Well, as Google brought out more new products that I loved and used, a little fear niggled at the back of my mind. "Are they going to become the next Microsoft? Am I becoming too dependent on them?" But I continued on, blinders firmly in place.
My first shock was the announcement that iGoogle was going away in November 2013. While I still used my personal MyWay.com page (which I transitioned to when Yahoo! ads drove me nuts), I had also grown to love my personalized iGoogle page. There was a frenzy of checking out alternatives, all put on the back burner because, well, November was a year away.
Then they announced that Google Reader was going away. Initially this wasn't an issue because I was using the standalone program, RSSOwl. But when I added an ultra notebook to my stable, it quickly became my primary laptop and since it had limited memory and hard drive space, I was back to reading blogs on my iGoogle page. Like others, I checked out the alternative all of whom were overloaded with people migrating their reader lists. I chose The Old Reader and migrated things over. BUT, it was still easier to read things on my iGoogle page so I continued to use it daily.
This morning I was in the middle of reading new blogs on iGoogle and suddenly I got an error message. The gadget no longer was valid. Sigh... Time to find a reasonable replacement for iGoogle. I ended up going back to NetVibes which I had tried initially but it seems to be much more fleshed out now. While my page isn't as clean looking as my old iGoogle page, it has all the basic information that I want and need.
So, have you replaced either Google Reader or iGoogle with an alternative? If so, what is it, how do you like it and how's it working for you?
I LOVE Feedly and would have gladly replaced Reader years ago if it had been available. It is MUCH better. To replace iGooogle, I chose igHome. The jury is still out, but it's definitely usable. My main concern was the reader and that is totally taken care of. Have fun shopping :)
ReplyDeleteI discounted Feedly initially because it's based on the Google Reader engine...was a little gun shy. I may export my feeds and give it another try now that the rush is over.
DeleteI looked at igHome and did start my setup. Then I went to NetVibes for a compare and realized i already had an account started there. I'll see how NetVibes works out and keep igHome in my back pocket.
Thanks for sharing!
Just an FYI - if you can still get to your Google Reader page (it's not supposed to go away until 7/1, import it into Feedly.com NOW. Otherwise, you won't be able to get it into Feedly. I tried....no go.
DeleteI set up Feedly and will use it but I don't like it as well as Google Reader.
ReplyDelete