Goodbye Google Reader

Today, Google announced they will be shutting down one of their popular products - Google Reader. I was very surprised at that news because I (at the rest of the world) can't understand why on Earth, they would shut down one of their best applications. 

After the initial shock, a search for the replacement started, although GR is supposed to continue working until July 1st. After reading quite a few reviews, I decided to give NetVibes a try. It's actually a tool that merges a RSS reader and a Widget dashboard. I have already personalized it a lot - I placed my local news, weather reports, the music I like and funny pictures on the desktop. I managed to import the GR file and was disappointed after that, when the programme failed to refresh. Well, after some time, a message was released that they apologise for the slow speed. They got tons of new users. Well, no wonder. :)

Right now, the thing still works slowly, but I think they will deal with the problem. Apart from that, I like NetVibes a lot. You can customize and personalize you brains out if you want to, you can change your colours and news providers and you can use all kinds of cute widgets.

I recommend it to all of you, who will be lost without GR!

If you don't want a "big" does-it-all app like this one, you can just download Feedly, a Google Chrome app that turns your RSS feed into cute little stories. It is much cuter than NetVibes, but has only a few options and apart from the background colour, almost no personalization. It's on you to choose which one you like best and which one you'll trust to continue working for you.

So, what do you think?

Sources: www.crunchbase.com, paulstamatiou.com