So Google Reader’s funeral is July 1.
And it seems like Google just couldn’t wait that long to get rid of the their annoying little brother and have already started shuffling it out of their system.
When I log onto Gmail now, I can’t find my google reader anywhere!
I have to actually google “Google Reader” in order to have my reader pop up.
I use Google Reader to read all my blogs. It’s so convenient because all my blogs are in one place, none of this “typing in the url every time I want to read a new post” thing. And I don’t want email updates cluttering up my inbox. And the best thing too is being able to just “mark as read” whenever there’s a particularly boring blog post I don’t want to read, ie “How to save money by not going out to eat lunch every day” “How to save for retirement” “How to write a blog post that 500 people have written before you and was probably way better and is now beaten to death so don’t do it.”
Of course, I would never “mark as read” your blog post 🙂
Oh please, you probably “marked as read” me many times.
I digress.
So as I’ve been freaking out about how I’m going to live after July 1 survive the apocalypse transport all my blogs onto a new reader, I’m wondering:
What new blog reader will be using?
I’ve heard Blog Lovin, something called a Feedly…(which I heard is kind not working right) …which one are you going to use? Or are you just saying goodbye to blogs forever?
26 comments
FYI – I was just configuring my new (most likely permanent) reader choice and as I imported your blog, I stumbled across this post again. I’ve decided to use The Old Reader, because once it finally imported (most of) my feed from Google Reader, it proved to be the closest thing to what we’re losing. There’s a couple things I don’t love about it (like it doesn’t maintain some post formatting such as when text is centered), but overall, it’s the best I’ve found at this point. Bloglovin’ just didn’t thrill me, Netvibes was SUPER glitchy (like, it would mark unread HUNDREDS of posts from like five years ago, repeatedly and arbitrarily), and Feedly was lame for reasons I can’t remember. 😛
I switched over to Feedly about a week ago, and am honestly loving it so far. I have my feed subscriptions categorized into a bunch of folders by topic, and they all switched over perfectly. I haven’t spent hours analyzing the differences, but am actually liking it better than Google Reader so far! I’ll be curious to see which you decide to switch over to.
This surprised me, too! Why is it necessary to shut down the feature entirely? (It’s not like Google Voice; people actually use this!) Let me know what you end up doing. I don’t need the in box clutter!
I confess I didn’t use Google Reader much but it seems strange to me that they are getting rid of it when so many people loved it. Good luck finding something else you can enjoy and helps you keep up with your blogs!
I don’t understand why Google Reader is ending in the first place? In my opinion, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Thanks for writing this post; I’ll have to try out the suggestions people shared in the comments to find what I like best.
UGH! I know, I am SUCH a google reader user! I think I might use Feedly, or there was another i was looking at yet can’t remember now!
I imported my stuff over to BlogLovin to try it out, but so far I don’t really love it. You have to click through to read the full post (maybe there’s a setting I haven’t found yet that’ll change that), and that annoys me SO much! I want to read ALL of a post within my reader before I decide whether I wanna click through and comment.
I also figured I’d try “The Old Reader” I keep hearing about, but I’m like 5,000th in line to get my feeds imported, so that’s lame.
Feedly requires a plugin/widget download of some sort, and I’m not allowed to download stuff like that at work, which is where I do a lot of my blog reading. 😛
So basically: Let me know when you find the perfect replacement for Google Reader, because I’m still clueless!
I’m also going to give The Old Reader a try and hopefully get it set up before July. I’ve noticed Google reader acting strange as well. Feeds that I unsubscribed to years ago suddenly appeared on my page again!!!
This bums me out but I think it’s a bad decision by Google. Every person using Reader is on a Google page and working through something associated with Google. I personally keep my Reader tab open all day. Every time I read something, Google is going to lose out on all those touches. The issue was Google wasn’t able to monetize that, and it is clear they care exclusively about money. Still, I think there’s a value they’re giving up by having people drift away from the Google brand for that element, which is important to a lot of people.
I haven’t decided on a replacement yet. I know many people transitioned to Feedly or the other services the minute they found out, but I don’t see any reason to jump this quickly, as a lot could change or new options could become available between now and July 1st.
