Hear that clunking sound? That's thousands of jaws dropping at the news that Google Reader is going to be retired come July 1, 2013. That whooshing sound is "Google Reader" shooting to the top of Twitter's worldwide trends, even on a day when a new pope was picked.
And that giant "NOOOOOOOO" sound is the Internet's reaction to Google's most unpopular decision in — well, as far back as I can remember.
Admittedly, I'm biased. I work in a newsroom, and we journalists love our RSS feeds. But judging by widespread outrage on social media (and the fact that "RIP Google Reader" is the most popular story on Mashable as I write this), we don't think we're alone.
In fact, we know we're not.
I'm very upset about Google Reader disappearing. I use it every morning, every afternoon. RSS should not be shoved aside!!!!
For the uninitiated, RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. It's that little radar-like button on news sites and blogs that let you subscribe to everything they publish. In RSS readers like Google Reader, which is far and away the world's most popular RSS reader (it got there by making itself free and thus destroying the competition), you then get a reverse chronological list of stories from every source you're interested in.
Some social media types suggest that RSS has fallen out of fashion, that it is unnecessary in the age of Twitter. But if that's so, why is Twitter itself ground zero for Google Reader outrage?
The black smoke rising from Google over this whole Reader death has overtaken everything on Twitter.
Google Reader is a tremendously useful product; there's almost nothing like it. When Twitter is full of too much snark and not enough signal, when Flipboard and Pulse and other newsreading apps give you too many pretty pictures and not enough stories per page, there's Google Reader.
It isn't particularly pretty. It isn't supposed to be. It's line after line of headlines, and you click on them if you want to read the story. There's nothing else that does that.
In short, Google Reader is like a straight, hard shot of neat news, no ice and no chaser.
Google Reader is to Twitter as a well-labeled filing cabinet is to a bag of insane cats.
The fact that Google first tried to bury the news in the middle of a "spring cleaning" blog post — filled with news of the death of a number of APIs and widgets of interest only to developers — suggests the company knew this was going to be an unpopular move.
The timing is pretty interesting, too. A number of Twitter users were joking earlier Wednesday that the day of a papal election would be a great time to push out bad news. That joke isn't funny any more.
After being elected, Pope Francis' first order of business was shutting down Google Reader. Bummer.
I put the charge of news burial to a Google representative, and all I got back was the same reasoning given in that spring cleaning post: "usage has declined." But by how much? Google won't say.
"We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go," wrote Google software engineer Alan Green on the official Google Reader blog, some time after the spring cleaning post. "We're sad too ... as a company we're pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience."
Google was founded on the principle of organizing the world's information. RSS feeds, still used the web over, definitely fall under that rubric.
Under CEO Eric Schmidt, the company's list of projects got a little out of control. When Larry Page retook the reins, he embarked on a ruthless round of slashing the stuff that wasn't working, and simplifying the design of everything else.
We hear that Google cut its Reader team back in 2011. That's fine, as the years since have proved; it pretty much runs itself. So this isn't a cost-cutting measure. We also hear that Reader is hard to sell ads against, even though there's an ad shown at the bottom when you click through on a number of items.
In any case, have you seen a lot of ads on Google Maps lately?
Due respect to Page, whom I've covered ever since he was a 27-year-old startup guy fresh out of Stanford and building a printer out of LEGO, he may well have miscalculated this time. There was absolutely no need to kill this product, and all it has done is irk many thousands of Google's most vocal and prominent users.
If you agree, share this story. Sign the Change.org petition or this petition at KeepGoogleReader.com. Let's send Google a loud and clear message: RSS is alive and well. No social service — not Twitter, not Google+ — can replace it. Feeds aren't going away any time soon. And we still read.
For many users, Feedly may provide the most direct route of keeping their Google Reader experience intact.
The service, which offers web, Android and iOS apps, can interact with your existing Google Reader account or store feeds on its own backend.
The interface isn't identical to Google Reader; it's more fluid and Flipboard-esque, but it does offer a number of different views, and will keep read/unread lists in sync.
The most promising aspect of Feedly is that the company is committed to making the migration from Google Reader to its own sync servers seamless.
