RIP Google Reader

I am sure you know by now Google Reader's last day of existence will be June 30. If you do not want to lose your current blog reading lists then you need to transfer them to another reader service asap.

After my initial freaking out over the Google announcement, I started researching alternatives. I started out by transferring my Google Reader list to several different ones. I then went cold turkey, completely abandoning Google Reader and started reading blogs through the new ones. I wound up trying out four different ones and if you follow the link provided there are instructions on how to move from Google to each service.

Netvibes - This by far was my favorite as far as the look and ease of use once I played around with it a bit. It isn't strictly a reader service - more of a dashboard. Don't be scared off by the premium price tag since the free basic service is all you need for blog reading. However, and it's a huge however for me, it does not provide timely feeds. Apparently they use some type of periodic polling type system to update the blog feeds. I actually used this one the most of the four but in the end I just could not tolerate the fact that feeds didn't update quickly. If they ever fixed that I would go back to it in a heart beat.

Bloglovin - This is one that a lot of people have endorsed but frankly it was my least favorite. I know why people endorse it - it's because you have to go to the actual blog to read the whole post. The people who like that are the ones who are sponsored and want you to see the advertisements and items for sale on their blog. It's fine if that is what you want to do but I have a lot of blogs in my reader list and I don't have the time or interest in clicking on each one individually. I want to scroll and read and only click over to the blog when I want to leave a comment!

The Old Reader -This one looks a lot like Google Reader although not as polished. My folders and blog lists converted over perfectly and it was easy to use. It's currently my second favorite but I could easily go to it if my first choice fails me.

Feedly -Admittedly, I ruled this one out first even though my folders and blog lists converted with no problems. But I was trying it out early when everyone else started looking around and it was so very slow. Apparently they have made some upgrades to servers as well as making some requested changes as I have no such issues with it now. And I think they will continue to make improvements to it. Currently this is my reader of choice but it really is a toss up between it and The Old Reader. I don't think you could go wrong with either one.

I hope you've found this helpful. I sure don't want to lose any of my readers!


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