ReadWriteWeb

Today Google Reader became the latest Google product to have Plus added to it. Now Google Reader users can +1 or share items to Google Plus, from within Reader. Google has made very clear over the past month that Plus will be integrated into all of Google's products over time, so this wasn't a surprising move. However, rather predictably, there has been a user backlash anyway. Writing on his G+ profile, Google Plus Marketing Manager and long-time RSS expert Louis Gray tried to assure everyone that they have choices: "We know that for some people, the changes to Reader will make you think differently about the product, and this may make you seek alternatives."

But are there in fact any viable alternatives to Google Reader?

With near half a million Android devices being activated every day, there are a lot of people learning the best ways to use their brand new devices. The natural thing for a new user to do is look up their favorite websites using the native browser on the phone. Yet, a lot of times they will find that the site is not optimized for the mobile Web. This makes for a clunky Web experience that detracts from the perceived value of the shiny new smartphone.

That is where RSS applications designed specifically for Android become incredibly useful and powerful tools. Available through the Android Market, there are a plethora of terrific RSS readers that will render users' favorite sites into delightful, visually appealing feeds. What are the best Android RSS readers in the Market? Let's take a look.

One of the more subtle trends of 2010 has been the way that our reading habits have changed, due to a convergence of other Web trends: mobile apps, real-time Web (mostly Twitter), and social networking as a way to track news (mostly Facebook). In the previous era of the Web, the so-called Web 2.0, RSS Readers and start pages were all the rage. Over 2010, though, more people used tools like Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper, Flipboard, LazyWeb, Feedly and TweetDeck, to track news.

Nowadays I'm more likely to find stories to read via a vertical aggregator (the media-focused Mediagazer is my current favorite) and save them to Instapaper for later reading via my iPhone or iPad. I still use Google Reader, but in all honesty I now use it more to scan than to read.

Recently I wrote about the decline of RSS Readers as a way for people to keep up with news. I noted that while many people still use RSS Readers, usage has decreased due to the emergence of real-time and social flows of information via Twitter, Facebook and other such services. The post sparked a fascinating discussion, with over 160 comments.

What I learned from that discussion is that while the RSS Reader market is indeed in decline, there are still a number of compelling use cases for RSS Readers. Not to mention new tools worth checking out. So in this more optimistic post, I list 5 reasons why you should continue to use RSS Readers.

One of the interesting trends of 2009 has been the gradual decline of RSS Readers as a way for people to keep up with news and niche topics. Many of us still use them, but less than we used to. I for one still maintain a Google Reader account, however I don't check it on a daily basis. I check Twitter for news and information multiple times a day, I monitor Twitter lists, and I read a number of blogs across a set of topics of most interest to me.

Frankly I'm more likely to use Google Reader to search for specific information nowadays, than to scan my subscribed feeds for their latest posts. So what's happened to RSS Readers. Do people still use them and is there still a viable market for them?

Feedly, the magazine style feed reader we first covered back in August of last year, is now available for the Google Chrome web browser. As with the Firefox implementation of the service, the Chrome version also uses a browser plugin to offer an alternative user interface to Google Reader. This early version of the Feedly for Chrome release offers most of the features found in the original Firefox version of the service, but requires the installation of a dev build of Chrome in order to work.

Today, Opera revealed the newest version of their web browser, Opera 9.6. As always, the latest update includes speed and performance increases, but the update delivers several new features, too. The one new feature that we were really excited to try out is how Opera 9.6 deals with RSS feeds. In this latest version of the browser, you can preview your feeds in an attractive magazine-style layout. But what we really wanted to know is could read your feeds like this once subscribed?