If you read my blog you know I am completely distraught by apple getting rid of Google Reader, and have been busy trying out alternatives, but am still unhappy with any of them, and have just been using Google Reader while I can, and especially REEDER for the Mac, iPhone and iPad. Hopefully it will either get a way to sync via icloud or use a backend that will let it continue to work as it currently does.

Of the others Newsblur is pretty Reader like with some cool new features and does work well on the iPad.

I am not liking netvibes as well as you have to do too much with drop down menus.

And I still can’t say with TheOldReader as I am now 2023 in line to import my RSS feeds! Ha! At this rate Google Reader will be down by the time I get to try it out!

And I just don’t like Feedly. I want a list, not pictures and a magazine format. Too much like Flipboard for my taste. I want more control and more speed in my reeder.

I really hope DIggs new Reader is as good and fast as Reader.

The petition to save Google Reader at Change.org has reached 133,000. Need less than 17,000 more to hit 150,000! Come on!

Not that I think it will change Google’s mind, but it would be great if they released their source code so someone else could take up where they left off exactly, even with a pay wall, which I think enough of us would pay to make it worth while!

So I still want Google Reader back, and honestly mostly I have switched back to it along with Reeder on my iPad, but instead of staring items I am sending them to pinboard. And if I had to chose one of the other choices as of right now it would have to be newsblur, though I think it is slow and not nearly as efficient as Reader was.

And as for TheOldReader I can’t really say as I have only moved up to 4830 after what 5 days, so I figure my feeds will import in a couple of weeks and I can give it a go.

Netvibes interface is just not great for an iPad, which is where I mostly read feeds. Maybe with a dedicated app it would be better.

And Feedly I just don’t like the look of it, if they would also have a more reader like view maybe I could go for it. I do find it interesting that they say their user base grew by half a million in one day as of the announcement as that is a huge amount more than the 120,000 who have signed the petition to not kill Google Reader.

Lets hop that Diggs app is good.

Or if Reeder updates feeds itself, and syncs via iCloud as I do have Mac, iPad and iPhone versions. Will not be great for at work as I won’t have an app there, but I could always just use my ipad.

The Guardian UK has a great article on why killing Google Reader is like Killing the bees.

Basically RSS never caught on with the internet in general, and it isn’t an easy source of income, and google would of course rather have us use Google+, though it doesn’t work at all the same way.

The thing is the users of Google Reader are power users, and they still drive much more site traffic than Google+ does. And they are the journalists and power users and bloggers. And it is us that drives people to sites, and drives links on sites like Google+ and Facebook, so Google is effectively shooting themselves in the foot without any forward thinking.

I totally agree with the sentiment. It is the same kind of Hubris as Apple giving up on it’s power users without releasing a new MacPro in years! Power users may not themselves be a huge sales market, but they are in fact a huge driver of others users and the internet in general.

And to drive those users away from your services may not hurt in the short run, but it will hurt in the long run. Who of us will trust Google to keep it’s services around? Will Blogger be next? How about Gmail? Calendar? What service will Google drop next? And the more users that leave, the less money Google makes over advertising, and reading their data, and it will make them more irrelevant!

App Storm has an article on Google Reader going down and some alternatives that I have not heard anywhere else. A must read! I didn’t realize that Pinboard could import your starred pages from Google Reader! Very nice! And I have never even heard of the self hosted Fever! App Storm has an awesome review of it as well. Going to have to look into that!

So the Save Google Reader Petition at Change.org has reached 100,000 signatures! Lets see it make 150,000! And hope that Google is listening, though I doubt it!