In a move that I can only describe as baffling, Google have announced that their free online news reader app, Google Reader, will be shut down on July 1st. The system alllows you to read and process RSS news feeds (like our very own one here) in a nice easy-to-use system.
Google state that…
We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined.
So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.
Whilst they don’t offer an alternative, I can only imagine that Google want you to use the likes of Google Currents, which offers a magazine-like editions from RSS feeds. This, however, isn’t accessible through a web page so you could perhaps consider services like NetVibes, which I’ve been using for years now.
Source – Google
Both Feedly (my personal favourite) and Pulse have web portals to accompany their mobile apps. Both worth checking out.
This is really annoying. All the good RSS apps use Reader on the back end to manage subscriptions. Who’s going to step in and capture this market now? Seems a strange move given Reader’s popularity with the technocrati.
This must be my fault – I’d just started using Google Reader! Grrr!