Google Reader
On Monday, two new reader alternatives appeared to take the helm once Google drops its popular Reader off the face of the Earth and out of our lives on July 1. AOL has effectively announced that it is launching "AOL Reader," and at the same time, an anonymously sourced report from the Wall Street Journal suggests that Facebook might be introducing its own mobile news reader soon.
With Google about to dump Reader in about 10 days, Feedly has really stepped up to replace the Mountain View giant's RSS service, most recently launching new apps and a cloud-based reader on Wednesday. All of the homeless Google Reader users have a fully functioning place to go now - Now please don't you ever abandon us Feedly!
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.
On Thursday, Wired brought some insight into why Google decided to shut down Google Reader for good on July 1, and it all boils down to this: News consumption habits are shifting. Except perhaps for a small but vocal portion of Google's user-base.
