Google Reader refugee seeks new RSS home

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Title says it all. I've long used Google Reader to keep track of things like Rock, Paper Shotgun, deals RSSes, and, well, GWJ articles. But no more.

Anyone have a different website or software for RSS tracking that they'd recommend?

Seeking refugee status as well. Every day for the past five years Reader's been a party of my daily routine. Boo.

I'm going to start by trying Google Currents. No web-based app though - tablet/phone only

Yeah, Android only does not fly with me. Not that I wouldn't use something that was smartphone enabled, but only when I had to.

Main things I'm looking for that Google Reader provided are:
-Ability to mark things read as I read and/or decide to ignore them. Absolutely critical.
-Cloud-based, at least for data, so that I can move between computers and pick up with my feeds where I left off. Not 100% necessary, but it was very nice.

AAAAAAHHHHHHH

Same.

One service that syncs between Website/desktop app and mobile app, and share to other services (e.g. Pocket). Oh wait, that was Google Reader.

Kloreep wrote:

AAAAAAHHHHHHH

I just moved over to NetVibes to try it out. So far it's clunky, but not bad.

I use FeedDemon on Windows but Google Reader as the backend to keep my iPad, Android Phone, and PCs in sync. I hadn't heard about GR being phased out but that sucks (obviously). FeedDemon used to have its own backend for syncing between FD clients. This is the thing that pisses me off about Google services. I guess I should ask for a refund. :\

I share the general despair. I got pointed at http://theoldreader.com/ which seems to be a good web alternative, but I would like to be able to share onto my (Android) phone as well.

Godamnit I was using that. Nuts.

Cnet have a rundown of 5 likely replacements, can't really comment other than to say that flipboard on my phone never seems especially great. Feedly and Pulse look nice

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7...

Although when Google killed their podcast client it did force me to move to a much, much better solution so hopefully this might be a similar catalyst

Wait, they're shutting down on my birthday? f*ck you, Google! Maybe I should just blame Canada though.

Lifehacker will come up with their top 5 alternatives in the next few days. Count on it.

Edit,

what do you know, it's up already.

Whaaaa? I didn't know this was happening... bugger!

Redwing wrote:

Whaaaa? I didn't know this was happening... bugger!

Yeah, what?

I didn't know this was happening either. What a bummer. For the last few weeks, I've been using Feedly on my phone (iOS) and really like it. It's a different experience than Google Reader, but I've been slowly starting to prefer it. I guess this will be the catalyst I need to check out their web version and see if it's worth making the multi-platform switch.

Count me among the distressed and furious - Google Reader's been my way of finding out about the latest with nearly everything work and non-work related since shortly after it launched. The Old Reader seems decent enough to me on my desktop and iPad via the browser, but on my pathetic 3G Android handset (a Motorola Defy; I'm tough on phones and am not looking to replace it anytime soon), I probably need an application, because the browser just doesn't run well (the Google Reader application, while not perfect, was something I'd learned to live with).

Seems that netvibes and feedly are getting hammered as people flood out from Google Reader.

It was pretty clear that Readers days were numbered when they said that Feedburner was no longer going to be supported or developed. If RSS is being abandoned by Google, in favor of social signals (Plus), then how long was an online feed reader going to last?

A lot of the blogs I've been following shifted away from RSS to Facebook, Plus, and Twitter, and not even offering an RSS feed.

As a result, I've hacked Facebook to act like a Feed reader, subscribing to blog feeds, and grouping them in lists.

Google Plus can be hacked the same way. Group blogs into Circles instead of lists.

Both ways are cross platform.

I've also exported everything out to FeedDemon just so I can keep track of the few feeds that haven't boarded the social train.

Sucks that they are cancelling the service on my Birthday.

mateo wrote:

Sucks that they are cancelling the service on my Birthday.

:O Cancer brothers!

Let me say that I despise this general move to Facebook for companies. I've mostly avoided it so far but now companies are using it for news rather than their [much more professional] company sites.

My one requirement for a replacement is that it works with Flipboard (on the ipad).

