As of July 1, 2013, the much beloved Google Reader will be no more. It's what I used to read updated blog posts, and I suspect MANY people use this as well. But luckily, it's really simple to export the current website feeds you have in Google Reader, and import into another platform. Here are a few WEB BASED feed reader alternatives that I like.
4 Google Reader Alternatives for Bloggers
Netvibes is a good choice because when you click on a website's subscription button, it's one of the options offered (unlike some of the other solutions). It's easily customizable, has a "widget view" similar to iGoogle, where each category is a tab, with the websites you're subscribed to in a box under the tab heading. Each box has the last 5-10 post headlines below it. In "reader view", you can simply see a list of the headlines of the latest blogposts. Netvibes has a "VIP" paid section, which is not necessay for the average blogger, but honestly, this comforts me because I feel like if they're making money somehow, then they'll be more likely to stick around.
Bloglines is powered by Netvibes and looks exactly the same. It was to be shut down a few years ago, but they were acquired and kept alive.
Feedly is my preference as a Google Reader replacement. It's a browser extension, and I like the interface, which is clean and easy to navigate. There are options to view by titles only, full feeds and more. I especially like the "preview" option, which lets you see the post on the website, very handy for sites with partial feeds. Also, if you look towards the bottom right of your monitor when you're on a website, you'll see a faded button called Feedly Mini, which, when you click on it, will provide options to subscribe to the site you're visiting (preview this source in Feedly), or share the link on various social media websites. Pretty neat.
Bloglovin is another option that's been around for a while. The only issue I found is that when I imported my subscriptions, they weren't placed in the categories (I had no issues with the previous services mentioned).
And of course, there's the option to subscribe to blogs & other websites by email. I happen to subscribe to hundreds of blogs, so it's not really an option for me - my inbox would be overflowing!
Are you using any of these feed readers? Or any others that I should look into?
Why can't a good thing ever just be left alone! I'm sure these other feed readers are great, but since so many book blogs I read are on blogger, I really liked that you could follow with Google Friend Connect and automatically get subscribed in Google Reader. Thanks for the suggestions though, I will definitely need to investigate my other options!