Goodbye Google Reader

Yesterday, I was browsing my feeds in Google Reader and came upon an article relaying the news that Google Reader will be retired on July 1st.  According to the post on Google's official blog, the service was launched in 2005.  I started using it shortly after launch and have visited the site most days since, so I was pretty disappointed to hear the news.  I knew it was a bad sign when the Reader link disappeared from the prominent section of the Google app bar and moved more than half way down the "More" menu, but I hoped that Google would at least keep it alive as long as it made them more money than it cost to operate.  Perhaps that's no longer true, but I have my doubts.  After a certain point, the service ceased to receive much in the way of UI or feature updates and it's hard to believe it's been a resource hog (the same can't be said of Google Wave).  Although I doubt it will make a difference, I signed a petition on change.org, asking that the service be kept alive.

Rather than waiting around and hoping for its revival, I thought it would be worth exploring alternatives to Reader.  A quick Google search led me to a CNET article discussing five other options and Digg announced today that they'll be building one as well.  My plan is to try out Feedly in Chrome and on my phone and see what I think.  So far, so good, but I'll let you know if my opinion changes.