Old Reader is Going Private - Time to Choose a New RSS Reader

Old Reader is going private in the next two weeks. So if you switched to Old Reader as your solution to Google Reader being canned, you need to find another one. Here are the details on Old Reader Blog as to why and when they are closing Old Reader to the public  "Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures"

If you are looking for a new RSS Reader here's a few you might want to take a look at:

NewsBlur.com: Right now they are not accepting free accounts. I tried to sign up this morning and there are 2100 people waiting ahead of me for a free account. For $24.00 a year you can get a premium account immediately. Free accounts have a cap of 64 sites. I may try this one as the demo looked like it would do what I want.

Feedly.com: This is pretty popular and it synched Google Reader feeds seamlessly before Google Reader was canned.  I'm on Feedly but have to admit I'm looking for a replacement. It is the most popular of RSS Readers but it just doesn't suit my needs.

Pulse: I use Pulse on my iPad and I really like it. It's more visually oriented than most readers but for iPad use I like that.

NetVibes.com: I signed up for a free account on NetVibes this morning. It's easy to set up, you pick a topic of your own choice or one of their popular ones, and NetVibes starts creating a dashboard for you. After it created my Genealogy topic, it pulled in hundreds of news stories, blogs and videos for me.  Don't worry, you can import specific blogs or websites. So far I am really liking NetVibes

IronReader: This RSS Reader is getting some good press. I haven't tried it so can't comment but you may want to check it out.

Credits: RSS Icon by digitalart on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Say Goodbye to Google Reader

How do you read your favourite genealogy blogs? Via an RSS reader? By visiting each blog in turn? I use Pulse for most of my news and blog reads, and thank goodness I do, because the very popular Google Reader is being shut down. 

The shutoff date is July 2013. 

According to CNET there are five good alternative readers and if you have your genealogy blog feeds on Google Reader it's time to start switching. Here's CNET's list of five (and happy to see my favourite, Pulse, is on there)

1. Feedly
2. Taptu
3. Pulse
4. Flipboard
5. Google Currents

As for me, I'm going to have to transition the 316 blogs I now follow via Google Reader. I'm not having much luck getting Feedly to work on my laptop and don't want to bring them into Pulse so am not sure at this point what method I'm going to use.  I wanted to use Feedly for my blog news as it has an automatic transfer function from Google Reader. But so far it will not connect for me on my Firefox browser and I really dislike Safari and Chrome. Decisions, decisions...!

See Google Reader is dying, but we have five worthy alternatives for a detailed comparison of these five alternate readers.