Reader matters

"The killing of Reader sends an unfortunate signal about whether we can count on Google to continue other services we come to need." So says Jeff Jarvis in a longer post here.

Google giveth, Google taketh away.  From the 1st of July the RSS feed aggregator which has been big part of my life since the middle of the last decade.  

For the past two days I have been trying out Feedly as a Reader alternative. It certainly has a nice 'look and feel' but I am stumbling around as far as the functionalities are concerned.

More important,  I have taken the unwelcome news of Reader's closure as motivation to cut down my subscriptions.to the essentials. Over the years the list had grown to 120 feeds, three-quarters of which could easily be culled.

I am sure that I will find a way of getting my daily dose of both relevant news and diverting trivia. But the abiding thought is that socio-technical transitions are constantly and increasingly impacting upon the status quo and our acquired habits. Nobody is going to ask us whether we like the changes confronting us, whether we are ready for them. 

I guess that's a fact of twenty-first century life.