500,000 Google Reader users flocked to Feedly within two days of Google’s announcement to shut down Reader. I have searched out a few good alternatives though, and I’m happy to share them here.įeedly is clearly the frontrunner in the battle among the Google Reader alternatives, even offering Reader users a way to easily transport their feeds into its service. In the meantime, I’ve delayed the inevitable and continue to use Google Reader. Perhaps Reader becomes a feature in Google+ under a different name. I can’t see killing Reader helping Google+, and although I doubt they’ll reconsider, maybe all of this backlash will have an impact. He found that Google Reader ranks fourth in traffic generation for Techcrunch right behind Google Search, Facebook and Twitter (and Google Reader almost beat Twitter). More concerning to Siegler, though, is the amount of traffic blog owners will lose due to Google Reader shutting down. I understand that my heavy use of Google Reader is probably rare, and why should Google keep the service open for a few power users anyway? A great article on TechCrunch by MG Siegler argues the case that power users are the bees that pollinate the social web and that Google Reader is the flower from which the best content is curated before being shared across the web. Reader is one of my favorite Google products - second only to Gmail and maybe search. Reader serves as fun way to share the content once it’s published. search keywords, phrases) within folders of blogs, which is very helpful, a secret trick I’ve taught others, and much easier than a similar string that would need to be used to do the same within Google search. As a PR guy, I also tracked key stories I landed through Reader by setting custom RSS feeds for domains I was pitching with certain keyword combinations.

I use Google Reader to perform custom searches (e.g.

When I had my own podcast, I used Reader to share content with my co-host and then we would go to Docs to create the program schedule. Perhaps Google wants us to use Currents (Google’s answer to FlipBoard) instead, despite the fact that we’ve all but forgotten about Currents and it’s probably in the chopping block queue itself.Īt one point, I used Google Reader to subscribe to podcast RSS feeds, which would conveniently auto-sync to Google Listen (until that service was killed), which was much better than downloading the audio files to the device. Reader integration is one of my favorite things about FlipBoard. Killing Reader will also kill my custom FlipBoard set-up. It’s my primary source of Google+ and Twitter content and I integrate it with Buffer to share content to at least 20 social channels. I’ve personally used Google Reader since about 2007, and follow hundreds of blogs to keep up with the latest and greatest. But first, my thoughts on Google’s decision to kill off Google Reader. Below, I’ll share with you four legitimate Google Reader alternatives I found while searching the web. Google Reader’s last product manager called the move a “missed opportunity” in a recent Forbes article.

When Google recently announced it would shut down its Reader service by June, backlash and revolt ensued, but many also questioned how many people actually used the service.

Google reader alternative