If you’re a Feedly reader and my previous post seemed to end abruptly, it’s a glitch I can’t get to the bottom of…for no reason I can fathom, my blog is now appearing excerpt-only there. For some people. Not everyone. Until further notice, I recommend clicking through to see if there’s more to my posts than what appears in your reader. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Only eight more days, guys, until Google Reader goes poof. Have you downloaded your data yet? Have you migrated to another reader? I’ve settled in at Feedly (will be investigating Digg Reader when it launches, though) and am mostly happy there.
I’m usually pretty eager about change—it energizes me—so I’m not sure why I’ve been so grumpy about shifting away from gReader, especially since Feedly offers some features I actually like better than Reader’s. Let’s face it, I’ve been sulking ever since Reader Share got the axe. But onward, allons-y, and all that jazz.
So here’s what I like about Feedly: the granular customization it offers. I very much like being able to customize the feed view at every level: all posts, topic folders, and each individual blog.
Like this. When I click on “All” (that is, all unread posts), I like the titles-only view. You can scroll quickly down and click on any post title to expand it to reveal the full post.
You change the view by clicking one of the icons by the red arrow.
When I click on newest posts (“Today” in the sidebar) or any of my topic folders, I prefer magazine view: a thumbnail image and post excerpt.
For individual blogs, I nearly always prefer full article view. As you scroll down the page, posts are automatically marked as read. You can mark them as unread with a click. I love this—it’s faster than gReader’s mark-as-unread function was.
For a few particular blogs, especially ones whose feeds are excerpt-only, I choose card view instead—a larger thumbnail image plus post excerpt. (Sarah, I think your blog is exceptionally lovely in this view.) 🙂
It didn’t take me long to click through my feeds and customize these views; it’s just a simple click in that top right corner. I did it a little at a time, as I read through a few days’ posts.
My default start page is “Today”—you can customize that in Preferences (bottom of the sidebar). You can also select a default view for all your category and feed pages, and then tweak individual blogs later.
Another feature I love: you can click the number next to a category or blog name in the sidebar, and that marks all posts in that section as read. Gotta be careful, though; I’ve done it by accident a couple of times, meaning to click a category and marking the whole darn thing as read.
(By the way, if you don’t see your blog in the lists above, don’t be offended. I’ve probably got you squirreled away in another category. I have a filing system to rival Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler’s.)
The other thing I appreciate about Feedly is how easy it is to share links to Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms. And the bookmarking and tagging features are clutch. (Updated: Gwenda Bond just discovered all our Google Reader Starred links have been automatically migrated to Feedly’s “Save for Later” section. YES.)
You can change the colors, too! Click “Themes” at the bottom of the sidebar. I go back and forth between the blue, a soft green, and this nice, simple white layout:
Yep, it’s growing on me. How about you? Even if you land somewhere else later, now’s the time to migrate your Google Reader account to Feedly’s new cloud server.
Can you see this post? I’m hearing that some folks can’t get my site to load. Has been a problem all day; we’re looking into it. I’m bumping the Ballet Shoes post yet another day until I’m sure the problem (whatever it is) has been resolved.
Meanwhile, noooooo! Google informs us Reader’s days are numbered. Those of us who rely on a good RSS aggregator to make the web manageable are crushed—there’s no better feed reader than Google Reader.
Some alternatives, none of them quite perfect (but I’m confident someone will rise to fill the void):
Feedly—this is probably what I’ll wind up using. Not quite as streamlined as Reader, but it offers many options for customizing the look and function. In “Full Articles” mode, it’s a decent Reader substitute:
(I subscribe to way more book blogs than are visible in that list. I think it only shows the top twelve.)
If you click on the gear icon, you can toggle to different layouts: mosaic, list, magazine-style, etc.
You can export your subscriptions at Google Reader and import them to Feedly, or simply connect Feedly to your Reader account, which is what I did. For now Feedly runs off Reader’s API but it is going to “seamlessly transition” to another source before Reader bites the dust in July.
A Feedly plus is that it has mobile apps as well, with syncing between your desktop, iOS, and Android devices. And if you connect it to your gReader account, it’ll sync with that, too, as long as gReader lasts.
You can share posts from Feedly directly to Facebook, Twitter, G+, Delicious, and other platforms. Diigo isn’t one of the preset share options and I really hope you can add it manually—haven’t figured out how yet but it’s early days—because Diigo is how I share links in my sidebar here. I suppose I could switch back to Delicious if I have to.
Here’s Feedly in “magazine” view:
Other options: Bloglines (what I used before Google Reader came along). NewsBlur (after a certain number of subscriptions, there’s a fee). NetNewsWire for Mac. The Old Reader. Pulp (a paid app for Mac). Flipboard for iOS devices (no good for me, as I need a desktop interface).
What’s your poison?
Related post: Sending Web Content to a Kindle for Reading Later