Help! How do you read blogs?

Everybody! Google Reader is going away July 1!

source unknown

About a year and a half ago, in an effort to wean myself off what we'll call less-informative websites and articles, I started following sewing and craft blogs on Google Reader. I now have almost 300 blogs on my blog role, putting out around 50 posts a day. I think I'm a little OBSESSED.

Anyway, you can understand my distress when I was notified today that Google is retiring Google Reader. Admittedly, it hasn't been well-maintained in recent years, but it has become my go-to for sewing blog updates.

An internet search revealed some other non-mobile non-browser based services, including NewsBlur, FeedReader, Netvibes, and RebelMouse. Personally, I know that Bloglovin is also a site people seem to use.

Anyway, how do you keep up with your blogs? Suggestions are much appreciated!

19 comments:

  1. Most of them I follow through blogger itself, but I use google reader on my phone. This is the first I'd heard! Looking forward to seeing what people come up with!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm reading this post on google reader, and saying WHAT!? Oh crap!

    I feel like the money making sites are discouraging rss because they don't get revenue from people not coming to the website and clicking through the ads, and since google makes most of it's money though AdSense... you do the math.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I also use Reader and just 5 minutes ago got the notice about it being "retired". I think I'll try BlogLovin' but I'm curious to know what other people use.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm a Google Reader user myself. Hadn't heard about this, but what a shock. Guess I need to find another method too. When is it going away, what's the deadline???

    ReplyDelete
  5. aah! seriously, what are we going to do??

    ReplyDelete
  6. WHAT. Terrible. That's not good for me as a blog reader as well as a blogger --the vast majority of my readers follow me thru Google Reader. Not to mention how the Google Reader app is one of my most used apps on my phone. What will I do while riding the bus to and from work from now on?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi, I follow blogs (including yours :-)) through netvibes and I like it a lot. Except my new phone messes up things a bit and I just decided to try google reader! I guess I'll have to try something else now...

    ReplyDelete
  8. I use bloglovin. I have never tried google reader, but what I like about bloglovin is that you can divide blogs into categories.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I follow many through Blogger, and get email updates from Wordpress blogs.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I am BAFFLED by this decision. Apart from the search engine, this seems to be Google's best product.

    I have no idea where to go from here.

    I've heard firefox has a built in feed reader, but I don't always use firefox (work, phone)

    ReplyDelete
  11. another vote for bloglovin.com. i've been using it for the past year, with no issues. very easy to use. once in awhile there will be an ad at the top or in the middle, but no big deal. there's a link at the top of bloglovin where you can import all of your google reader blogs http://www.bloglovin.com/import
    after that if you want to add another blog, you can enter the website into the "search for blogs" button at the top and then click "follow". you can also click "unfollow" at any time and organize the blogs you follow. it will show a list of all of your unread blog posts with a picture preview of the post and then you click on it to read the post, then bloglovin will grey out the preview photo and move it down to the bottom once you've read it. give it a shot. i'm happy with it =)

    ReplyDelete
  12. I use Bloglovin too, and I like it. It keeps the unread posts at the top, so it's easy to see what I haven't read yet. Read posts appear dimmer, and you can mark things read if you want to skip them. I do have bloglovin on my iphone, but can't seem to get the app on my ipad. I'm trying "Pulse" on my ipad, and it looks amazing, but I have to scroll through multiple pages, looking for new articles/posts. Not all that happy with Pulse.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm really liking The Old Reader. Since it's a side project of three guys with other full-time jobs, it's not the safest bet, but functionality-wise I like it a lot.

    They're working on an app and upgrading their servers to handle all the new attention they're getting after Reader's announcement.

    I'm hopeful they'll be able to grow enough to keep up.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I use Bloglovin too! Sometimes I can read blogs through wordpress, but it misses a lot of new entries.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I'm so sad about Google Reader. :(

    Although, I just switched to Bloglovin, and it already seems way better than Reader. You can comment on the same page as you read the post on! You can see the pretty website designs! I've just downloaded the Android app for my phone and it looks pretty good so far.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I use Flipboard on my phone and Google Reader on computer. What?! This is the first time haring about this. But I like Flipboard because it's pretty haha.

    50posts a day is not that bad. I get 300+ posts each day.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Here's my impromptu survey of web-based readers: http://mary-sews.blogspot.com/2013/03/searching-for-blogger-replacement.html

    ReplyDelete
  18. I use Google Reader too :( I am trying out bloglovin and Feedly for now, and they seem okay.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...