Google Reader: the end of an era

This is only going to be of interest if you use Google’s excellent Google Reader service to consume your web content via RSS feeds.

If you have no idea what that means, stop reading now 😉

I logged into Google Reader a couple of days ago to discover that Google is planning to discontinue the service in July. Seems like they weren’t able to monetize it sufficiently, or there weren’t enough users, or something data-driven like that.

While I’m sure they have their reasons, I was unpleasantly surprised. I’ve been using Reader for years now to read blogs and webcomics and really like the simplicity, and how well it syncs across computers and mobile devices.

Fortunately I am not the only one with this problem, and it seems as though Feedly has decided that they would like to snap up all of the Google Reader customers. If you go to their website, you can sign in with your Google account and when the time comes they will migrate all your settings to their system.

I’ve been playing with Feedly on Windows and my iPhone since yesterday and so far it seems like a good solution. It’s not the same as Reader, but it comes close, and I’m sure it will be fine once I get used to it.

So as a public service announcement, if you need a replacement for Reader, Feedly seems like a relatively painless solution.