Google Reader had been a close buddy for quite a while, after Chitresh Jain got me addicted to a bunch of feeds, most importantly FMyLife 🙂 And then comes the sad shut down news that creates a lot of rant all over the web. After trying a few alternatives immediately, I was hopeful (and sure) that this would tickle opportunists and deliver a much better RSS reader. The threat of data lock-out that Google users were anticipating after the announcement was more than relieved with Google TakeOut and their commitment to Data Liberation (FYI, this was #6 on my list of the top 7 non-functional requirements for web-based products). And I am huge fan of the Google PR team. They made good sound great, and bad sound hopeful. And they’re so unbiased, they even delegated listing out the best alternative to end users itself.
Early July, Google Reader finally went down – RIP Reader – and I was exposed to Feedspot through Anuj Agarwal‘s bio on Quora. I had some troubles importing my subscriptions directly from Reader, but that looked like a problem at the Google end. It gulped the Reader TakeOut export without a hitch.
