On Wednesday, Google dropped a bombshell for users of Google Reader by announcing the they will shut it down effective 1 July 2013 — A second spring of cleaning
Devastated? No. Unhappy? Yes. I immediately went on the search for a new RSS reader. I checked out the following — all are browser-based and not stand-alone applications:
- Newsblur — the problem with Newsblur is that in the free version, I can only subscribe to 12 blogs. To have unlimited subscriptions, I have to pony up $24 per year — not bad and the demise of Google Reader may be an indicator that a paid service is the way to go. But, I also found that Newsblur hung up more than once while I was trying to import my 12 blog subscriptions from Google Reader.
- The Old Reader — Well, frankly, I can't test The Old Reader. I set up the account yesterday and tried to import the OPML file that I exported from Google Reader. Still today, The Old Reader says that they've had a massive influx of new users, their servers are overwhelmed, and my import is in the queue. (OPML is another geekonym for Outline Processor Markup Language — yeah, like you wanted to know that!)
- Feedly — Simple, free, unlimited subscriptions, and there are versions for Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Android, and iOS. An article on their blog, Transitioning from Google Reader to feedly, was very helpful. I was able to import my blog subscriptions directly from Google Reader without using an OPML file and Feeldy promises a seamless transition to their own proprietary service once Google Reader shuts down. Feedly also offers several different ways to view your subscribed blogs — as a list of clickable headlines, in a magazine-like layout with graphics and post previews, the full post. I'm still learning my way around, but for now, Feedly is my choice — and frankly, I'm unlikely to change. In fact, as of today, I don't plan to go back to Google Reader, even during the next 3 1/2 months before Google shuts it down.
There are other options available, some free and some paid.
- If you currently use Google Reader, what do you plan to use after 1 July?
Since this is a blog that was started about running — I ran today. It was only 3.4 miles and included several walking breaks, so it was slow. But, I was out there. What about you?
Run well, y'all,
Bob Allen
Nairobi, Kenya
7 comments:
Thanks for the head's up on Smashing Reader. Feedly fits my "wants" better and it's up and running now.
Just checked my account on "The Old Reader" again and it still hasn't imported my OPML file that contains my blog subscriptions. I also had an issue today logging into Feedly — it finally loaded but I'm not sure what was wrong in the first place nor what I did differently to get it to work.
Here's another article about Google Reader alternatives. In the end, Lifehacker's survey gave a strong nod to Feedly. http://lifehacker.com/5990881/five-best-google-reader-alternatives
@Thanks Bob Allen for sharing alternatives of Google Reader. I hope that Google will make some other product/feature in future like Google Reader.
I just got an e-mail from the The Old Reader folks that my OPML file of blog RSS feeds has finally been imported — took 5 days. I haven't done much with it, yet, but it looks a lot like a cleaned up, spiffed up Google Reader. I'll give it a try but so far I've been pleased with Feedly.
Thanks, Power Cords, for your comments. The thing that I really like about Google Reader is that it's dead simple to subscribe to blogs and to scroll through and read what I want to read and mark as unread what I don't care about reading. I really like some features of Feedly like the ease of organizing blogs, the fresh layout, the ability for minimum customization of the look, but it does add a some slight complexity.
I've just taken a slightly better look at The Old Reader. If you like the way that Google Reader works, you'll probably like The Old Reader. Layout and navigation are almost identical. There is a list of your subscribed blogs on the left and each one shows the number of unread posts. Near the top of that left column is an All items item that allows you to see all unread posts in a seeminly random order. When you click on any of the items in the left, related posts show on the right, taking up about 3/4 of the window on my computer. You can scroll through and read most (maybe all) posts right in The Old Reader. Apparently how much you can see in an RSS reader depends on how the RSS feed is set up and this is similar in all readers that I've reviewed.
I've noticed two big differences right away:
1. The Old Reader does not show posts that you've already read. Google Reader and Feedly do. It's not hard to see old posts, but you have to click on the link to go to the blog site itself.
2. The Old Reader does not update immediately. I added a post to my own blog about 45 minutes ago and it still is not showing up in The Old Reader list. That post showed up immediately in both Feedly and Google Reader.
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