Sunday, June 30, 2013

Google Reader...

UPDATE: There's a great comparison of all of the new reader options HERE.

.........

As most avid Google Reader users are aware, Google Reader goes away tomorrow. I believe you might have an extra week to save your feeds, but just in case, you may want to do so today. To do that, log into Google Reader and click on the settings tab (top right), and go to Reader Settings, Import/Export, and then click on 'Download your data through Takeout'. It should then save your feeds in a zip file, which will contain a 'subscriptions' file that will have your feeds.

Many of the alternatives will also allow you to log into their service with your Google account and will import all of your feeds for you automatically. Here is a summary and links to the main alternatives:

Digg
NewsBlur
Feedly
AOL
Netvibes
The Old Reader
Feed Wrangler

I'm been experimenting with several of these, which is what I also suggest you try if you are still undecided. I think they will all evolve over the next few months as they get feedback, so I'm waiting to see exactly how that process goes before making a final decision. I really like NewsBlur and my experience with it on a PC, my iPhone, and an iPad. Digg seems like it is trying to get close to the Google Reader experience, but it still needs a bit of work, though I think they'll move fast on getting it in shape. I wasn't the biggest fan of Feedly when I tried it a couple of months ago, but after trying the iPad app last night, I really liked it and may give it another try, as well as at least a couple of the others, if not all of them. If you have any thoughts on your experiences, feel free to send me and email and let me know.

And if you work at any of these companies, please make it easier to move feeds up and down to reorganize them. Google Reader made it very easy to just drag and move feeds up and down to prioritize the sites I wanted to read first, but this quality has been lacking in my experience so far from the time I've spent on the other readers (though maybe once I spend more time on it I could figure it out).