Feedly adds 500,000 Google Reader users to its kitty

Google’s loss is Feedly’s gain clearly, as more than 500,000 former Google Reader loyalists have flocked to adopt the latter’s RSS service. With Google pulling the plug on its aggregation service, users are searching for alternate services, even as other RSS readers are going full-steam ahead with trying to attract them.

Feedly announced that within 48 hours of Google announcing its plans to kill off Google Reader, 500,000 former users had joined Feedly. The makers of the service said that they had been anticipating Google’s move to retire Google Reader and they had been working on a project called Normandy that is a Feedly clone of Google Reader API – running on Google App Engine. “When Google Reader shuts down, feedly will seamlessly transition to the Normandy back end. So if you are a Google Reader user and using feedly, you are covered: the transition will be seamless,” they wrote.

Making it easy for Google Reader users to get on board

The service has listed down its goals for the next month in the blog. Its main priority is to keep the service up and running, a huge task for a website that is seeing a surge in influx of users. Feedly also wants to make sure it listens to new users for suggestions as well as add new features weekly, in an attempt to impress old users and make newer ones feel at home.

Feedly has added a new connect button onto its home page besides the login one called “Connect to Google Reader”. Using this option, you can easily transfer your feeds from Google Reader to Feedly. Curiously enough, Nick Bradbury, the creator of popular Windows Desktop RSS reader FeedDemon recommended Feedly as the best RSS replacement service. FeedDemon, followed Google Reader’s footsteps and also announced that it was shutting down after 10 years on Wednesday.

"Personally, I like Feedly both on the desktop (well, browser) and on mobile, although the magazine-style format takes some getting used to if you're coming from a river-of-news reader like FeedDemon," he told CNET.

Google, in a shocking move announced that it was killing its wildly popular RSS service, Google Reader as part of its annual spring cleaning programme. Come July 1 and users will no longer be able to use Google Reader. The USP of the service has been its easy to go through, inbox style looks, that set it apart from the new-age, visually rich RSS services like Flipboard and Pulse.

"We launched Google Reader in 2005, in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favourite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years, usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader," Urs Hölzle, Google’s Senior Vice President of Technological Infrastructure, wrote in a blog post.

On the other hand, in a bid to stay relevant in today’s day and age, Digg has announced that it plans to build a Google Reader like RSS service. "We’ve heard people say that RSS is a thing of the past, and perhaps in its current incarnation it is, but as daily (hourly) users of Google Reader, we’re convinced that it’s a product worth saving. So we’re going to give it our best shot," said the Digg post announcing the move. As part of this process, Digg revealed that it wished to "identify and rebuild the best of Google Reader's features", and this includes the latter's API. In doing so, they plan to make it progressive enough to "fit the Internet of 2013". Until then, Feedly is all set to be the uncrowned leader of RSS feeds as Google Reader enters its last leg of life.