After years of honorable service, Google decided to dismiss, without great honour as already happened for other services in the past, his RSS reader, Google Reader. Widely used by a large proportion of users probably saw decline dramatically the number of new subscriptions over the past few years, when mobile news aggregators have catalysed the attention of 'news consumers'.
Even Google's strategy probably will seek to transfer users to mobile services like Currents, where the Colossus of Mountain View has more control over news that appear to users. Google Reader had been presented in beta in October 2005 through Google Labs tool, source of news from the Californian giant. About two years after he was out of the beta stage.
Now about six years later comes the time of retirement, news that has taken many by surprise and thrown some panicking. For those panicked the first move is surely to rescue all feeds via Google Takeout, the service that allows you to download an archive with the data of all Google services and a selection of them.
For those looking for alternatives to Google Reader to use, the list can be quite long: before choosing your new RSS reader may need to stop and think about the kind of use that has been made so far and the possible future developments in mobile. Some of the alternative reader are ready for the mobile experience, others, such as Google Reader itself, which was present as an app, but with a less user experience to the desktop version, are more related to the use of your PC.
TOP 6 ALTERNATIVES TO GOOGLE READER
Feedly: Feedly is certainly one of the alternatives that this lapse of time since the announcement of the retirement of Google Reader has most attracted the attention of the general public and all those looking for an alternative. The possibility to login with their Google credentials and start directly importing your feed has been one of the most successful moves from Feedly, who thus clinched users looking for a solution with a simple and painless. The interface is clean and essential both on the monitor at home is on the display of your mobile iOS or Android.
DOWNLOAD | Feedly
The Old Reader: in this case you can import your saved feed on Google Reader, but the procedure is less immediate: you must retrieve the OPML file from Google Reader settings, save it to your PC and then upload it to The Old Reader. Simplicity is one of the key words of this RSS reader, with clean interface although colorful and scanty and simple settings. At the moment is suitable for those who use RSS feeds on YOUR PC as the mobile version is not yet available, but it is very targeted instead to lovers of social, because there are many possibilities for more interesting content sharing that appear between your feed.
NetVibes: Anything app too for this service but do you forgive for a desktop version really full of personalization, offering, for example, the opportunity to create custom widgets for some feeds of interest. The widgets are freely adjustable within the UI, to always have an eye on RSS feeds of interest. There are three versions: Basic, free, VIP requires a subscription from $ 3,5 per month, while the Premium version with tracing and notification services for large businesses and services, at a price of $ 499 per month.
DOWNLOAD | NetVibes
NewsBlur: available in the web version, iOS and Android, this RSS feed reader is free up to 64 sites, while a larger number of subscriptions require a subscription: premium account costs $ 24 worth per year. The customizability, with categories and tags are very wide and it is interesting the possibility of creating a Blurblog, in which to place the news of interest to show others, creating our own press clippings.
DOWNLOAD | NewsBlur
Pulse: Pulse is the RSS reader that is detached from the approach that has established itself with Google Reader, following instead the more Visual that many sites have decided to implement. With Pulse showcase RSS feed image and populates the algorithm of service deals to place on top the news should match the best to our interests. Pulse offers web version, Android and iOS.
DOWNLOAD | Pulse
Newsvibe: This is perhaps one of the most basic and essential alternatives, without integration with app or social networks. Minimalist in design and functions is suitable for those who love simplicity and cleanliness.
In beta, mobile, and aggregators
The end of support for Google Reader might also be a good time to change the approach and jump on new services. Digg and AOL have announced their own RSS reader: in the case of Digg Reader the approach should be the same as that featured what for a long time was the most popular news aggregator in the world and then provide a service based on the trendiest stories according to shares and the votes of users.
Next after the AOL Reader, there is a rumor that Facebook is working on a reader, for more than a year. Little is known of the work behind the scenes of Mark Zuckerberg, but chances are, as happened with Graph Search, that Facebook is searching for his very personal solution that leveraged the wide face user base and on all the most popular social network knows of its users, their friends and their interests.
Changing approach of all you can opt for a dynamic news aggregator: it is under the eyes of all the success of services that aggregate news and ordering (according to various criteria) to bring out the most important and interesting. Many of them are born on furniture and offer an interface optimized for tablet or smartphone. Flipboard is perhaps one of the most famous: born on the iPad was then extended to smartphones. It has a hybrid approach: in addition to aggregate news allows you to connect your Google Reader account and integrate into the content flow even those feeds.
DOWNLOAD | Flipboard
This overview of alternatives to Google Reader certainly didn't claim to be neither complete nor exhaustive: now let the word to our readers. You have already found your solution alternative to Google Reader? Which one?
