Thursday, March 14, 2013

Google Reader no more...

I learned yesterday that my RSS subscription service of choice -- Google Reader -- is shutting down July 1st. So I promptly synced my Google Reader with another RSS service -- Feedly.com. I'm not sure this will be the subscription service I stay with, but for now I'm happy that a second copy of my blog and website subscriptions are safely stored in another location, in addition to Google Reader (and the account sign up & sync process went very smoothly). And I do like Feedly's organization options thus far -- even if it has been a bit glitchy/slow on occasion since I set up my account (I expect that is due, at least in part, to its servers being overwhelmed with new accounts since the GR announcement.

So I'm curious -- what other options do any of you use to keep track of blogs and websites?

13 comments:

The Insouciant Sophisticate said...

Thank you for your recommendation-I will check feedly out and see what other options are available. I'm so upset to be losing google reader!

Tales of Whimsy said...

I've been wondering what others are using. I've heard of several more I need to check out. Taptu, Pulse, and The Old Reader. Thanks for your feedback on this one. :)

Unknown said...

@Bookworm1858 - Please let me know what other options you explore! I'm not sure if I'm going to stick w/ Feedly, but I feel better having a back-up already in place, you know? Unfortunately any new format will take some getting used to. *sigh*

@Juju - Thanks for those recs!

Kristin said...

Right now I'm feeling a bit clueless about blogging-related stuff. :) I follow blogs through my Blogger dashboard. So...is this going to affect me? I'm trying to find answers online but have no idea what all of these terms mean, LOL.

~Kristin

Unknown said...

@Kristin - If you just follow blogs through the Blogger dashboard, my understanding is that this change will not impact you. :) But I'll post if I find out otherwise -- and please, let me know if you do the same!

Kaye Dacus said...

Now that Feedly isn't overwhelmed with everyone transitioning over, as I'm sure they were last night, leading to problems loading, it's working much better for me today. Using it in the list-view, it works a lot like the mobile web version of GR does, where I can easily scroll through all of my blogs in one long list instead of always having to go back to the home page to go to the next blog feed.

Fortunately, we have time to figure out which service we like best between now and the time GR goes away. It also gives other developers time to come up with new viable alternatives.

Unknown said...

@Kaye - I agree! Feedly is working MUCH better for me this morning and I've enjoyed spending some time exploring the site and organizing/cleaning up my subscriptions.

Patti said...

I'm with Kristen. I follow blogs through my Blogger dashboard. I don't like going through feeds, as I can't leave a comment for the person that way (and I am a huge believer in leaving comments).

So, updates will continue to post that way, is that right?

Unknown said...

@Patti - My understanding is that the Blogger dashboard isn't changing (at this time, at any rate). I love comments too so I definitely try to click through my feed reader, though sometimes I'm better about that than others. ;) Thanks for stopping by!

aimymichelle said...

i'm totally bummed. but i kinda like feedly and i'm not sure but bloglovin also. i dunno which i want to use though.

Unknown said...

@aimymichelle - I hear ya! I've made myself use only Feedly all day and I'm getting used to it, so that's good. :)

Traxy said...

Yeah, my reaction to hearing the news was like "but NOW what am I supposed to use?!" because in GR, there are all the Blogger blogs I follow, all the WP blogs I follow and a few other sites. Sure, there's the Blogger dashboard, but I never actually look at the blogs there, and I don't want to have to log in to WP and start following every blog again through there. Ugh.

A friend told me about Feedly, so that's what I did yesterday. But still. It's not as nice and easy as GR, even if you can set your own colour background. :/

Unknown said...

@Traxy - Yeah, getting used to the new format has been a bit of a pain...but at least my sites are there. Let me know if you find something you like better!