March 14, 2013

Google Reader retires

Its my daily practice to log-in to google reader and read selected news from my subscriptions. Today I got the following notification after logging in, which makes me instantly asking myself- why? Why they need to take it out? Google declares it will shutdown its reader service after first July, 2013. I did not expect google to shutdown this extremely useful service, not at all. I would be very happy of google rethinks its decision about shutting down google reader service.



The next question peeking my mind was how am I going to manage these subscription to another news reader. However, unlike this decision, google extends helps in this case. They offered help in the "learn more" link for managing my subscriptions using google takeout (the service google offers its users to download their data, I did not heard about it until today). Though I was expecting a bit clarification service under this learn more link, I did not mind not getting any since I knew for long google does not clarify, they just declares.

Here is what I get from their "learn more" link, copied here because sometime I did not find correct link quickly from their help service.

How can I download my Reader data?

Google Reader will be retired on July 1, 2013. If you'd like to download a copy of all your Reader data before then, you can do so through Google Takeout. You'll receive your subscription data in an XML file, and the following information will be downloaded as JSON files:
  • List of people that you follow
  • List of people that follow you
  • Items you have starred
  • Items you have liked
  • Items you have shared
  • Items shared by people you follow
  • Notes you have created
  • Items with comments
Click here to start downloading your Reader data from Takeout. Once downloaded, your subscription data should be easily transferrable to another product, where you can continue to keep up with your online reading.
  • Mar 13, 2013

My next question is where can I find another news reader service like google reader which would offer same reliability and user friendliness? I will explore other service and will be posting my observations later, hopefully. In the meantime, if you are reading this post and already have an answer, please inform me using the comment box. It will be higly appreciated.

1 comment:

  1. Well, I found a solution to this google reader replacement problem. Try http://theoldreader.com/.
    This old reader is very similar as actual google reader and gives a very similar experience.

    ReplyDelete