I've had an object lesson this week in the perils of newer, easier information-sharing, via two news articles which came my way through different means. The first was a write-up in the local paper featuring a colleague of mine who had decorated her house in celebration of the Maple Leaf's glorious but ultimately short-lived playoff victories. The Beloved saw the picture, recognized her name and tore out the page to bring it home for me. The second story was a write-up at Techdirt by Timothy Geigner about a 'bug' in a recent Nintendo release which allowed Sims-like characters to marry same-sex...

After several weeks of teasing me for burying my head in the sand and stubbornly refusing to transfer my Google Reader RSS feeds elsewhere, the Beloved quietly confessed last night that he has given up on Feedly and moved himself back to Reader, too, for the time being. Once I was done milking the required apology for his weeks of mocking, I asked him why, and found that he had reached the same conclusion—that in the battle between interactivity and linearity, linearity is sometimes the better way. Here's what he didn't like about Feedly: It was too dynamic for him. Every...

Feedly has been steadily gaining users (over three million since the announcement of the death of Google Reader), and they just updated both their mobile apps and their browser plugins. So far I'm happy with the changes, which make the experience a little closer to Google Reader. The best changes in the browser version include the ability to set a title view in your subcategories (not just in the Latest view) and better integration with Pocket. When I reviewed Feedly a few weeks ago, the Save to Pocket button didn't work. Now it's flawless, just as it should be. I'm also pleased with...

One of my chief complaints about Feedly has been alleviated in the service's latest update. The Feedly app has a new vertically-focused layout that is more in line with what Google Reader users are used to. You can now view headlines and a few lines of text without getting distracted by a plethora of images. The Feedly Web app has also been updated with a “title only” layout that is designed to handle a lot bulk. This is exactly what Feedly needed to make Google Reader users feel more at home. Although the layout change is the most important part of...

The Google Reader option from the Gmail menu bar is gone as of today. You can see the lack in the screenshot from my account, below. It used to be located between Blogger and Finance (note the red arrow). I suddenly realized how thoroughly I'd made the switch to Feedly because I didn't notice this on my own. I picked it up from a Tech Crunch article. The link is still present from other Google products, and of course it's still available on a Google search, but this is just another indication that the venerable RSS feed reader is on its inevitable...

By Stephen Silver Google, as you may have noticed, discontinues stuff all the time. But when it does, my life is usually minimally affected. Remember Google Wave, which was supposed to revolutionize communications? I couldn’t tell you to this day exactly what that was or what it was supposed to do, and I just sort of shrugged when Google killed it in 2010. Google Viewer, Google Checkout, Google Health, GOOG-411, Froogle, Knol… these were all things I rather never used, or used once or twice and decided they weren’t for me. That’s part of what makes this week’s announcement of the impending...

I was finally able to register with Feedly last night to give it a try. Most of the day they'd been down, but they added server capacity and were running well later in the evening. So far, I think it'll work for me. Setting up the account was easy. I signed in with my Google account, and they imported all my feeds. They have assured users that the transition will be seamless in July. If they achieve seamless, I'll be impressed. Tech doesn't always work that way. If they manage "not too painful" for the first day or two, I'll be...

Well, that was fast. Digg announced yesterday that they are building a Reader replacement. Apparently they’ve been planning it for a while—they're just moving it up the priority list. Good for them! I’m liking this part of the announcement: We hope to identify and rebuild the best of Google Reader’s features (including its API), but also advance them to fit the Internet of 2013, where networks and communities like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit and Hacker News offer powerful but often overwhelming signals as to what’s interesting. Don’t get us wrong: we don’t expect this to be a trivial undertaking. But we’re confident we...

The announcement of Google Reader’s shutdown has caused developers of other RSS readers to prepare themselves for an influx of users. Feedly happens to be one of those developers. Feedly revealed on its blog that it has been preparing to deal with Google Reader’s eventual closure for awhile. The fruits of its labor is a Google Reader API clone it's been referring to as project Normandy. When Google Reader goes away on July 1, Normandy will make the transition super easy for any Feedly user. Feedly told GigaOM it’s possible for other developers to use its cloned API just like Google’s official API. “Our goal is...

We've all heard by now about the upcoming death of Google Reader. Our own Chris Meadows, in his write-up, has even thoughtfully offered some alternatives for those who, like me, are suddenly scrambling to fill the void. But to my surprise, reactions around the Web have been decidedly mixed. Many, like me, had that first 'OMG!' reaction, but then on second thought, weren't too sad at all. Some even saw it coming ... For instance, in this write-up at GigaOM, one of Google Reader's own creators says the writing was on the wall from day one: 'When they replaced sharing with +1 on...

My morning routine for work is simple: • Respond to email • Check my Google Reader Those two things always happen right away. Well, it seems Google will force me to find a new morning routine. The company announced its Google Reader service will cease all operations this summer. Gone. It’s going away. I follow more than 300 blogs in my Google Reader related to book publishing, journalism and trading cards. That may seem like a lot of blogs, but when you consider that not all of these blogs update every day, it's really not. I seem to always have ,ore than enough time to skim...

There is a risk to relying on cloud services, as I’ve found to my chagrin time and again: they may not always be there when you need them. Etherpad servers have crashed, taking the only copy of my writing with them. Web-based IM service Meebo shut down, leaving me scrambling to find a replacement. And now comes the latest blow: Google plans to close down its Google Reader RSS reader service (along with a number of other, lesser-used services) as of July 1. I used Google Reader exclusively to find stories to reblog when I was writing more actively here—I would...