RIP Google Reader

~ Laura

My twitterfeed was a buzz yesterday with news about the pope and the demise of Google reader. I'll deal with the pope in a moment. Google's decision to ax Google Reader is much more pressing to us lowly bloggers. A great deal of the readers of Apt. 11D come here because of Google Reader. That's how I read other bloggers, who don't have the time or the inclination to publicize their work on Twitter. What's an independent, unaffiliated blogger to do? 

Well, there are some RSS alternatives and some promise for tech starts ups who want to fill the gap. But probably the best move for all bloggers is to use Twitter more effectively. It is now the best way to reach your readers now that Google Reader is gone, and it helps increase your SEO.

I don't use Twitter enough to publicize this blog, because many of my blog posts are just quickie items that are meant for the regular readers. I'm also a slacker blogger who fits this activity into the gaps in the schedule. But I suppose it is time to change. 

Follow me on Twitter at @laura11d. If  you're a blogger, please put your twitter name in the comment section, so I can follow you. 

Published by Laura

23 thoughts on “RIP Google Reader”

  1. @sandrat212 for twitter.
    Love twitter – love the banter and love the links that I get from it. FB is a bit on the slow side for me.
    For a feed reader I use Feedly which is lovely. Beautiful to look at (like a magazine), you can easily categorize the blogs you read and it’s easy to comment on them.

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  2. I love Twitter, but I don’t want to follow blogs on Twitter. I may try Feedly, but what I really want is a way to read the 500+ items a day I get in Google Reader and flip through them very quickly. I want a little blurb telling me that maybe I want to read more. For example, I follow “News for TV Majors,” and one recent entry says “Todd VanDerWerff deconstructs Girls reactions and criticisms” and the words “Girls reactions and criticisms” are hyperlinked to the article by Todd. Now, right now I don’t feel like reading that article. Down the line, I may watch Girls and decide I have to read the critical thinking on the show and will want to search my feed reader for criticism on Girls. I have all my tv/media feeds sorted, and I want to be able to search those feeds for “girls” (as opposed to my parenting feeds where “girls” will come up in a different context).
    But really, just Argh.

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  3. I don’t get twitter (and I say that while yelling at the kids to get off my lawn). I used to be able to use your RSS feed and read it in my Mac Mail reader, but I am not getting that method to work after upgrading to a newer mac. So I haven’t found a solution. Twitter isn’t going to be it for me.
    You post often enough that checking in once a day works, but for some of the more infrequent bloggers I’m hoping i come up with a solution.

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  4. I would honestly rather they close down GMail than Google Reader.
    The problem is there aren’t a ton of other web based, clean simple options.
    This is now a niche product. I’m pretty sure there will be a kickstarter for something too. I also read about something called The Old Reader that looks good. My husband used to use NetVibes, it was ok.
    Luckily we have a few months. But its a good reminder that Google can just take it away any time. They could close down Google Scholar or Google Books any day. They are too worried about whether their services are emasculating!
    Following stuff on Twitter requires you totally keep track of all your blogs and they all get mixed in your feed…I’m not a fan. I do it but…

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  5. Off trying feedly. I still prefer my Apple Mail solution (RSS feeds with new posts appeared in my mail program — it didn’t always work, some feeds were bad, but 11D worked). Google Reader never worked for me, so I’m not going to miss its absence.

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  6. Feedly gives you that “teaser” as well as the ability to save posts for reading later. That’s partly how I collect links for personal reading as well as for my Friday Salon post. Or even if I want to comment and am in a time crunch so I’ll save it for later.

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  7. I used to rely on twitter, scribbled notes, a blog roll and memory for my blog reading. You can EASILY imagine where that got me!

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  8. I’m @jliedl on twitter. I’ve just started using feedly which looks like a great substitute for Reader. Pretty soon the only things that I’ll use Google for is mail and search. They’re killing everything else and trying to get me interest in G+ which still isn’t working. . . .

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  9. twitter is a poor substitute.. a RSS reader lets me skim very effectively, twitter takes a lot of drudging through inane chatter and obfuscated URLs, wastes time.
    the other ‘alternatives’ tend to be visually-based. I’m a text-based life form, video and pictures are too slow for me..
    dagnabbit. Could always build and host my own reader..
    https://github.com/Netflix/recipes-rss#readme
    That’s a lot of work though. Guess I’ll try feedly first..

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  10. I have never liked Twitter. I have an account (@shestartedit) and I use it to post articles and the rare blog post, but I don’t stay on long enough to read what other people are posting– honestly it would take forever to do so. I love Google Reader, and I like how all the stuff I want to read is on one spot. I’m definitely going to look into another feed reader.

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  11. Feedly is not what I want, though I might be forced to use it. Is it independent of Google Reader, though? A bunch of the apps/other solutions I’ve seen are interfaces to Google Reader, and presumably won’t work with its demise without changes.

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  12. “obfuscated URLs” – OMG, yes. I once looked for an extension that would let me hover over the link and see the real URL, but I gave up when I couldn’t find one fast enough, and none of the lifehack/techie blogs I read religiously via GReader has pointed me to one.

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  14. I don’t have a twitter account. Not that it matters my understanding is that it is a standing policy of the people who read this blog not to ever read blogs written by people living in poor countries.

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  15. “I would honestly rather they close down GMail than Google Reader.”
    Google is so creepy. I would hate getting ads keyed to key words in my emails.
    “Not that it matters my understanding is that it is a standing policy of the people who read this blog not to ever read blogs written by people living in poor countries.”
    http://jeevankuruvilla.blogspot.com/

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  16. “it is a standing policy of the people who read this blog not to ever read blogs written by people living in poor countries”
    Don’t read a general trend into it; just take it personally.

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  18. hm. two problems with feedly,
    1. it uses Google Reader as a back end. So, they have to rewrite GReader in three months and have it ready to take the load. Are you feeling lucky ?
    2. it has the same problem with interface as all the other reader/feeders – seems to think its users would rather see a lot of pretty pictures, than get information. That’s not the RSS demographic.
    OK time to try Thunderbird or one of the many Firefox addons..

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  19. feedly says they’re going to do it. But, I agree that it looks like a “republisher” re-arranging the format (it even targets particular posts as “featured” posts — based on what, I don’t know, but it looks like it might be the presence of videos).
    There’s Reeder, which looks more like the text based list I want for the Mac and iOS devices, but it uses the google reader backend.

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  20. La, if you can sub Twitter in for G-reader, you and I are using an RSS feed reader in almost ontologically different ways.

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