The game is on. As we near the final hours of Google Reader’s existence countless services are launching similar reader apps, trying to nail down the kind of user base that Google once had. To do this, a lot of existing services are incorporating features known only to Reader. The real issue however, is that existing readers may never collect the users, if they don’t properly advertise the fact that their service has changed.
For example, Feedly has undergone a considerable change in just the last couple of months, and now it also includes one-click import functions to setup a whole subscription of feeds. You can import your Google Reader content into Feedly easily, but many users turned away from the service some time ago looking for yet an even better alternative. They also made a ton of other changes in just 100 days time.
Services like Feedly, NetNewsWire, NextGen Reader, theOldReader, Digg, Flipboard, Pulse, Rockmelt and tons of others have all cropped up recently. Hell, even Facebook is rumored to be working on a Flipboard-like news reader app. A lot of us still haven’t found what we’re looking for in a Reader (cue the music), but that’s okay because there definitely seems to be a lot of options lately.
According to Feedly:
The next 10 days are special: A lot of undecided Google Reader users are looking for a home. A lot of them might not know that feedly has evolved. A lot of them might not know that feedly is offering one-click migration. Please help us spread the word by sharing this post on your favorite social networks (you can use the buttons below) – and grow the feedly community!
In other words, the services are now competing with each other for visibility in the market, which is probably because so many of them have cropped up in such a short time.
What service have you turned to for your RSS needs? Have you found a suitable alternative to Google Reader? Personally, I like theOldReader although it doesn’t yet have a mobile app companion, but thanks to the open API you can use it with universal reader apps.
I know one thing for certain, I will definitely mourn the loss of Google Reader on July 1st.