This post contains nothing of import.
Like many other library folk, I use Google Reader–in my case, not as a news source, but to keep up with liblogs (and a few dozen other blogs).
Like many others, I was saddened by Google’s announcement that, as with other Google services that don’t seem to bring enough $$$revenue$$$, it’s killing Google Reader. Hey, at least Google gave 3.5 months warning.
I’ve read lots of posts about the shutdown and alternatives. Several seem to have good advice. A special partial-hand salute to those who say “You shouldn’t use RSS anyway, social media are all you need.” Works for them: Fine. Telling me that if it doesn’t work for me, it’s my fault: Not so fine. Personal preferences matter.
Free services tend to go away. I know that. You should remember that. (Public libraries aren’t free: They’re community-funded on a prepaid basis.)
I don’t really have more to say that hasn’t been covered to death by others.
My own experience in getting out while the getting is good:
- Restored my Bloglines account. And waited. And waited. And… Removed Bloglines from my Favorites list.
- Tried Feedly this morning. I think that’s going to be workable; they sure have made from-Greader migration easy. We shall see. (I’m a Firefox user, and I think that helps.)
- Haven’t tried The Old Reader because of other stories about the backlog. If Feedly turns out to be annoying, maybe I’ll try it later.
No great thoughts here.
I’m going with Feedly for now, too. I used to use it to view items in my Google Reader account but stopped because I found it somewhat buggy on the web (sometimes you have to refresh the page to get to all the posts waiting for you). For me, the reason why Feedly will work (for now) is that it has got versions for Android OS as well. I’d say that I do half if not more of my reading of feeds on my phone and my tablet. Being able to go back and forth between the browser version and my two gadgets is essential if I have any hope of keeping up with the river of fews flowing through my account.
“A special partial-hand salute to those who say ‘You shouldn’t use RSS anyway, social media are all you need.'”
Ah, Walt. This is why I love you. Facebook is good for picking up a few things, but not in any organized fashion. My brain is simply not built for Twitter, as I tend to think in longer strings than that. RSS is an easy, efficient way to keep up with things I need to keep up with.
I got into Bloglines, but haven’t had a chance to play with it. I may try Feedly. I’ve seen some other suggestions, but many seem to be the very visual, big-tile thing rather than a simple list, which is what I need. I don’t need it to look like a magazine. I need to be able to get to content quickly and know I didn’t miss anything.
It appears that you can set Feedly to be as terse (at one extreme) or magazine-like (at the other) as you want it. I started out with Bloglines, then switched to GReader when Bloglines seemed to be going away.
I pick up stuff in Friendfeed (the LSW bunch) and Google+ (at times) and sometimes in Twitter and Facebook–but actually scanning at least the titles of a wide range of blog posts has proved useful. As you say: RSS is an easy, efficient way to keep up with things. I hope Feedly works out well.
I was able to get into Bloglines and import my feeds. I thought Bloglines went away some time ago, but apparently it’s been hanging in there. I looked at Feedly, and I may be switching to that. Yes, 3.5 months notice is fair warning. So sorry that Google has made this choice.
As far as I can see, the Bloglines you see now isn’t the Bloglines that went away–this one seems to be another version of Netvibes. Maybe I just have too many feeds for Bloglines (and from what I’ve read elsewhere, the queue for The Old Reader seems to be long…) So far, so good with Feedly.