Glad I’m not the only person whose “reader” option disappeared from the drop-down menu on my gmail! I opened a Bloglovin’ account. I only played around with it a little bit, but so far I’m not sold. On Google Reader I can organize my blogs into groups, and I didn’t see that feature in Bloglovin’. Also, I like that Google Reader has RSS feed. I know lots of bloggers work hard on their site design, have sponsors, etc., but I like not having all the noise. I’m not sure, but I think on Bloglovin’ each blog and all the content comes up eith each entry you read. Finally, I didn’t look around long enough to see if all my “starred” entries were maintained when I imported from Google Reader to Bloglovin’? I’m guessing probably not. UG. Maybe I’ll try some of the others mentioned in comments here. 🙁
I’ve been playing with feedly. I’m actually kind of digging it. I subscribed to a new blog recently and feedly jumped in and made the process so smooth and easy. It was easy on GR too, but looking back the process on GR actually seems cumbersome compared to feedly.
I’m sooo distraught. I posted the same thing last week. I have NO idea what I’m going to do! LOL!!!!!!!!
I am super bummed about this too! I tried Feedly, but don’t like it much. Hopefully there will be a few good suggestions in your comments. I loved logging into mail, calendar and my reader. Such a shame they are giving it the boot!
I’ve signed up to both and auto transfered the blogs I follow over. Niw I’m testing both to sed which I like best. I mark all as read on one each day and use the other. After a month I should of decided which is best and I’ll cancel the other one.
I’m going to use theoldreader.com. It will import your blogs and folders exactly from Google Reader. Now, I will warn you that it could take up to a week+ for them to import the blogs, so be patient. And if you start the import now, you’ll be all set long before Google Reader decides to die.
I’m going to try this one! THANKS!!!!
I think I’ll try this one too especially if they import into folders!
“Devestated” might be too strong of a word, but…yeah.
I’m leaning towards Feedly or the Old Reader. Bloglovin’ made importing my subscriptions really easy, but doesn’t offer any summaries and is tough for skimming.
ps – I just type reader.google.com in the little bar and it takes me right there 🙂
I actually just started using Bloglovin when I found out that GoogleReader was going away. When I started it, it gave the option of being able to directly import my favorite blogs from GoogleReader which is great because I didn’t have to manually add them all over again!
I smiled reading your post because I was reading via Feedly! I haven’t had any issues (yet) but I only use it on my phone, not the computer.
Like you, I was a devoted Google Reader Girl. I’m sad they axed it so unceremoniously like it was Anne Curry. Not cool, Google!
I’ve never used google reader so I’m going to keep using the blogger dash if I still can. That option is only open to those who have a blogger blog AND I’m still not clear if that will stick around or not. If I can’t use that I’m going to go with Bloglovin’. I’ve had an account for a while with only a few blogs in it but if everything goes away they will all be going there. You can organize it into different folders which I like but the folders don’t show up in the phone app which kind of sucks but I guess it’s not that big of a deal. In the phone app it’s all just in abc order.
I’m using Bloglovin’ and I’m happy with it. It has the “read’ bottom you talked about, and they made it sooo easy to move your goggle reader information to their app.
After nearly having a heart attack this morning when I didn’t find google reader in my drop-down menu, I spent a part of my day getting to know Feedly. I have to say, it took me some time to get it set up the way I like it, but now I really like it. It’s more customizable than google reader, and much better looking. Plus, there’s a little button that appears above your bookmarks.
Life is less gloomy now!
I actually really like Feedly. I find the mobile site on my phone much easier to navigate and has a better interface than the web version. I haven’t looked at Bloglovin’ though!
I wrote about this on the weekend – I’m going with The Old Reader, I don’t really like Feedly. Also signed up to Newsblur but never really got to try it as it crashed so hard initially under the rush.
I’ve always just gone to google.com/reader (I visit it so often that it autocompletes in my URL bar really early).
I am switching (after some key recommendations to theoldreader.com ) they seem like a good small show that just had everyone come to it. They have some catching up to do and it looks like it will take 1 week to import my feeds for the first time (but they keep giving me updates and it was easy to set up). And I’m also frustrated that google took it off their top menu so early