Google Reader is shutting down on July 1st, 2013

Planning on updating this post as new GReader options start to appear and I get to play with each of them according.

This is not a drill.
(last updated 20:10, March 14th).

Goodbye GReader

AGAIN: Google is closing down Google Reader on July 1st.

Take a moment to process that… then read on.

Marketing Land, where I first read the news (before The Verge got it up, before Techcrunch nailed it too), is building up a list of replacements (all of which I am yet to try). So far they have:

Other notables are

Edit 1: LifeHacker has a good transfer guide too. 

Edit 2: Feedly is swiftly becoming the new Reader of choice. Here’s why:

‘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.’

Thanks to GigaOm and JMac (comments) for the tip.

Edit 3: RussB’s Magnet.io is now open for sign ups

Outside of those, go follow Russell Beattie. He’s been working on a Google Reader replacement for a while – aka Magnet.io – and if we all go give him our support, it might just make it out before Google hit the shutdown button.

Edit 4: Former Google Reader Product Manager, Brian Shih, explains what he thinks what happened over on Quora

I’m just sad. So sad. Google Reader is where I get my news. It’s where I find my random. It’s what drove my Five things on Friday last year, and it’s what drives my weekend link blasts over Twitter.

It sounds dramatic but, I genuinely am distraught. Anyone who knows my blogging habits knows that I am a news hound. I search for the new, the unknown, the esoteric.. and I share it. Google Reader has been my weapon of choice for as long as I can remember and now, quite literally, its days are numbered.

No good can come of this.

 — – – 

Right now, I don’t know which service to switch to. To be perfectly honest a lot of it will depend on whether a) the next platform can take the weird-ass download file Google gave me, and b) if Reeder App will support it too.

Google Reader was great. Then it was good. Soon it will be gone. 

For now, we mourn. 

 

 

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Author: James Whatley

Chief Strategy Officer in adland. I got ❤️ for writing, gaming, and figuring stuff out. I'm @whatleydude pretty much everywhere that matters. Nice to meet you x

6 thoughts on “Google Reader is shutting down on July 1st, 2013”

  1. Feedly. http://www.feedly.com/ login with your google account deets and their ‘Normandy’ backend system will auto-migrate everything for ya. Better, more customisable interface and works like a charm across iOS and Android. Give ’em some love on twitter too (http://twitter.com/feedly) they’re good people….and boy have they just had to increase their bandwidth

  2. Hi James – Another feed reader option is Fever – http://feedafever.com/ – a US$30 self-hosted application. So if you have a Linux hosting account, you can load it there and manage your own feeds so nobody knows what you are reading! I have been using it for months and it works great, plus they have an Safari formatted page for iPhones.

    #vivarss

    mp/m

  3. Looks like lots of options are crawling out of the woodwork now which is a good thing, but as you said it’ll really depend for me on which back ends my reader software can hook into. I’m currently using Newsify and the FAQ on their site says “our desire is to keep Newsify working after Google Reader shuts down” (http://newsify.co/faq/general/what-will-happen-when-google-reader-shuts-down.html). I guess they’ll start looking at other APIs such as Feedlys.

    I’m tempted to try Fever too but again, it’ll only work it Newsify plays nicely with it

  4. So far Feedly and Netvibes are the ones I’m liking the look of. I’ve put my mail in to get a notification of when Russ’ Magnet.io goes live so I can try that out too, sounds promising.

  5. Google Reader’s such a great tool for randomly discovering hidden gems. I think I’ll go for Flipboard (as a primary Google Reader substitute) and Feedly.

  6. It’s not just the loss of an RSS reader – it’s also the loss of a big piece of the blogging ecosystem – Google Reader provider reader statistics, discover and sharing – all things that will be less effective in the (inevitably) more fragmented RSS world that will be left. On the bright side, it has made people think about blogs and blogging again 🙂

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