Apps like +Flipboard and +Currents present content in a very pretty format, but to varying degrees, they are designed to present curated content, particularly Flipboard. I like to use sources like Google+, Twitter and sometimes even FB to to discover stuff that I might not otherwise see.
However, I also like to fave rapid, unfiltered access to large quantities of material so that I can find and curate myself and a straight-up RSS reader is by far the best way to do that. Admittedly not everyone wants to do that, but for those of us that do, we should have the option. If Google is going to take away that option, hopefully others will step up and provide a similarly clean interface to RSS.
Reshared post from +Mike Elgan
Why they want to take control away from you.
The Internet freaked out this week after Google announced the closure of its cloud-based RSS reader, Google Reader.
What Google Reader and RSS fans fear is not the loss of a good service and a great format. They fear the loss of control. They fear a future in which decisions about what they see, watch, read and listen to are determined by secret algorithms and the whims of the social media masses.
It's not an unreasonable fear: The taking away of control from the user is the way the whole industry is going.
Here's why:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237636/More_innovation_means_less_control._Is_that_bad_
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I hadn't thought of it as a loss of control but that does make sense…
I have both Flipboard and Currents on my devices but I spend by far the most time in the Google Reader app. It's far and away the most efficient way to see what I want to see.
I switch over to Flipboard, Currents or more often, Pocket when I want to read long-form pieces that I have actually discovered in Reader.
I have Flipboard and Currents too. But I love the Google Reader feed I added to Flipboard…
I added Reader to Flipboard but I almost never look at it because of the lack of control. I have my 300+ feeds organized into folders and typical scan them by folder, star items, keep stuff unread so I can come back to it when I have time. I don't have that granularity of control in Flipboard which just presents the entire river of news.
On this issue, I am in full agreement. Those are no substitutes for Google Reader. This has got to be among the stupidest decisions I have seen a company make.
Nice clip art.
There are plenty of other options.