Google Reader

I’ve been using Google Reader since 2007 – a long time in Web terms.

I don’t quite know why I feel so bereft that Google Reader’s going/gone [it’s still accessible at the time of writing, 6am West Australian time, 1 July]. In the last 2-3 years I’d be lying if I said I relied on it as much as I used to. Twitter, Zite both have provided me with a lot of reading material. But Twitter and Zite feel very ephemeral. Things come, things go. Some things I see, others I miss.

Google Reader was my go-to, my record of things people were writing about.

Before Google Reader, Bloglines was my RSS reader. I think I used Bloglines for about two years or so, and then, I happily migrated to Google Reader. If memory serves, Bloglines started to get unreliable at the time, so there was a reason to move.

This time I’m not moving because I want to. But it’s fine.

I’ve moved my feeds to Feedly. I’m also checking out the Digg reader and M’s just alerted me to another reader called Mr. Reader. I’ll continue using Zite, and I’ll keep trying to like Flipboard. And of course I will continue with Twitter. (I’m not exactly short of options.)

New tools will be developed, old tools will disappear. My habits and practices will change. Everything changes. I remind myself that the shock of things changing on the Web is magnified because the changes are so regular, frequent, and fast. It’s good, in a way, that I’m being forced to move. It’s easy to get complacent.

I will miss Google Reader though. It helped me develop and maintain good reading habits for Web content. It was easy to use and easy to save stuff. It was a good tool.

It was so much a part of everyday, it does feel somewhat like something, someone’s died.

But, life goes on.

What are you doing, post-Google Reader?

The home screen of my iPad mini. What do I do most? Tweet, read, listen to music.