, rather than the core infrastructure that goes along with offering a news-reading application.
Initially, the company announced partnerships with RSS app makers Reeder, Press, Nextgen Reader, Newsify and gReader in June, ahead of the introduction of “Feedly Cloud,” a backend that can power other third-party applications, including those beyond simple news readers. At the time of Cloud’s launch, Feedly said it was also working with IFTTT, Sprout Social, gNewsReader for BlackBerry 10 and Symbian/MeeGo, Press, Pure News Widget, and Meneré, and planned to have more developers joining in the weeks ahead.
Now having been in testing for over six months, the company says its API is today being utilized by fifty developers so far, who have built news readers, vertical enterprise applications, dashboards, integration hubs, vertical communities, and more. Newly launched Reeder 2, an iPad-optimized revamp of the popular Reeder app, is among the newcomers.
The Feedly API provides developers with access to millions of feeds, and a personalization graph which end users define through their subscriptions, tags, and categories they use in their own feed reading applications.
More info on the new Feedly API is available on developer.feedly.com.