7 reasons why Google Reader was the best service

Google is killing off the popular and much-used service Google Reader.

I am very disappointed. Google Reader is the staple of my internet. It’s my #1 site both on desktop and on mobile. By far my #1 most visited site. BY FAR. Google Reader is my #1 site I visit throughout the day at work on the desktop and at home. The Reeder app (which pulls from Google Reader) is my #1 mobile app while riding the train.

I use Google Reader more than email. I use Google Reader more than any other website ever. Whoever can provide an alternative has a HUGE opportunity. Google Reader was by far the best product on the internet. It was simply the best way to consume the internet.

Seven ways how Google Reader is was the best service:

1) You get everything you want
In our age where Facebook only shows you some posts, Google Reader didn’t edit stuff out. You can read it all and you have trust that every single post will appear.

2) You can customize and organize what you read 
With sites like Pinterest you get one firehose of a stream. With Google Reader, you can put website feeds into specific folders that are categorized for you, the reader.

3) You didn’t have to re-read things
With Twitter you can’t mark tweets as read. Instead every time you come back, there are those tweets already read. And please, don’t tell me you are reading your main twitter stream. Let’s take a lesson from point #2 and hope you are using Twitter with lists. Lists in Twitter allow you to organize who you follow. Google Reader functions in much the same way except it used folders instead of lists. But Google Reader beats twitter with the feature of once you read something, it’s marked as read.

4) You could get alerted of totally obscure eBay auctions
I have over 100 RSS feeds set up to alert me when rare auctions come up like Stegosaurus teeth, lucahdor plush, diamictite rocks, and globes in bulk. I have 133 feeds set up for unique eBay searches like this. I even had RSS feeds set up to search eBay for every single Cubs game I’ve been to, in the chance that some unique item like an original lineup card was being sold.

5) Google Reader provides a ready archive of everything you read
If you use Google Reader to do the majority of your reading, like me; it keeps an archive of all the content. Forget the name of that cool article you read a few months ago? You can search through all the items you’ve read. So handy

6) Archive of tweets
Search for something on Twitter, and you’ll only get the past couple days of tweets. If there are topics you are interested in, but don’t have the time to check every couple days, you’ll miss out on some interesting tweets. With Google Reader, you can subscribe to say, tweets that mention Shawon Dunston. And then you can read those tweets any time you want. I also use Google Reader to dive into batches of tweets that use the hashtags #funfunsuperfun and #thatwouldbecool. I have 62 such archives set up.

7) Notifications of rare word combinations in tweets
Just like the alerts for rare eBay auctions, you can also be alerted of rare word combinations in tweets. I have feeds set up to alert me for: grimlock technobots, “aged baseball cards”, and names of friends and family. I have 72 searches like this set up in Google Reader.

7 reasons why Google Reader was the best service (this time I’m giving the correct link to my blog post) spud.so/maldre130313

— Matt Maldre (@mattmaldre) March 14, 2013