500,000 People Join Feedly in 48 hrs. upon news of Google Reader Shutdown
The news that Google is shutting down Google Reader on July 1 of this year shook the Internet to its core this week. For many, it is the go-to feed aggregator that made looking deep into the heart of the online world possible from one window, and the news of its demise has us wondering what we’ll do next. What next? How about dumping Google Reader and switching to Feedly? In fact, a half-million people already switched in only two days.
Having a sudden influx of 500,000 new users can be a lot to handle for any site, but Feedly seems willing to meet the challenges needed to greet lost Googler’s with open arms. In a blog post, a Feedly blogger said the company is committed to keeping the site up and running despite the big jump in numbers.
Feedly isn’t content to continue existing while hundreds of thousands of new users flock to its shores. The Feedly blog also said the company is committed to adding new features, and to taking suggestions from new users about what they would like those features to be. Our guess for the number one suggestion Feedly is likely see from from Google Reader users? “Make this more like Google Reader.”
I gave into peer pressure and signed up for Feedly. All my Google Reader info transferred over nicely without much effort on my part. The only problem I’ve noticed is that my lists of sites are out of order for some reason, and I’m having trouble rearranging them in Feedly. That’s minor, and it’s not the kind of thing people do all the time, so I’m willing to live with a little frustration.
The major difference I’ve noticed between Reader and Feedly is that Feedly is beautiful, which actually doesn’t help it at all. We don’t use an RSS reader because we want a beautiful layout — we use an RSS reader to see the most Internet in a single sitting as possible. Feedly offers a few featured articles at the top of each page, but I’d rather just get right to a list of headlines I can skim through.
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Feedly’s not perfect, but it’s a good option for anyone left without an RSS reader come July 2, and everyone else is doing it, so that must mean it’s cool. That’s how things work, right?
