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Goodbye, Google Reader. I Never Really Knew Ye.

Several years ago my online friends and podcasting buddies were going on and on about Google Reader. They were all over it like geeks on an upgrade.

I was creeped out by the idea of Google knowing what I read even more than they already knew. I didn’t use it. I did have some RSS feeds, but very few. Relying instead on Twitter and other social sharing sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, FB, etc., I found my news and my friends’ blog updates more “organically.”

Last year I realized I could be feeding RSS into Greader (our short nick for Google Reader) and dump that into FlipBoard on my iPhone. No more boring lines! I could read an article of substance while I waited, and I could keep up with friends.

But after a while, the shine dulled. I hardly even opened Flipboard let alone go through the 5+ navigation steps needed to view my feeds in it. I let blogs I should have been following go. I didn’t find a replacement and I didn’t form new habits.

Digg’s reader will have to take up the slack. I need to make sure I don’t miss my friends’ blog posts, and I can use Scoop.It or RebelMouse to browse others’ cool stuff. StumbleUpon was a lot of fun back in the day, too. Reddit is just a fun time-waster, as I have yet to find information there worthy of sharing with my particular niche.

Do you syndicate really simply? Which app will you be using to do that?

-PC

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Mike_S_Htown 2 July 2013, 8:06 am

    I was using FeedDemon on my PC, synced w/ Google Reader in the cloud. Now that FD is no longer being developed and GR is dead, I have switched to Feedly (iPhone and Firefox plugin) for now.

    I may change how I do things and just use Feedly on my phone to do the bulk of my RSS reading — or I may look for a FeedDemon replacement on the PC — its features are unmatched. FD is the Microsoft Word of RSS readers.

    I read 90% of PurpleCar posts in RSS — some I notice first on Facebook.

    Noticed this post while replying to another PurpleCar post! 🙂

    • PurpleCar 3 July 2013, 5:37 am

      Thanks, Mike. I’ll check out Feedly… but the thing is, I think I’ve pretty much broken my RSS habits now. I’m not sure if I could get them back in swing, even if I tried. I may just forget it…