Umm... Does this mean my Reeder app on my iphone/ipad will stop working?

Yeah, there's going to be a lot of fallout. I'm using FeedDemon, NewsRob, FeeddlerPro, and Liferea for my various platforms, all of which use Google Reader for their backend.

Chaos! Anarchy!

LiquidMantis wrote:

I've mostly avoided it so far but now companies are using it for news rather than their [much more professional] company sites.

The worst one was when Maxis arbitrarily redirected simcity4.com and simcity.com to their Facebook profile to capitalize on some dumb thing Herman Cain said during the primary season.

LiquidMantis wrote:
mateo wrote:

Sucks that they are cancelling the service on my Birthday.

:O Cancer brothers!

Let me say that I despise this general move to Facebook for companies. I've mostly avoided it so far but now companies are using it for news rather than their [much more professional] company sites.

Funny, Scoble cross posted about how bad this is for the open web on both Google Plus and Facebook....everything is being siloed. Of course, he then pointed out that we (meaning the advanced guard types that get distracted by the new shiny object), killed RSS because all abandoned it in favor of getting Facebook likes.

TheOldReader and Feedly are getting hammered right now. Going to be an interesting couple of days for them.

Is anyone saying RSS usage has shrunk? I have no idea myself. I'm just curious if this is a case of actual user loss, or if it simply stopped growing at a certain point, not being adopted by newer guards, and therefore becoming a smaller and smaller percentage.

Soon I'll have a flowery grave for RSS next to my one for NNTP.

Google reader is like a f*cking second home to me. This is devastating.

I posted a similar thread in Tech. If the mods want to merge, that's good.

I think the overall number of users had shrunk. If you want to see your Reader activity, click here.

From your 126 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 11,442 items, clicked 265 items, starred 1 items, and emailed 0 items.
Since February 3, 2011 you have read a total of 300,000+ items.
LiquidMantis wrote:
mateo wrote:

Sucks that they are cancelling the service on my Birthday.

:O Cancer brothers!

Let me say that I despise this general move to Facebook for companies. I've mostly avoided it so far but now companies are using it for news rather than their [much more professional] company sites.

Am I so out of the loop with how the Interwebz functioned? RSS seemed like the most brilliant thing the Web offered next to e-mail (okay, that's technically not Web-specific)—no more going to every website, but let the headlines come to you in the aggregator of your choice on the platform(s) most convenient to you.

And now it's being abandoned in favour of Facebook (bad idea) and Twitter and other services that aren't specialized to do the one thing RSS does best? I like Twitter for some things and Facebook for no things, but when I just want to read the news, it's Reader.

LiquidMantis wrote:

Yeah, there's going to be a lot of fallout. I'm using FeedDemon, NewsRob, FeeddlerPro, and Liferea for my various platforms, all of which use Google Reader for their backend.

Yeah, as I was looking around at alternatives, their number one features mainly touted "Syncs with your Google Reader account!". Time to hit up those CNet and Lifehacker articles.

I wonder if the backlash will be enough for Google to keep Reader alive? Maybe it doesn't get a lot of use, but those who do use it, really depend on it.

Why kill Reader, one of the simplest and best at what it does, and keep alive useless second-rate wanna-bes like Plus?

Does the fact that I can't connect to any aggregator websites suggest that the user base of Reader is at least a tiny bit significant?

Google has to be aware of the metrics. Maybe the issue is that they haven't been successful monetizing GReader because too many RSS-savvy people are using independent clients rather than the ad-enabled web interface.

LiquidMantis wrote:

Google has to be aware of the metrics. Maybe the issue is that they haven't been successful monetizing GReader because too many RSS-savvy people are using independent clients rather than the ad-enabled web interface.

Or maybe they think if people read the feed, they may not click through to sites that might be using ad inventory sold by...Google.

From your 221 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 10,460 items, clicked 308 items, starred 43 items, and emailed 0 items.
Since February 8, 2011 you have read a total of 300,000+ items.

/weeping

Ok, we've got three months. Who can code something that looks and feels EXACTLY like reader? I will provide moral support.

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