Buh bye Reader?

Have you heard the word? Google Reader is going away:

They announced it this week:

“We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.”

Yep – July 1st of this year and it’s gone! A few months ago I wouldn’t have cared much about this, but lately I’ve been using Reader a LOT. My absolute favorite way to read blogs now is using my “Next” button some of you told me about when I wrote this post.

I personally love seeing each blog and would rather see the whole page than read posts in a reader, so the Next button has been AWESOME. Boo.

I do also read blogs on my phone and ipad using the Feeddler App and love it – it is so easy to use and that’s saying a lot for this technologically challenged girl. But it’s fed through Google Reader so I assume it will be worthless?

UGH. Why do people have to mess with stuff? I hate change. There are a few options that look like they may take over where Google is leaving off – The Old Reader (whaa? Didn’t know there was another one? And why would they leave that one?), Feedly and Newsblur seem to be the best ones out there.

My question is, to use these we need to re-subscribe to each blog we follow, correct?

Here’s an article about those options and a few more. And if you are fired up about this change you can sign a petition here. Nearly 100,000 signatures in a day – not to shabby! You never know, maybe it will make a difference?

Do you use Google Reader? If you use something else please tell us about it! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I need to find a new way to follow – or I guess I could just bookmark each site and go through them that way…it worked fine for years. ;)