Subscribe To Your Favourite Blogs

On July 1st, 2013, Google Reader will no longer exist. The news that Google was closing this service was met with a lot of outrage and panic because so many people relied on it to subscribe to their favourite blogs, despite Google’s claim that usage of Google Reader has declined.

Don’t worry though! There are so many replacements popping up that you’ve got plenty of time to find one that suits you before Google Reader is retired. You may find that your new choice is even better than Google Reader!

First up – the bloggers favourite – is Bloglovin’. Bloglovin’ was founded in Stockholm in 2008 but it’s only with the closure of Google Reader (and the subsequent panic that Google Friend Connect was going away) that more bloggers are both using it and promoting it as the main way to follow their blogs.

We love Bloglovin’ because they’ve made it super easy to import your Google Reader blogs and because it encourages comments to be left on blogs. Within a week of switching, we were leaving so many more comments than before!  Bloglovin’ not only shows you the blogs you’re following, but it also shows you some of the best blogs out there to follow – a great way to find new favourites!

Bloglovin’ also has mobile apps, but they’re not very good at the moment for getting you to leave comments while on your phone (They don’t actually have an iPad app!). Make sure you claim your blog on Bloglovin’ by posting the specific link on your blog (most people do this as a blog post that can be deleted afterwards) and you’ll be able to check out how many people are following your blog! If you’re not yet a blogger, you can still sign up to have a Bloglovin’ account to follow your favourites.

Another popular blog following service is NuffnangX. It’s more of a mobile based sort of reader and allows readers to comment from their phones. It’s another one that shows you new and popular blog posts – definitely one to try if you’ve got a long commute!

Next are the more traditional (can Google Reader be called traditional?) types of cloud based RSS feed readers. The feed reader that’s been most talked about is Feedly. Feedly currently syncs in with Google Reader, so copying over your subscriptions is simple, but it will soon transition to its own engine to sync your subscriptions.

There’s a helpful post on the Feedly blog for Google Reader users which will answer any questions if you do decide to go with that reader. Feedly has some great mobile apps as well – reading your subscriptions on your iPhone is so simple and quick to flick through the posts!

Next is The Old Reader. The Old Reader is – you can probably guess by the name – is very similar to Google Reader. It’s pretty basic, but if all you want is to read your subscriptions on any browser, then this is a safe choice!

If you’re an iPad user, you could of course use Flipboard. Flipboard is a great app to browse articles and blog posts, and from this blog post, it looks like they will copy over your RSS subscriptions when Google Reader closes.

Finally, one of the recommendations we saw on Lifehacker was if you only follow a few blogs, you could use IFTTT to send posts to a read later site (like Pocket) or to your email address. It would be a little unwieldly to use this method if you follow lots of blogs though! (If you’re not sure what IFTTT is, check out our post about it!)

So what is happening with Google Friend Connect

Right now? Nothing. Google have not announced any plans to close that side of following Blogger blogs down, but many bloggers have panicked because Google Friend Connect used Google Reader to sync what had been read through the dashboard. However, we think it is still a good idea to move away from Google if possible for this sort of thing because it is still possible that GFC will disappear.

What are you using to replace Google Reader?