Curata Rader is a clean and simple news reader that imports directly from the soon-to-be defunct Google Reader. But don’t be fooled by its minimal exterior; you’ll find plenty of customisation options to help you create the perfect news feed.
Import from Google in a Few Clicks
Although you can start your Curata account with no news feeds and build it up from scratch, you probably want to migrate your existing Google Reader data. To make that process simple, Curata walks you through the export and import process so it only takes a few clicks and a minute or two. You can also import OPML files if your collection of RSS feeds comes from another source. Once your feeds have settled in, you can start browsing through them. To check for more items at any time, just scroll to the top of the page.
Filter Out Articles You Don’t Want
Curata respects the categorisation of your feeds, so you won’t need to reorganise them. However, if you need to create a new category, you need to do so by editing a feed and assigning it to that category manually. Aside from this one little quirk, you actually have quite a bit of power over how you manage the articles. You can apply filters to every feed in your collection, a specific category, or just a single feed itself. You can also control how much of an article you see in the list view. If you like a particular article, Curata allows you to flag them, rate them (with a thumbs up, thumbs down system), and share them on Facebook, Twitter or via email.
More to Come
Curata’s simple interface, both on the desktop and mobile web, may appear to contain a minimalist feature set, but it hides its complexity. While we’d like to see category creation and feed organisation work in a more straightforward way — perhaps drag and drop — there’s little to complain about. We think any alternative to Google Reader needs to integrate sync in order to succeed as a true alternative, and Curata doesn’t have that feature (yet).
Curata Reader is free to use, and we’re looking at the first version right out of the gate. We’ll see more as development continues, but we definitely recommend giving it a go.
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