R.I.P. Google Reader, 10/07/2005-07/01/2013

Yesterday was a mournful day for RSS and Atom feed junkies everywhere across the Internet as Google announced that their popular Google Reader content aggregator platform will be retired on July 1st of this year.

In the official blog post, "A second spring of cleaning", Google acknowledges that Google Reader has a "loyal following" but that usage has declined over the years.

At first, the news made me sad. But after reading through the comments in this reddit post, though, I'm much more optimistic. Google Reader was great, sure. It was the first web-based content aggregator I ever used. But it's also dated, lacking a sleek, native interface and, of course, the ability to share articles instantly on your Twitter and Facebook accounts since Google+ came along.

Image courtsey of Chron

I say, "Sayonara Google Reader!"

Meanwhile... some users simply can't accept Google Reader's inevitable end. There are multiple petitions on Change.org urging Google to keep Reader alive. Here's one. Here's another one. And even one more.

For me? I'll just calmly meander over to Feedly. Feedly provides a clean, easy-on-the-eyes service that will automatically sync your Google Reader subscriptions with their service. Done and done.