The Verge - Requiem for Google Reader: an RSS behemoth shuts down

Reeder for iPhone now supports standalone RSS and Feedbin, Google Reader no longer required

2013-04-27T20:13:06Z

One of the side effects of Google's decision to shut down Reader on July 1st is that numerous mobile and desktop apps are now scrambling for a new way to provide value to their users. Reeder, one of the most popular Google Reader apps for iOS, had previously announced plans to continue development despite Reader's impending shudown, and now there's a new version of the app available that can sync with third-party RSS reader Feedbin. Of course, you'll need to sign up for the $2 monthly fee that Feedbin charges, but after that you'll be free to use Reeder long past July 1st.

Perhaps more noteworthy is Reeder's new, standalone RSS feature — you don't even need a Feedbin or Google Reader account anymore. Instead, you can start curating...

More than 500,000 Google Reader users flock to Feedly in two days

2013-03-16T21:01:26Z

Google's controversial decision to shut down Google Reader on July 1st has left its users searching for a new news-collecting homeland, and we now have an idea of the scale of the RSS diaspora. Feedly has announced that more than half a million Google Reader users have signed up for its RSS service following Google's service termination announcement on Wednesday. Feedly also says it's working to keep up with its growth, increasing bandwidth by 10 times and adding new servers. Moving forward, the developers say its main priorities over the next 30 days are to keep the service running, to solicit suggestions from new users, and to add new features on a weekly basis.

The Google Reader shutdown will force users and developers of third-party...

Why RSS still matters

2013-03-14T21:11:04Z

Google's bombshell last night that it would be shutting down the Google Reader RSS client hit the web, well, like a bomb. Just as with any major tech event, it spurred a raft of reactions on what is currently our best real-time conversation broadcasting network, Twitter. Reactions ranged from outrage to sadness to smugness — the latter epitomized by the camp who say that RSS was already a confusing mess that needed to be shot down completely and besides, it had been replaced by Twitter itself anyway.

Well, no. RSS matters.

Let's start out with some distinctions and, yes, some education — because even though RSS is over a decade old, it never really caught on with regular web users. It stands for "Real Simple Syndication," and on a...

As Google Reader goes offline, those living under censorship lose vital news source

2013-03-14T21:03:03Z

For many of us, Google Reader fading into oblivion means we'll need to hunt down another source for our daily news fix. For others, though, the loss is far more significant. As Quartz is today pointing out, Reader has become a critical resource for those living under oppressive regimes in recent years — particularly in Iran. Despite the stranglehold Iran has put on web access with its heavy-handed censorship tactics, Reader has continually provided its residents with uncensored news and views from the outside world. That's because the headlines, snippets, and other items in a Google Reader feed are retrieved from Google's own servers located far away from the regime's jurisdiction.

The search company's colossal influence has thus far...

Digg will build its own version of Google Reader, should sync with existing clients

2013-03-14T18:39:56Z

Faithful Google Reader users have spent the last day asking themselves what they'll do when the RSS service shuts down on July 1st, and one of the more unlikely options might be coming from Digg. The company just announced in a blog post that it plans to build its own version of Google Reader that "makes the Internet a more approachable and digestible place." The company's vision involves identifying and rebuilding the best features of Reader while simultaneously making it "fit the Internet of 2013." From the sound of things, that'll include plenty of ways to hook your RSS into the social web, as the company explicitly mentioned sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Reddit as "powerful but often overwhelming signals as to what's...

Feedly could save Google Reader clients with cloned API

2013-03-14T01:49:34Z

The impending demise of Google Reader has major implications for the app development community; Google's RSS service had become the de facto standard for third-party clients, and users and developers alike will need to find an alternative. Popular news aggregation app Feedly thinks it has a solution, though — it's been working on a project that clones the Google Reader API, and says that users will see a "seamless transition" once Reader shuts down.

It sounds like other clients will have the option of Feedly's solution, too; a statement provided to GigaOm says that since the Feedly-created API is supposed to be identical to Google's, other clients should be able to plug into the service in the same way. However, Feedly notes that...

Google, don't turn off Reader. Signed, The Internet

2013-03-13T23:43:06Z

Google's sudden decision to sunset Reader — perhaps the best-known RSS reader ever made — has been met with swift reaction from high-profile users across the web. Here's a sampling of people asking to save an RSS service on Google... all coming from the service that probably helped kill it in the first place: Twitter.

Google Reader to shut down July 1st

2013-03-13T23:14:42Z

Google has announced yet another spring cleaning of its various services, and this time around, the company is giving the axe to its Google Reader RSS aggregator. The service, which originally launched back in 2005, will be officially put out to pasture on July 1st, 2013. Reader has gone through a number of iterations, but it had not been significantly updated in a long time. The last time that Google updated the product, it built in integration for the Google+ social network and removed Reader's own native sharing service, causing a bit of a backlash with die hard users. Google is offering users a way to export their Reader content, including lists of users that they follow and starred and liked articles.

In addition to killing off...