Kindle Feeds (alpha)

Why Does It Ask For My Password?!

Some users have been concerned that the application asks for your Google password.

Kindle Feeds needs some way to associate a reading list with a person. Rather than ask you to create yet another username/password combination, it uses Google's Account Authentication service. The password page is hosted on google.com, so you can trust that the content there is from Google. As that page explains, I will not receive any information other than your email address, which I will not share with anyone outside of Kindle Feeds development. In particular, your password is never sent to Kindle Feeds.

You will also need to log into your Google account the first time you access Kindle Feeds on your Kindle. Again, make sure that the URL bar at the top starts with www.google.com, and you should be safe.

If you're still worried, you can always create a new throw-away Google account and log in with that.

Downloading Your Kindle Feeds Book

Here are detailed instructions on downloading the book to your Kindle.

First, make sure your wireless switch is on and go to the home menu. Click on "Menu", then "Experimental", then "Basic Web". At the top of the page, select "Enter URL" and enter http://www.kindlefeeds.net/book. Say OK when it asks if you want to download the content to your Kindle, and after that it should appear on your Kindle's content list.

Managing Your Kindle

If you download a new update, it doesn't replace the existing entry, as Kindle doesn't support that. Instead, you'll keep adding new files to your Kindle, all with the filename Kindle Feeds-$NUMBER.mobi. You may want to clean these up when you finish reading, either using Kindle's "Content Manager" menu or mounting the kindle on your computer and deleting them there.

Alternatives

There are already several ways to get web pages onto your kindle, so why one more?

Kindle's Web Browser

Kindle can already read web pages using its built-in web browser, so why do we need this? If you've used the kindle web browser for any length of time, you know that it doesn't work all that well. It reformats the page at random times and is much slower than reading a file stored on the Kindle. Besides, you can't use the web browser on a subway or plane.

Email
You can email HTML files to {username}@kindle.com, but in my experience, Amazon comes back with an error message more often than not. Kindle Feeds is pretty forgiving about its input, as it uses the BeatifulSoup library to parse HTML. Also, you might care about the five cents Amazon charges to wirelessly deliver the document, though that seems fair to me (conversion without delivery is free).
MobiPerl
MobiPerl is what I used before, and if it meets your need, it's great. The html2mobi program provided with MobiPerl converts HTML files into mobi files, which can be read by the Kindle. But you then have to copy the files onto your Kindle via USB, which is a minor nuisance. Also, I found that some files weren't converted correctly and wouldn't display on the Kindle. This may have been fixed by now, but I can't really read perl, so I didn't use it. Kindle Feeds is implemented in Python using Google App Engine
Calibre
Similar in purpose to MobiPerl, it helps you convert between a variety of formats.

Source Code

You can access the source for Kindle Feeds. If you want to make any changes, please let me know.