Google Reader Closing Really Sucks
Dear Google:
I am one of those loyal users you wrote about when you made the announcement tonight that you’re closing Google Reader. I check it about… well… let’s be honest, I waste a lot of work time so I probably check no fewer than 20 times per day. Sometimes I leave it open and jump back to it to see if anyone has posted. Sometimes Google Reader is the hour I look forward to at the end of the day where I can catch up on my friend’s lives.
Closing Google Reader down hasn’t taken away those friendships; but you’ve made communication that much harder. The Blogosphere is not like a brick-and-mortar town where we can walk between houses easily and look out our windows to see if someone is home. We rely on RSS feeds to let us know that someone has posted a blog update. If not, their words often float away into the ether, unread.
RSS feeds have let me know that someone’s child has been born or that someone’s child has died. It’s been the way we’ve known to celebrate with a blogger or circle the wagons. It is the fastest way to know that someone has said something, and in this community, that update tends to be important. At least, it is to us.
And yes, there are other ways that I intake blogs — Facebook links or Tweets or random surfing — but none of those exist on my time schedule. If I don’t log into those sites — those sites that move too quickly sometimes — I miss those blog updates. But Google Reader was always ready for me, sitting there waiting until I was ready to read.
I have several hundred blogs in my Reader. I have several thousand blog posts bookmarked. I have 2,200 subscribers to my blog. I know that you’re looking at all that as just numbers — you’ve made it clear that Google Reader just isn’t where it’s at financially for your company so you’re dropping the dead weight — but those aren’t numbers to me. Those numbers are just placeholders for actual people who are actual writers, recording their feelings and life’s ups and downs. I really want to connect with them. I want to hear them, and I want to be heard. In a world that is growing increasingly fragmented, that is so important.
Please don’t take this away.
Sincerely,
Melissa
Lifehacker has already outlined how to move your feeds, and I’ll do one of these options this week. If you have another service you can recommend, please let me know too. I would love to hear what people use beyond Google Reader.
I can promise you this right now: I am not going to stop reading you just because Google Reader is closing down. Please don’t stop writing.
41 comments
How disappointing!
Noooooooooooooooo! Ugh. This really sucks.
This sucks. I didn’t even know about it. I use google reader more than anything else. It’s the only reader I have that updates in real time. Ugh! I hope I don’t miss anything because of this. Thanks for letting me know since I hadn’t heard about it any other way.
Man that sucks! I realize there are other options but it has just been so convenient and, most importantly, I HATE change!!!
I just posted about this too — came onto my Reader tonight & got the message. It sucks. :p I have been using Google Reader almost as long as I’ve been blogging, and I have nearly 600 blogs in there (not all of them ALI-related, and not all of them active, but still…!). I read pretty much all of my blogs on Google Reader, & I have it open on my desktop all day, waiting for me whenever I need a break. ; )
I would love to hear of any good alternatives too.
One thing I’m looking into is reading blogs via MacMail: http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#addrssfeed
Has anyone done this?
I am having a lot of trouble trying to set up Netvibes. And NewsBlur only allows you 64 blogs on their free version.
Shit, seriously? Dang, I better figure out how to move my stuff. I haven’t actually used my blog roll in forever.
This makes me really glad I still have a full blown blogroll and never relied on Google reader. Still sucks though.
I’m probably feeling dramatic because the news is fresh, but it feels like the community I’ve spent so much of my time and energy building the past seven years will slowly disappear. A lot of blogs’ readership won’t recover from this.
I’m seeing good things about Feedly (and apparently so are 1,000’s of others because their site is slammed!). Haven’t been able to get over to try it out.
What also concerns me is whether Blogger is next on the chopping block…
Nooooo! How will I read?!?! This is AWFUL:(
No no no no no no no….no! & what you said goes ditto for me! & did I mention NO! Accentuated by a stomp of my foot! This really bums me out! I now only have 3 months to find a new way to read my blogs. Thinking it may be best to subscribe to them & receive by email…but can I do this with yours? I know I get a number of WordPress blogs this way…ok, I’m rambling so I’ll get myself to bed & worry about this tomorrow.
WTF??? How did this happen? Don’t take away my Reader!!!
