I’ve been following the news for months about the Google Reader shutdown…and Digg has being counting down the days. I suppose I have been in the mindset of “ignore it and it will go away.” Unfortunately not. Google Reader meets all my needs and I’m reluctant to change. Google Reader being shutdown in the first place is incomprehensible to me. I saw this post from MIT Technology Review about the usefulness of Google Reader in countering censorship in Iran. The service will leave somewhat of a vacuum and have consequences we may have not yet realized. I’m not sure the promotion of of social and moving users to Google+ will see significant dividends long-term and it certainly has not engendered good will towards the company. Personally, Google’s moves that past few years have been very off-putting.
I have also been waiting…and waiting…for the Digg replacement, which is now in beta. One of my issues with the switch is that I’m an organizing fiend. I have many folders and tags and hundreds of subscriptions. I don’t want to lose that data. I don’t care about colour or fancy social sharing features. Functionality and a clean, simple interface, is of utmost importance. So RSS readers like Pulse and Flipboard are too image intensive for my needs as a RSS power user.
Occasionally I like to read posts on my iPad, so I use the mobile app Byline but there are synching issues (I dislike having to “Mark as Read” posts in both services for all new posts). Although there are many RSS iOS apps out there (and I have tried most), this one handles all those folders and tags the best and you can easily and quickly swipe through posts.
I will be choosing either Feedly or the Digg Reader as my new RSS reader. I’m leaning toward the Digg replacement, as it would be useful to combine my need for power RSS with Digg’s social bookmarking features. Those who need to still need to switch you may want to use Google Takeout to export your data for backup.
Here’s some news Google Reader alternatives that are worth reading if, like me, you still haven’t switched and are waiting to the bitter end:
- FlowReader Combines Your RSS Feeds and Social Feeds into One Webapp | LifeHacker
- Feedly reaches 12m users as Google Reader alternatives battle hots up | guardian
- Feedly Gets Its Own Syncing Service, Detaches You From Google Reader | LifeHacker
- 3 Good Alternatives to Google Reader | Information Space
- Google Reader is dying, but we have five worthy alternatives | CNET
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