Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Attention Followers: Google Reader Is Retiring!

Many of us "Follow" other Blogger Blogs via the Google Interface.  It's so easy to build up a collection of favorite Blogs by simply clicking on "Join this site" whenever you find a Blog that you like.  Once you begin following other Blogs, you simply open your Dash to see all the new posts from the Blogs that you've signed up to follow.  You can read the first few lines of a Blog post—and a quick click of the mouse will transport you to the full post.

When I heard that Google Reader was retiring, I thought that would affect the Google Interface as well.  I'm so relieved to find that the list of Blogs that I follow will continue to exist and nothing will change there.

If you do rely on Google Reader, the sad news is that Google Reader retires on July 1, 2013.  That's only a few days away.  You can find the announcement here:  
http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2013/03/powering-down-google-reader.html
                       
The following link has a bunch of alternatives to Google Reader.  I tried out the first one on the list, "The Old Reader," and it worked fine for me, so I didn't bother to look further.  You might like one of the others.
http://www.eonline.com/news/431546/google-reader-alternatives?cmpid=rss-000000-rssfeed-365-topstories
   
If you're worried that you don't have enough time to transfer your data to one of those alternatives, you can download a copy of your data via Google Takeout:  
https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=backup&passive=1209600&continue=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Ftakeout%2F%23custom%3Areader&followup=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Ftakeout%2F%23custom%3Areader