Google announced yesterday that its RSS feed aggregator, Reader, will be shut down on July 1. A Change.org petition to save the service has over 40,000 signatures as of this writing. Reader has faced threats of shutdown since 2008, with Google pulling people from the team to build their various social platforms.
In other news, MIT builds a "leaf" that gathers solar and hydro energy, and check out a concrete that repairs itself. See the headlines after the jump.
• Google Petitioned By Fans Of Google Reader To Reconsider Shutdown | Fast Company
• The Long-Awaited “Artificial Leaf” Promises Fuel From Sunlight And Water | Co.Exist
• This Concrete Fixes Itself When Exposed To Sunlight | Co.Exist
(Image: Fast Company)
Which Wall Color Gives the Best Sleep?
Ana Creates a Community at Home
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Z2 iPod Dock and Wi...
Soda Recipe: Homemade Ginger Ale
Recipe: Spring Fruit and Nut Tabouli
Please sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-running
I downloaded feedly as a chrome extension. It will import your google reader feeds, and shares a similar look and feel. So far, so good.
Yeah, I'm liking feedly so far too. It's a nice interface.
Where can we get a link to download feedly?
I'm playing with feedly too as of this announcement, liking it so far.
www.feedly.com
So sad!!! I use google reader everyday! I'll have to try Feedly I guess, though I have some issues with Chrome.
FEEDLY to the rescue!
Feedly seems to have some chronology errors. The posts go from today to yesterday back to today and then back to yesterday. I hope they can work out the bugs before July.
I am SO DEVASTATED by this. Besides Feedly, are there any other alternatives?
Will feedly still work once google reader shuts down? It seems like the ipad app is a lot like Feedler which depends on reader.
As an avid Google Reader user, I wasn't too happy when I logged in this morning. A quick google search for "Google Reader replacements" gave me many articles with lists of the best (free) replacements.
@Sk345 -- You might want to try a simple google search. While Feedly seems to be the most popular replacement option -- it is also the one I chose to switch to -- there are certainly other alternatives.
I've only just started checking in to Feedly, but it seems to be pretty easy to use. Everything from Google Reader imported in a matter of seconds. So far, so good.
@Chereebers - Feedly has already creating a back-up system in anticipation of Reader being killed. If you import your feed from Google, supposedly you'll never know when Reader's gone. I love it so far!
I've been using Feedly for a while for my iPhone. It's been an awesome app, I think it will fill the void nicely.
I use Bloglovin to read all the blogs that I follow and I really like its app for my phone more so than anything. It's easy to add blog to it as well.
I just downloaded Feedly and it seems pretty good so far. Different layout but I enjoy how it looks. I haven't seen it on my phone though yet so I can't comment there.
bloglovin' is pretty awesome so far...
Netvibes is very similar in interface to Google Reader. I tried Feedly but it didn't work for me because its interface is too different. Just make sure to switch from "Widgets view" to "Reader view" in the top lefthand corner of the site once you sign up. That way it looks just like GR. It's really simple to import your Reader subscriptions to Netvibes, you just have to:
1. Head to Google Takeout's Reader page (https://www.google.com/takeout/?pli=1#custom:reader) and click the Create Archive button. It'll start building a file with all your feeds, the people you follow, starred items, and more (though most of these won't be importable to other sites).
2. Once it's finished building, click the Download button that appears to get your subscriptions.
3. Open up the ZIP file you just downloaded and go through the folders inside. Inside the Reader folder, you should see a file called subscriptions.xml. Extract that to your desktop.
4. Open up Netvibes, click on the "add content" button in the top right hand corner. It is green and has a plus sign. In the "add feed" box, find the Import option. Select it, and choose the subscriptions.xml file you just extracted. All of your feeds should appear in your new reader.
#4 is top LEFT hand corner, not right. My bad.
There are lots of alternatives, but keep in mind they're all being slammed by people fleeing Google Reader.
Netvibes
Newsblur
The Old Reader
FeedDemon
NetNewsWire
Bloglines
Flipboard
Zite
Google Currents
lots more on browser, desktop, and mobile space
I'm just going to wait a couple months and let the other companies figure out how to re-create my Google Reader experience. For all I know, we'll convince them to not close down in the meantime.
Thanks for the resources, everyone. I share the pain. I'd even pay for a good alternative.
I like http://theoldreader.com/ so far. :)
I'm really bummed out by this. I was enticed by the automatic migration that Feedly offers, but I'm not really liking it. I am hoping I can find a better option in the next few months that I can use on both on my computer (Windows) and phone (Android).