Not so fast, RSS.

Let me begin by stating that I was going to title this post "RSS is dead. LONG LIVE RSS!"  I thought it was catchy, and to the point.  So I Googled the phrase, and came up with 21,200 hits from that direct quote.

So I guess I'm not particularly original (nor is this topic, it seems).

I've been trying to shift away from RSS feeds for a while. A number of blogs and news "news" sites that I follow have been posting their content on Twitter and other social media outlets for years.  As I started to see duplicate posts on my Twitter timeline and my RSS reader, I began to unsubscribe from the RSS feeds and rely more upon Twitter.  As I have become more involved with Google+ (say what you want, but there is great content out there), I have repeated the process and have begun unfollowing Twitter profiles and circling them on Google+.  The problem is that not all of the sites that I follow push their content through social media.  That's not fair ... they all do, to some extent.  What I have found, however, is that not all of these sites are pushing ALL of their content out through social media.  They cherry pick a few articles and Tweet or post them for their followers.  Of course this makes sense, as they are hoping to draw traffic back to their websites and garner those valuable clicks (and ad revenue).    The reason I started using RSS, however, was to avoid just that.  I want the information to come to me, and then I can pick and choose which articles to read and which to ignore, all in one spot.  So I am in this information limbo, where some of my content is coming through RSS, some through Twitter, and some through Google+.

Now our friends at Google clearly want everything to come through Google+.  They want it to be less of a social network and more of an information portal.  To that end, Google is shuttering their RSS reader.

This is just a screenshot.  You can click "OK," but it will only give you a bigger picture.

Being the Google fanboy that I am, clearly Google Reader was the RSS reader I used.  When this announcement came out on Wednesday, I was a little peeved.  So were a number of folks on the Interwebs.  I am particularly fond of YouTube user leebdough's version of the famous Hitler rant from Downfall: (Warning, some salty mis-translations in the subtitles.)

I actually want Google's hopes to come true for Google+ (or something else) to become a one-stop hub for information.  (I really don't mind if they are taking over the world.)  We are not there, nor are we close to that point.  Shutting down Google Reader may push some content providers to use more social media; I still want a good RSS reader.  Fortunately, a number of articles were written after Wednesday's announcement recommending alternatives to Reader.  So on Thursday I deleted Reader from my phone and Tablet, and installed Feedly.

I wish I had done this sooner.  I always enjoyed Google Reader's stark, utilitarian interface.  It helped me roll through a great deal of content very quickly, and I was able to easily share any articles I wanted.  I have to say, however, that the graphic-rich look of Feedly is pretty sharp.  I can go to a more Spartan list style, like Reader's, but am enjoying the magazine look at this point.  I know there are other options out there, but what hooked me to Feedly was the ease of switching from Reader.  All I had to do was log into to my Google account, and Feedly rolled over all of my subscriptions.  I repeated the setup on my browser, phone, and tablet.  It worked perfectly.  Once Reader closes up shop on July 1st, Feedly promises to keep all of my subscription information on the back end, so I won't miss a beat.  (Fingers crossed.)

I have also dusted off my Pocket account, which I never really used.  I had a number of old articles saved in Google Reader for a variety of reasons.  I used this opportunity to comb through them all, discard most, but then push the ones I still wanted up to Pocket.  I was then able to organize those articles using Pocket's tagging system so that they are now stored in a useful and accesible manner.  Feedly will also allow you to push articles up to Pocket, so this is a system I plan to keep employing.

I do want RSS to go away and be another three-letter acronym that our grandchildren will never know.  For the time being, this is how I'm dealing with the Google Reader shutdown.  It works, and I think it is even an improvement.  It has taken me a day or two to get used to different interfaces, but I like the results.

Anybody have advice on a good VHS digitizing technique?