Feedly also has some built-in sharing tools that are reminiscent of Google Reader's old Sharebros days.
Our only real concern with Feedly is its underlying business model. Maintaining these servers isn't cheap, so how will the service monetize?
Digg announced its RSS reader back in March and delivered the product at the end of June.
Digg Reader shares all of Google Reader's keybindings and carries a minimalistic style. It also has an iOS app with an Android version coming soon.
Check out our in-depth hands on with Digg Reader.
A late entrant into the reader space, AOL launched its reader at the end of June.
AOL Reader is sort of a hybrid between Flipboard and Feedly. Check out our hands on with AOL Reader.
NewsBlur describes itself as innovating on the shoulders of what Google Reader built. To that end, the open source project offers free web, Android and iOS apps for news reading.
In addition to letting users run their own NewsBlur instances, NewsBlur also has hosted offerings that work with its apps.
A free NewsBlur account is good for 64 feeds and 10 feeds in a River of News, but for $24 a year, users get unlimited feeds, unlimited rivers and more share options -- including private and protected shares.
Like Google Reader of old, NewsBlur lets users share feeds and stories to one another.
Like NewsBlur, Feedbin is an RSS service and an API.
It has a web interface very similar to Google Reader and an API that works with a variety of third-party Mac, iOS and Android apps. Some of the apps that support Feedbin include Mr. Reader for iPad, Press for Android, Reeder for iPhone and ReadKit for Mac.
Feedbin is $3 a month or $30 a year.
Feed Wrangler is another web-based service that offers third-party app support. Similar to Feedbin, Feed Wrangler offers a web interface and native apps for iOS.
Feed Wrangler is also supported by Press for Android, Mr. Reader, Reader and ReadKit. It costs $19 a year.
Shaun Inman launched Fever in 2009 as a self-hosted alternative to feed readers such as Google Reader.
Fever works like a traditional reader, but also sorts news feeds based on hotness -- wherein links that have the most links on other sites (or within your own feeds) get more prominence on a temperature scale.
This is a pure web app, and it is optimized to run on mobile or in the desktop, though some third-party apps (including Reeder for iPhone) support accounts as well.
The only downside to Fever is that it is self-hosted, meaning users need to have their own domain, PHP install and MySQL database. It's not a hard app to install or maintain, but its self-hosted nature makes it ideal for certain types of RSS geeks. The price of Fever is $30 per instance.
I have been an avid Fever user for the last four years, and I recommend it to anyone who needs a Google Reader alternative and doesn't mind getting their hands dirty.
An oldie but a goodie! NetVibes was popular in the golden era of RSS clients and services.
In addition to its web-based RSS feed reading options, NetVibes also has iGoogle-style widgets.
NetVibes is still kicking and can be a good monitoring tool for different types of content, but be aware that it isn't as fast or keyboard-friendly as Google Reader. Moreover, the service doesn't integrate into third-party mobile apps.
The Old Reader describes itself as "the old Google Reader but better," and its design and sharing features are similar to pre-October 2011 Google Reader.
While users can import feeds from their Google Reader accounts, Old Reader is having a hard time taking on the Google Reader traffic.
On the surface, Old Reader looks like a good alternative, but we're curious as to its business model and ability to sustain maintenance of a sync server.
Managing News is definitely for DIYers, but it's an interesting project designed to let groups (or individuals) track data, RSS feeds and visualizations.
Like Fever, you'll need to install Managing News on your own server. Unlike Fever, Managing News will require a little more finessing. It's a customized Drupal 6 installation, and getting everything set up can be tricky for newcomers.
Still, the underlying technology is VERY promising, especially for groups who want a way to share feeds, comment on data and do different visualizations or keyword tracking.
Twitter isn't a perfect replacement for Google Reader but for many users, Twitter lists curated by website or influencer are often better sources of information than traditional RSS feeds.
The problem with Twitter is that it is best for a source of current and breaking news, but not as good for finding or sorting through older news.
Still, for many feed addicts, Twitter is both more immediate and better at sharing than any RSS alternative.