Google Reader Alternatives Assemble! Feedly, Digg and... Facebook?

Google Reader is slated to die on July 1 after eight years of providing real simple syndication services, devastating everyone who still uses RSS to get their news and other web content. Luckily, a number of alternative readers may be stepping up to the plate to replace the popular reader, including (possibly) Facebook and Digg and Feedly.

First, Facebook is rumored to be coming out with a reader of their own, according to Mashable. Their report comes from Tom Waddington, who develops the site Cut Out + Keep, who wrote in a post on his blog that he has spotted "mentions of RSS feeds" embedded in Facebook's code. Each mention showed multiple entries and a list of subscribers in the code, according to Waddington, and the code was apparently new and unconnected with Facebook's output code to RSS feeds, which is something the social media site has been capable of for a while.

"What's surprising is that the code mentions RSS specifically and distinctly from existing interest lists and friend lists," said Waddington on his blog. This, plus a cryptic invitation to an event on June 20, sent out to media sources, has sparked the rumor that Facebook might be offering RSS services soon. The timing of the event, the invitations of which only said, "A small team has been working on a big idea. Join us for coffee and learn about a new product," would line up pretty well with an announcement of a replacement for the outgoing Google Reader on July 1. However, another rumor, that Facebook's Instagram will be adding video features, has also cropped up, and it seems that only one of them (or none) will be true.

If Facebook doesn't have an RSS reader in the pipeline, don't worry. Feedly, an RSS reader that has been around since its launch in 2008, said Monday that it has begun migrating data from users that joined with their own Google Reader lists to their own servers, according to ComputerWorld. Feedly is planning to have its own RSS infrastructure in place for Google Reader migrants by the time Google ends Reader on July 1.

"Over the next 2-3 days you should expect to receive a green banner message (desktop) or a green card (mobile)," said the Feedly on its blog. "This is the notification that your feeds and categories and up to 1,000 starred items have been successfully migrated to the feedly cloud and the articles you are seeing are coming from the feedly service." Unfortunately, there's too much data for Feedly to migrate Google Reader history and unread counts, so those will be cleared for all migrants on July 1, but never again after that.

Feedly has been a popular alternative to Google Reader since the internet giant announced it was closing up shop on its RSS feed. On March 15, 2013, Feedly announced half a million new users in 48 hours after Google's announcement. By April, that number was up to 3 million.

Finally, Digg announced today that it would be launching the first public beta of its replacement for Google Reader, according to TechCrunch. On Digg's blog, the company announced that "next week we will begin rolling out Digg Reader, version 1. We're doing the launch in phases because, as you might have guessed, RSS aggregation is a hard thing to do at scale, and we want to make sure the experience is as fast and reliable as possible. Everyone will have access by June 26th."

Digg says you will be able to import feeds from Google Reader as well. In the two months following the first launch, Digg says it will focus on an Android app, integration with third party services, and get started on other features like search and notifications. But right now the company is focused on getting a stable product out before Google shuts the doors on Reader. Digg is planning on using a freemium model, meaning basic features will be free, with paid options for advanced users.

If you use Google Reader but are not sure what replacement to use yet, make sure you at least save your data on your computer using Google Takeout before July 1.