‘Tis a sad day. On my usual rounds of morning blog reading I went to click on my Reader in Gmail and found it had gone missing. I was both surprised and resigned at the same time. Earlier in the week I got a message from gods at Google saying they were eliminating the Google Reader as of July 1st. That was the resigned part. The surprise part was my Reader had already pulled a Houdini and gone poof.
What Is/Was Google Reader?
In the years before we started using Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about our blogs with links, we had RSS. RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. We would create our blogs on WordPress, Blogger, or Typepad (didn’t think we’d be walking that far down memory lane, did you?), then we’d go to Feedburner and sign up for our RSS feed.
We’d then stick the familiar little RSS button in our sidebar, where people could click and either have our new posts sent directly to their emails each time one came out, or, they could add it to their Feed Reader.
The Feed Reader was an easy way of viewing all the blogs we subscribed to, and at the same time, keep our email boxes clutter free.
Where Oh Where Has My Reader Gone And Why?
Recently, Google had announced the Reader’s days were numbered. The company felt that Google Reader wasn’t as popular as it used to be and they wanted to concentrate their efforts elsewhere, on bigger and better projects.
That’s totally understandable. Companies have to weigh the options and do what’s right for them in the end, even if it does disappoint the few who still enjoy a specific product.
But, faithful Google Reader Fans, don’t despair. There is another option. After doing some searching and coming up blank, I put the question out to the G+ crowd. An old friend of mine, Pat Richards, stepped up and sent me a great link to The Old Reader.
Sign in with Facebook or G+ and you’re ready to go. Easily fill up your new Old Reader by going to your favorite blog, copying the URL, then clicking on the “Add a Subscription” button and pasting the URL in there. Voila! You’ve begun collecting your new feed list!
So, if you’d rather not rely solely on social networks, or have your inbox cluttered, give The Old Reader a try. And if you don’t use a Reader, how do you follow your favorite blogs? Did you even know Google Reader existed? Tell us here in the comments!
PS: If your Reader button is missing from your Gmail menu, you can still access your old reader here: http://reader.google.com/ . Go to Settings to export your feeds in a zip file, which contains the data file you’ll need to import it into The Old Reader. After I’ve tried that, I’ll make an addition here and let you know how it went.