Google Reader Alternatives: RSS Readers For Thwarted Souls
feature image via o.canada.com
Welcome to the twentieth installment of Queer Your Tech with Fun, Autostraddle’s nerdy new tech column. Not everything we cover will be queer per se, but it will be about customizing this awesome technology you’ve got. Having it our way, expressing our appy selves just like we do with our identities. Here we can talk about anything from app recommendations to choosing a wireless printer to web sites you have to favorite to any other fun shit we can do with technology.
Header by Rory Midhani
Didja hear? Google reader is being deactivated on July 1st. The Official Google Blog says that “There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience.” And then the internet melted. There’s even a Change.org petition asking Google to keep their popular reader alive. Or maybe you just want to move on and handle your grief by leaving a flower on the grave.
Also our team cried huge, internet-writer tears. In fact, Carmen said “MY ENTIRE LIFE IS ABOUT TO COLLAPSE.” For many of us, Google Reader is how we make our internet come to us! And we all read a lot of internet. If you haven’t used Google Reader, here’s a quick overview. Using RSS (stands for “Rich Site Summary,” but often referred to as “Really Simple Syndication”) is a way to keep tabs on websites with frequently updated content – like blogs! Like Autostraddle! You can add feeds that are front pages on websites, feeds for just specific tags. You don’t have to go to websites just to see what’s new – the new shows up all in one place. And the great part is that Google Reader isn’t the only RSS reader out there (though sometimes it may feel like it). We’ve spent the week trying to figure where we’re going to put our internet, and we figure that you have too. So we’ve decided to bring you our discussion, our top choice, and a few runners up. And then we want to know what you’re going to do come July 1st. So without further ado –
Our Top Choice: Feedly!
I asked the team what they were doing, expecting to get a lot of different answers. But I actually almost got one resounding answer. Feedly. You can get it for the web, iOS, Android and Kindle. For now, you can connect it to Google reader, but it stands totally independent too! Plus it’s easy to import everything. Carmen says: “I moved to feedly. It took 5 seconds to import and my life just got 10x more beautiful.” Laneia wins everything with her opinion on Feedly’s beauty: “YES feedly is so pretty. moved everything yesterday and i feel like i took a bath AND shaved my legs. like it’s that clean.” Feedly does let you choose a theme for it’s appearance, so it’s totally personalize-able (tech you can queer!), and all the themes are nice and plain, so the content is really the star of the show. Kristen has a very unique take on Feedly – she mainly used Google Reader to organize Google News alerts. Which Feedly does! “I’m firmly on the Feedly bandwagon since you can add a Google Alert in two clicks. I am all simple when it comes to tech.” And guys, full disclosure. I just got a Feedly account and stopped writing this article for like an hour while I rediscovered all the things I had meant to read this week. It was gorgeous.
Some Other Options!
Okay, so because all of us are so on board with Feedly, I still wanted to give you some more options so it wouldn’t be such a monopost. Here’s a round up of all the round ups that the internet gave birth to this week. I give you a list of lists of Google Reader replacements.
Which Google Reader Replacement Will You Use? MIT Technology Review
8 Google Reader Replacements. Extreme Tech
The Best Google Reader Replacements. Gizmag
Digg To Build Google Reader Replacement. Engadget
10 Replacements for Google Reader. Social Times
A Real Simple Solution to the Death of Google Reader. Copyblogger
So what are your RSS feels? Are you guys jumping to something different? Subscribing via email? How are you queering your RSS feeds?