Welcome to “Housekeeping Week” on DadCooksDinner. I have a list of non-food topics to discuss. Rather than trickling them out, I’m publishing them all this week...kind of like ripping off a band-aid. Thursday will be back to normal, with a recipe post.
TL;DR version: If you follow DadCooksDinner through a RSS reader, my feed is moving to feeds.feedblitz.com/DadCooksDinner.
Don't know what an RSS reader is? We're done here, you can move along.
...Still reading? OK, here we go...
Google Reader? No. No! Anything but that...
A moment of silence for the demise of Google Reader, my front page to the web. I have hundreds of feeds in it: food and technology, sports and politics, news and humor. Everything I follow on the web I follow through my RSS reader - and for years, that has been Google Reader. No more.
Why? Why?!? WHY?!?!? deep breath. OK, I think I can continue.
Beyond my addiction to Google Reader, I have concerns directly related to DadCooksDinner.
FeedBurner is Doomed. Dooooomed!
I depend on Google. A lot. DadCooksDinner.com is hosted on Blogger, google’s blog publishing site; Blogger is also my blog editing software. My email is through Gmail. I think both of those are safe.
But, my RSS feed and email subscriptions run through FeedBurner, and I can see the writing on the wall. Feedburner will be the next to go. Google shut down advertising on FeedBurner, the analytics have been crashing intermittently. Feedburner is not being supported. It’s just a matter of time before it gets the axe.
I moved my blog feed. If you follow me through email, you’ve probably noticed a change in formatting - that’s my new feed service. If you read through RSS, you have to subscribe to my new feed:
feeds.feedblitz.com/DadCooksDinner
Tomorrow, I’m going to flip the switch to start forcing people from my old feed to the new one. Please update the feed in your RSS reader if you want to continue reading.
For my readers who have no idea what an RSS feed is, don’t worry. If you don’t know what it is, you don’t have to worry about it.
What about me, and other small bloggers?
Half of my subscribers follow my blog through Google Reader. What is this going to mean for my blog traffic?
Google Reader is how I track smaller blogs, ones that post a few times a week or month, instead of a few times an hour. I can’t be the only one who does this - what’s going to happen when it’s more difficult to follow smaller blogs?
Enough whining. What am I doing about this?
I’m a Mac guy, so I’ve been using Reeder on my iPad. It synced with Google Reader, and I love their iPad interface. The Mac version of the software is nice, and they’ve promised to come up with a replacement for Google Reader before it shuts down. My problem is, while I’m a Mac guy at home, I’m a PC guy at work. I need a reader with a web front end, that syncs across multiple platforms and computers.
I switched to Feedly. They made migration easy, and I love their web reader's list mode.
But the iPad version of Feedly doesn’t have list mode. It only works in this awful magazine layout mode, with different sizes for different posts. I can’t flip through each post, scanning the headline one at a time, like I could with Reeder. Feedly has multiple posts scattered across the page, and it slows me down to have to scan each of them.
I’m still looking for an ideal solution. So a question for my readers:
If you’re a RSS addict (like me), what are you switching to? Talk about it in the comments section, below.
And don't forget the new feed:
http://feeds.feedblitz.com/DadCooksDinner
Dave Whittaker says
Just switched to Feedly, like it better than Google Reader already. Thanks!
Mike V @ DadCooksDinner says
Thank you to everyone for the comments. It does look like Feedly is what everyone's moving to. And, their new iOS/iPad app has a list mode, much closer to what I want than the old version. Looks like I'm sticking with Feedly.
Mike says
I'm with you and quite sad to see Reader go. However, like everyone else it seems, I've moved over to Feedly. So far, so good. Moving away from Feedburner is probably a really good idea, but I think I'm going to hold out for now. The way Google is killing off everything non-profitable, it certainly seems Feedburner is on its way to the gallows. I'm just hoping Google Voice remains. That would really hose me! In the end, Mike, fear not. I will always keep my DCD link flowing, no matter what I'm reading it on or where it's hosted!
JP Vance says
I switched to Feedly when Google first announced they were dropping their reader. I look forward to keeping up with DadCooksDinner there!
Patrick says
Okay... the Reeder app is now free for iPad and OS X for the time being. LOL!
Patrick says
Coincidentally, Feedly was just updated for iOS devices. It's much better now.
Greg Hao says
If you're a heavy feedly user and user chrome or firefox, you might find this of interest: http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/03/29/how-to-make-feedly-look-more-like-google-reader/ it's somewhat technical but you can get feedly to look really like GR.
Greg Hao says
I'm with you. Basically pulling double duty on GR and Tiny Tiny RSS. I mostly read through GR (with reeder) and then every day or two go to TTRSS to mark things as read. I guess there's still a tiny part of me that's holding out hope that Google will reverse the trend and keep the lights on at GR. Foolish I know.
Greg Hao says
Feedly apparently is trying to make their site more like GR. I would assume if they're successful that eventually the changes will be pushed to their apps on various platforms. I don't personally like it all that much having used it a few times on my computer and iphone.
If you want to run your own aggregator, Tiny Tiny RSS is pretty good. Not as fancy as GR but it's functional and for people with hundreds of RSS feeds, it's damned good.
The Old Reader (http://www.theoldreader.com) is a pretty faithful replication of GR. Because of the GR shutdown notice, it's gotten noticably slower. No apps so you'll have to use a browser on your iphone/ipad/android.
As for myself, I'm mostly transitioned to Tiny Tiny RSS.
Patrick says
I started using Feedly as well.
Actually... to be honest with you, I'm still using Google Reader. LOL!
Robert Patrick says
I moved to feebin......it costs $24 a year to use the web interface but it is worth it looks kinda like google reader plus reeder is moving to that service for a back end once Google Reader goes away and since I use reeder also that works out for me. I would say you should give it a look
Ryan says
I've moved to Feedly. They've actually begun to edit their reader to mirror GReader, including keyboard shortcuts and pane organization. Not perfect, but it'll have to do.