With Google Reader closing down on July 1st — and clearly losing some functionality as that day grows near — David Pogue has published a good article recommending that people switch to Feedly.
I agree.
I also like his article so much that I’m adding it to my How To Subscribe To This Blog tab.
And I’m adding it to The Best Alternatives To Google Reader Now That It’s Being Shut Down.
Except Pogue and many others do not realize that Feedly is STILL using Google Reader as the engine to get the RSS feeds.
“Behind the scenes, Feedly relies, believe it or not, on Google Reader’s feeds. But the company says it will seamlessly replace Google’s feeds with its own source by July 1.)”
They have NOT switched to their own servers yet, so we have YET to see what sort of performance they will have when all of a sudden they have to fetch feeds for 4 million people.
If it is anything like what happened to NewsBlur, I think Feedly is going to totally collapse. NewsBlur just had to deal with 40k people, and it brought the system to a crawl. This was a RSS service that had been in existence for several years. NewsBlur has since scaled it’s system and is now FASTER than Google Reader in fetching RSS feeds.
Back to Feedly…..I don’t see them providing a FREE service like Google Reader. And I don’t see them handling 4 million users. Unless they have some sort of venture funding and plan on rolling out paid subscriptions.
Back to NewsBlur. I have been using this since Google Reader said it was shutting down. The only thing I miss is that my favorite iOS and Mac apps, Reeder, do not work with the service. NewsBlur has free iOS apps that are ok, but not as good as Reeder. The web interface is pretty darned responsive so I haven’t really missed not using Reeder on my Mac.
Hi Larry
I have to agree with Eric. I’m still researching my post on Google Reader but I would strongly recommend any one using Google Reader downloads their subscriptions using Google Takeout so if any of these services have issues when Google Reader is retired you’ll be able to easily switch between them.
I think we’ll find new readers will appear, like Digg, and existing ones will evolve.
One I am seriously reconsidering is Flipboard. I had totally discounted Flipboard because I could see how you would be able to bring in your subscriptions. But Flipboard is saying the same as Feedly; if you’ve added Google Reader to Flipboard you subscriptions will continue in Flipboard when the service is retired.
Flipboard may be the more efficient choice if your preferred reading is using a tablet. Their new magazine feature means I can easily curate information into my own magazine while using IFTTT to share starred Google reader items on Twitter.
Feedly is still using google reader on the backend?!?!?! You got to be kidding me! Im waiting for the july 1st to see what’s going to happen. in the meantime, I’m still looking for the perfect one. I’m give a try to flipboard and the web based http://eldonreader.com.