Update August 2025. For a retrospective in depth look at Google reader see:
David Pierce, Who killed Google Reader?, The Verge, 30 June 2023
I have since moved on to Feedly
Google reader, which is an rss reader or news aggregator, is one of the principal ways I gather news for Foucault News. A few days ago, Google announced that it was going to axe this software in July with vague excuses that it was no longer being used as much. This may be partially to do with the fact that google killed reader’s social media sharing capacities a while ago to bolster up their facebook competitor google+. This interesting article in Forbes by Alex Kantrowitz also makes the pertinent point:
The death of Google Reader reveals a problem of the modern Internet that many of us likely have in the back of our heads but are afraid to let surface: We are all participants in a user driven Internet, but we are still just the users, nothing more. No matter how much work we put in to optimize our online presences, our tools and our experiences, we are still at the mercy of big companies controlling the platforms we operate on. When they don’t like what’s happening, even if we do, they can make whatever call they want. And Wednesday night, Google made theirs.
There is an online petition to keep google reader running at change.org which I would encourage people to sign, even if ultimately this may be a futile gesture. The reality is that I am probably going to have to trawl through a number of software platforms in the hope of finding something that performs the same rss function as efficiently as google reader.
Nonetheless here is the text which I attached to my signature at change.org:
I run a very active academic news blog and need access in a fast and efficient format to keep up-to-date with multiple news sources, which include a wide variety of blogs, scholarly data bases, google alerts and other news feeds. Facebook, twitter and similar social networks, for all the carefully marketed myths that they have superseded rss readers as news platforms, are simply not up to the mark in terms of ease and efficiency of use and comprehensive coverage for high volume news consumers. I migrated to google reader after the demise of bloglines and am not looking forward to having to go through this whole process again.
Later… I have just come across (thanks Emma) a brilliant video on youtube which sums it up rather well – the latest contribution to the internet meme of resubtitling a section from the film Downfall: This one is titled ‘Hitler finds out that Google Reader is closing down’
Foucault News 
I think we can be certain there will be alternatives. I am trying out Feedly which, although it now depends on Google Reader, promises a stand-alone solution: “Feedly, an RSS service for mobile devices and most Web browsers, began catering to Google Reader users shortly after Google’s announcement. In a blog post, Feedly said it was building a Google Reader clone that will be ready by the time the service shuts down. Feedly also posted a blog with tips for Google Reader users, including how to easily transition from the dying service over to Feedly.”
LikeLike
Many thanks for this. I have seen that Feedly is currently the preferred solution of choice to the problem in my trawl around for solutions. I have already had a cursory look at Feedly, but I will be hanging in grimly with Google Reader until the very end and hoping that other providers can work fast to set up something similar to the Google Reader experience. One of the things I like about google reader is that it provides a unadorned text reading interface without a whole lot of fancy and distracting format and graphics. This enables me to work fast and efficiently. Let’s hope some other platform can step up to the mark!
It would of course be too much to ask google to change its mind. I think they’re trying to push google+ which from what I can see has less of an uptake than their reader service – but who are the internet plebs such as ourselves to wonder why…
LikeLike
I agree with you about your preference for the unadorned… I presently use Reeder as my front end for Google Reader—and I will be using it through the month of June. I am hoping for something like that as alternatives appear. Feedly on the web is classy looking but not as friendly in terms of use. —A fellow pleb.
LikeLike
Keep on fighting them.
LikeLike
Anticipating the demise of Google Reader, I began using RSS Toaster for Mac, which has turned out to be quite good. A slight adjustment from GR, but pretty easy to adjust.
LikeLike