By: Gini Dietrich | March 14, 2013 |
Nooooooo! Google Reader is leaving us!
Mr. D is all upset they’re sunsetting iGoogle and now I join his sadness after learning last night they’re going to do away with Reader on July 1.
Reader is the web-based program that allows you to subscribe to great blogs (like Spin Sucks!) without having them all come into your inbox.
It grew out of the Google acquisition of Blogger. In 2004, Jason Shellen, who was part of the acquisition, created Reader and launched it in 2005 under then Marissa Mayer’s consumer web-based services.
It started as a a Google Lab project, but quickly grew into its own service. In fact, it began to become something even bigger: A place to not just read, but to comment and share with friends and strangers.
But, of course, it makes sense Google wants to replace – or kill – anything that could compete with the whole world using Google+, so away it goes.
Why Google+?
As it turns out, Google employees are incentivized on whether or not Google+ makes it. Twenty five percent of their bonuses require its success.
So they’re highly motivated to make you use it.
Have you tried to set up a new Google analytics account in the past few months? What about a Google doc? Or calendar? Or YouTube channel?
You cannot do it without having a Gmail account, which ties to a Google+ account.
This does two things: 1) Beefs up the numbers when people talk about how many users Google+ has and 2) Gets people using it.
After all, I’m pretty sure the quiet vision of Google is to rule the world. They continue to move toward that with these kinds of transitions.
So What’s Next?
It’s not the end of the world. I panicked last night because I cannot (and will not) have 696 RSS feeds come into my inbox.
I’ll continue to use Zite to give me the top stories of the day and recommend new stuff. It already transfers blog posts and articles from my Facebook and Twitter friends. Hopefully they come out with something quickly that will feed what were found in my Google Reader.
Triberr has become an RSS feed of sorts in the past few months. While that won’t help me discover anything new, it definitely helps stay abreast of the bloggers I want to make sure I don’t miss.
And, with TweetDeck retiring, I’m now forced to recreate my six year old lists so I can set them up to feed me my favorite bloggers.
But probably the best way to transfer your existing feeds? It looks like it might be Feedly (I’ll bet they’re jumping up and down in their offices right now).
At 1:30 this morning they were adding new bandwidth and servers so the mass exodus has begun.
I haven’t tried it yet, but will today. They say the transition is seamless.
Other Google Reader Options?
If you don’t like any of those options, you can still subscribe to blogs via email, Netvibes, Bloglines, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Agregator, and more.
While the switch from Reader is painful and very sad, it’s not the end of the world (though it felt it last night).
If you have another option, please share it in the comments!
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