Pages

November 18, 2013

RSS Reader: Feedly (R.I.P. Google Reader)

I realized that I've written here about Google+ and Twitter, but have not said anything yet about Feedly. That's something I need to rectify. Feedly is, in fact, far more important to my news-gathering activities every day than Twitter is. Every morning, I check my email, Google+ and Feedly: they are as important as coffee!

I've been using Feedly since July, that sad moment when Google pulled the plug on Google Reader. I had been a loyal user of Google Reader for many years (and before that, I had been a loyal user of Bloglines). In terms of keeping up with blogs, Feedly has been great; I don't have any complaints. I have hundreds of feeds organized into Feedly folders, just as I did with Google Reader, and the compressed view in Feedly (apparently built to accommodate the many Google Reader refugees like myself) works just fine for me.

The one thing I do miss, however, is all the great syndication possibilities that Google Reader offered. I was a big fan of the "bundles" you could create in Google Reader so that you could then use a javascript to display a blog roll along with news clippings in the sidebar of a blog or any webpage where javascript was allowed. There's nothing like that in Feedly, alas, but it's not a big deal for me. I'm just happy to be able to keep up with reading blogs and education-related news delivered via RSS feeds; it's an essential part of my daily routine!