I'm Glad Google Is Retiring Reader.

cpatti — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:35:00 GMT

Because I and about a zillion other jilted Reader fans have now found Feedly.

Feedly is what Reader wanted to be when it grew up, but never had the chance to become.

Yes, it's that good.

Just in case anyone out there reading this is thinking "Google What?" - here's the skinny. If you find yourself reading a lot of websites on a regular basis, constantly checking back to keep up to date with the latest, you REALLY want a feed reader like this. With something like this, you can treat them all as if you were browsing articles in a newspaper or magazine, either slavishly reading every one or, as I do, cherry picking what most piques your interest from the stream (or firehose as we geeks like to refer to it :)

Things I love about Feedly:

Keyboard commands for everything - I'm a mouse hater from way back. Force me to click at your peril :)
Multiple views - I can either view my stream the good old fashioned way like Reader used to do - just a big old list of text headlines, or like a newspaper with photos front and center.
A 'Must Read' setting for the 1% of blogs I really don't want to miss a single post from.
A truly superb mobile app! Can't overstate how important this is. The iPad and iPhone apps are optimized for that format, yet as feature-ful as the desktop. Major win! (Reader sucked at this, using it on the go was paaaainful.).
Laziness - if you already use Reader as I did, all your feeds import seamlessly into Feedly, and while Reader still breathes, Feedly keeps it up to date so there's zero risk in giving it a try.
OK I know I already mentioned the mobile experience but the iPhone app deserves special mention, it makes it *so* easy to browse my feeds on the go, marking articles I actually want to read in-depth for later perusal via one of my other faves, Pocket.

Seriously, mad props to the folks atFeedly for evolving the state of the art, giving me a seamless migration path, and generally taking an OK but generally pretty lackluster experience and elevating it to joy.

(And no, I'm not being paid by these guys, I'm just wild about the product.)

Blind Not Dumb (Posts about rss)

I'm Glad Google Is Retiring Reader.