Google Reader shutting down on 1st July 2013

[Arthur]

You have less than four months to find an alternative.

 

Source: Google

 

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favourite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on 1 July 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

[Geoff]

Crud. I need a replacement for my podcast feeds then. :/ Any ideas?

[Geoff]

Trying out http://www.feedly.com

[Arthur]

The only web-based RSS readers I can think of are NewsBlur (free for upto 64 feeds) and Fever (not free and requires hosting). If you have a Mac, there's also NetNewsWire.

 

There must be hundreds of RSS apps that depend on Google Reader and all of these are going to be rendered useless come July. e.g. Feed Demon, RSSOwl, Reeder, Press, gReader etc.

 

Trying out Feedly

Doesn't Feedly use Google Reader? Feedly have just posted this on their blog...

 

Transitioning from Google Reader to feedly

Google announced today that they will be shutting down Google Reader. This is something we have been expecting for some time: We have been working on a project called Normandy which is a feedly clone of the Google Reader API – running on Google App Engine. When Google Reader shuts down, feedly will seamlessly transition to the Normandy back end. So if you are a Google Reader user and using feedly, you are covered: the transition will be seamless.

 

If you are a Google Reader, give feedly a try before July 1st, and you will be able to migrate seamlessly.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Arthur

[Geoff]

It imported my feeds from Reader (and syncs back to it). But beyond that it just uses google for login.

[Arthur]

I'll have to give Feedly a try in that case. Hopefully it brings everything I have starred across too. The Old Reader also looks quite good.

 

Edit. Stars can be exported via Google Takeout.

 

Stars are, in fact, exportable. The "Google Takeout" zip archive for Reader includes a file called starred.json, containing a list of your starred items in a JSON format that, as far as I know, nothing else reads. If whatever reader you switch to can import marked items, you can probably work up a script to convert Google's format to whatever the new reader uses. (Source)

Edited March 14, 2013 by Arthur

[free780]

There's a petition on change.org.

[Arthur]

There's a petition on change.org.

Perhaps we might be better off without Google Reader?

 

Google Reader is a convenient way to sync between our RSS clients today, but back when it was launched in 2005 (before iPhones), it destroyed the market for desktop RSS clients. Client innovation completely stopped for a few years until iOS made it a market again — but every major iOS RSS client is still dependent on Google Reader for feed crawling and sync.

 

Now, we’ll be forced to fill the hole that Reader will leave behind, and there’s no immediately obvious alternative. We’re finally likely to see substantial innovation and competition in RSS desktop apps and sync platforms for the first time in almost a decade.

 

It may suck in the interim before great alternatives mature and become widely supported, but in the long run, trust me: this is excellent news. (Source)

[SYNACK]

Perhaps we might be better off without Google Reader?

 

Is this the silver lining to the 'cloud' that everyone is saying that we should trust... it will all blow away one day and we will get to start from scratch again.

[danbuntu]

I use tt-rss: Tiny Tiny RSS

 

you have to host it yourself but it works fantastically and has an android app that works really well on my tablet

[ADMaster]

I am currently trying netvibes Netvibes It looks like it could become my homepage. I created a security updates tab to keep up on Adobe and Java etc and another tab that has my email and edugeek.

[Arthur]

It seems that Google didn't want to deal with the legal and privacy issues...

 

Google is taking a lot of heat for its decision to scrap the popular Reader RSS feed aggregator, leading many to question why it would pull the plug on such a popular service. It turns out that the answer might have a lot to do with the hidden costs of safe-guarding privacy. According to a report from All Things D, an unnamed source says that the closure is at least partly because of Google’s reluctance to build out the staff and infrastructure needed to deal with legal and privacy issues related to the product.

 

The source says that Google is trying to position the company so that it stops getting stuck in expensive privacy lawsuits, like the $7 million Wi-Fi data-slurping case in the US, by adding dedicated staff to deal with those issues to each of its teams. When the company announced it would be shuttering Reader, the service reportedly didn't even have a project manager or full-time engineer assigned to it, and it’s said that Google didn't want to spend the money to build the service out into a tentpole app. And while many long-time users of the service have questioned why Google doesn't simply sell Reader off to a third party, its deep integration with other Google Apps means it’s apparently easier for the company to just shutter it. So how many users would have made it worthwhile for Google to keep Reader around? Former Reader product manager Nick Baum tells ATD, "my sense is, if it’s a consumer product at Google that’s not making money, unless it’s going to get to 100 million users it’s not worth doing." (Source)

[Geoff]

Feedly works well enough for me. The handling of podcasts in the android app leaves something to be desired though. Also going to try oldreader when my OPML imports.