Tag Archives: google reader

Google kills Google Reader

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.

via Official Blog: A second spring of cleaning.

My brother, James, brought this terrible news to me. I love Google Reader. Earlier today I mentioned to gem that Google Reader is a great tool, and that more people need to use it and RSS feeds in general. Reading individual sites requires you to remember to check them and to see content in various layouts. For most sites, the content is what matters, not the layout and style. RSS feeds allow you to grab the content without the need to bother going to the site.

Google Reader is a feed aggregator that shows you all the feeds to which you’re subscribed and their items. You can also organize them into folders to sort. I have 272 subscriptions. I’ve read 2,306 items in the last 30 days and 104,820 items since March 2, 2008. That’s a little over five years that I’ve used this wonderful service.

I read jokes, gaming news, a ton of WoW blogs, US news, world news, tech news, and more. Google Reader also allows you to tag items and star items. There are two tags I use all the time – “suggested reading” and “show gem.” You might be able to guess what “show gem” is; I mark items that I want to show gem later.

I use “suggested reading” to mark WoW posts that I’d like to consider for my weekly post on my WoW blog highlighting blog posts from other sites. Once a week I look through the tag, decide which to use, and remove the tag from the current items. You can also e-mail people from Google Reader. This is also really useful.

One of the coolest features are they keyboard shortcuts. There are shortcut keys for selecting articles, e-mailing, tagging, marking read/unread, and more. It’s super helpful and easy to use. Google Reader’s also a web app, which means you can access it anywhere. An installed program wouldn’t be anywhere near as useful. I use it at home, at work, and on my phone.

Folders, tags, and stars are very useful for feed organizing. I know there are other RSS readers, but I sure hope there’s one with a feature set that rivals Google Reader’s! I don’t blame Google for this. If people don’t use this service, it’s understandable. I blame all of you that don’t use it. You’re all terrible people.