I don’t even have words for this. Reader is the only way I connect with other infertility bloggers. This. Just. Sucks.
I’ve been using Bloglovin’ – both on my laptop and my iPad, and found it good, and really just need to load everything on there. I’ve looked into Feedly too, but haven’t got organised enough.
I found just changing to Google Chrome from Firefox was disruptive enough when it came to blog reading, as i didn’t have the RSS live bookmarks that are so good for blog reading. I’m glad I don’t have as many blogs on my reading list as you do. (Though I am of course glad that you do.)
My Reader says it will be closing Nov 1st, but the Lifehacker site has July 1st. I’ve had this notice for a while, but I was hoping that thye would just modify it some how. Bummer.
What Heather said.
May I sign your letter, too?
Scratch what I said about using macmail. Apparently they’ve discontinued that. Has anyone read blogs via outlook?
I just finished moving to NetVibes. I found the switch relatively painless if a bit slow. I’m familiar with NetVibes though so that probably helped me. Where are you having trouble Mel? Maybe I can help… though I probably have fewer feeds than you.
I didn’t realize that NewsBlur had a 64 feed limit for the free version. That’s… small…
Haven’t done Outlook, but on my computer, I read blogs via Thunderbird (the Mozilla email client). It works fine, especially if the blog puts the full text in the RSS feed. Of course, I don’t have anywhere near as many feeds as you, so you may not find it satisfying. And it’s not cloud-y, if that matters to you.
I have a super-awesome app on my tablet device, but it uses Google Reader subscriptions. Not sure how they’ll deal with the change.
I just completed the move to feedly and its nice, however there was a bit of a learning curve. Good Luck!
I’m using Feedler on my iPad as I never got google reader to work properly on it and I am really liking it. I still use google reader every day on my phone so I’m hopping mad at google for ditching it too.
I found out about this a few hours ago. What am I going to do?
Through a twitter/Facebook blog feed, I was told about http://www.feedly.com. It’s basically the same as Google reader, but you can customise it. I’m going to give it a go, but probably stay with Google until the end.
There is a petition set up if you want to sign it. I really hope they reconsider so I haven’t looked into alternatives yet. Maybe I’m just in denial. https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-running
Oh no, what a pain. I saw it this morning when opening up my reader to catch up after a week away. Thanks for the links, I will check out the alternatives when I have time.
Wow! That’s a lot of blogs and people to keep in touch with. How do you do it? I’m just amazed.
WHAT?! NO. This is horrible news. 🙁
Shame, I just started using it.
Wow. That really does suck. I rely so much on the Reader. Here’s hoping for a massive public outcry that causes them to change their mind.
I’m pissed, too.
I was just going to say to not use macmail. Mail was an effing PITA, as is the whole iCloud, always seeming to ask for a different Apple-associated password and kicking me out — I’m sure your son could help me out, though!
Feedly? Reviews are good, but I haven’t checked it out yet.
I’m successfully using NetVibes right now and I’m also trying out Old Reader (http://theoldreader.com/). If people want to try out Old Reader they will have to grant access to their Google account for the purposes of importing feeds and the like. It doesn’t seem to use any other data (I have my Google profile fairly locked down so it’s obvious to me when data is being called).
UGH. I’m so tired that’s all I can muster. But UGH.
Right on.
I don’t know how cross-platform friendly it is, but if you happen to use Google Chrome, I’ve found that RSS Live Links is pretty good for getting blog updates.
I signed the petition above- hopefully it opens Google’s eyes!
I tried Feedly today- it will be a good alternative.
Mel, the plug in I use pops the blogs with the newest posts to the top of the list.
I have started using Feedly and that is so seemless. It’s so easy to merge the blogs that I follow onto there. It made me realize how many I follow too! Ha ha.
I just have no idea how I will get my readers to follow my blog now, because I absolutely hate bloglovin’ and some of the other platforms. *Sigh*
I just switched to feedly. Tranferring literally could not have been easier, and I’m finding it easy enough to use. A little different from google reader, but honestly, I think I might like it better. Good luck!
In case people are still looking for options on moving feeds, I just saw this report:
http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/03/18/you-know-who-else-is-throwing-google-reader-users-a-lifeline-yahoo-japan/