Google Reader To Retire: Explore Alternatives

As a part of the ongoing consolidation drive, Google has announced to shut down Google Reader with effect from July 1, 2013.

If you’d like to download a copy of all your Reader data before then, you can do so through Google Takeout. You’ll receive your subscription data in an XML file, and the following information will be downloaded as JSON files:

List of people that you follow
List of people that follow you
Items you have starred
Items you have liked
Items you have shared
Items shared by people you follow
Notes you have created
Items with comments

Click Here to start downloading your Reader data from Takeout.

Now, that Google Reader is slowly making its way out, it is time to search for best alternatives. Here are few of them that beg for your traffic and your feed-reading clicks:

Feedly

Feedly appears to be the frontrunner to replace Google Reader. It blends some of the niceties of Flipboard (like a “magazine view”) with useful Reader features like keyboard shortcuts and tags. But its biggest advantage may be that it’s the only RSS application that also has excellent and free companion mobile apps.

Feedly lets you divide up your feeds into folders
It helps separate your news feeds from your photography feeds
It gives you the option to change the colour of theme
You can share item even outside social networks, like articles to evernote , Instapaper and Pocket

Apart from being free, cross-platform, and available on multiple devices, it also makes importing your Google Reader subscriptions so ridiculously easy that it’s worth a try.
Feedly is also planning its own syncing engine to replace its dependence on Google Reader before it shuts down.

Newsblur

Though, Newsblur is still far from being the best in this segment, but it is lightning fast at pulling in updates.

Quite unlike of Google reader, your feeds get refreshed every minute
It lets nest folders inside folders
It is equipped with some useful UX tricks
Its “intelligence classifiers” lets you train the app to prioritize certain kinds of stories for you
Newsblur has iOS and Android apps that sync “Saved Stories

NetNewsWire

NetNewsWire is only for Mac fans. It is a bit slower than a web client, as it is powered by your computer instead of servers in the cloud. Its not being as slick as Reeder is another disadvantage with it. Then, what should keep you interested in NetNewsWire?

Because, it doesn’t require a Google Reader account to get up and running
It is easy to use
It doesn’t tie in to common services like Pocket, Facebook, and Evernote
Black Pixel, which has acquired NetNewsWire outlined its plans for the future, which include new apps for Mac and iOS

The Old Reader

The Old Reader is modeled after Google reader and incorporates many of its features. It is a good alternative foe those who want a service as close to Google reader as you can get.