Google should have known better
Dear PropellerHeads: Google is killing Google Reader. What were they thinking? What should I use now?
A: To quote Treebeard: "There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of men for this treachery." like Saruman, Google should have known better.
Google has been purging a lot of its products lately, much like a chef scooping up spaghetti that didn't stick to the wall. Most of those services will be missed about as much as Hobbits like water. However, the assassination of Google Reader has struck a chord.
It isn't about how many people use it (millions, which seems sufficient to me but I also think Google+ is a complete waste of time so I can clearly not chose the wine in front of me), it is who those people tend to be: developers and other technical savvy individuals; i.e., me!
Google will regret this action if for no other reason than that the belief of the masses that Google isn't evil just took a serious sucker punch. What's next? Calendar? Gmail? When Google releases the next new product, who will want to sign up? I mean, who knows when it will be led away to the chopping block?
Anyway, I can rant about this for days on end, but let's find you a replacement. There are plenty of RSS readers and aggregators out there, but to replace Google Reader I declare that it must be web-based. I view my feeds at work, at home, and on various mobile devices. I don't want to have to deal with separate apps or programs to read them, so Web-based it must be.
And after reviewing a number of RSS websites, I found that there are some other criteria that are must-haves. One is the ability to mark favorite items and to add tags. Of all the feeds that exist, I subscribe to only a tiny fraction of them. And of all the items in those feeds, I find only a few actually useful.
But the ones that I do like are more precious than the One Ring. I need to be able to find those articles weeks or even months later, quickly. So liking, tagging, and searching are also all essential to me.
One other feature that I like considerably is the ability to view the detailed version of only the article I am interested in. Many readers will expand all articles in a feed, which leads to more scrolling than orcs in Mordor.
Strangely enough, once you consider all of these criteria, you are left with only one. You've probably heard a lot about Feedly (feedly.com) as a replacement for Google Reader, and for good reason.
First, the migration from Google Reader is absolutely painless. You sign in with your Google credentials and click import and within seconds you have your subscriptions set up and up-to-the-second on what articles have been read. Even your starred items come across.
In fact, Feedly goes one step beyond that. There is an active sync with Google Reader so that articles you read in Feedly will be reflected in Google Reader if you switch back, and vice versa. That's sweeter than lembas bread.
Next up, after some very minor settings changes, Feedly operates almost exactly like Google Reader does, and even looks prettier doing so.
Now Feedly isn't perfect. Although there is tagging, you can't apply multiple tags to articles as you could with Google. Furthermore, all that glorious Google Reader integration I spewed about before doesn't appear to apply to tags. Also, strictly speaking, it isn't a virgin web site. One requires browser plug-ins and apps for mobile devices.
However, they are making substantial improvements to sate the flood of Google Reader users seeking a faithful RSS reader for the future. I'm hopeful that in time we will forget all about Google Reader and the pain and suffering Google caused. Let's take Google Reader to Mt. Doom and give it the old heave-ho!
When the PropellerHeads at Data Directions aren't busy with their IT projects, they love to answer questions on business or consumer technology. Email them to questions@askthepropellerheads.com or contact us at Data Directions Inc., 8510 Bell Creek Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116. Visit our website at www.askthepropellerheads.com.