This is hitting third-party developers pretty hard, as a lot of other services and applications lean on the API. Feedly, for instance, uses it as their entire backend. They’re currently working on a project they call Normandy, which is clone of the Reader API for their own backend, and they plan to allow other developers access to it. Similarly, the developer of Reeder—my preferred RSS aggregator for iOS and OS X—is planning to find a new solution as well. (Unless I’m mistaken, Reeder only uses Google Reader for synchronizing subscriptions and unread items. The iOS version can already use Fever instead of Google Reader.)

For those who are looking for a new solution for reading RSS feeds, there are plenty of options out there. LifeHacker has compiled a few suggestions, both web-based services and desktop clients.

Perhaps the shuttering of Google Reader could be a good thing for developers of feed readers. Torpedoing an industry juggernaut usually does wonders for a field, enabling smaller companies to innovate without the dominant company controlling the market. The RSS reader arena was more lively before Google Reader took off. It would be nice to see a resurgence.

After much waiting, the developer has finally released a beta of the application.

It’s very fast, taking only a couple seconds to launch. The interface is slick, particularly the pane that displays the current feed item. Caffeinated does a very good job at formatting the text and resizing images to fit cleanly into the content.

Of course, Reeder is also being beta tested now. Since news of Caffeinated started circulating around the internet, some competitors have shown up. Reeder, in particular, stands out. It will be interesting to see which app comes out of beta first, and how users react.

Caffeinated RSS Reader for Mac Finally Out As Beta [Macstories]

The much-anticipated Mac version of Reeder is now available in public beta. While some of its features are still being implemented, you can get a good look at what the final application will be like.

The interface looks amazing. I think some of the keyboard shortcuts could use some work, but overall its very usable. I like the narrow column of icons representing the individual feeds. One minor change that would be welcome would be for them to automatically sort by the number of unread items, which I have found makes going through large numbers of items easier in other readers.

If you don’t like the icon view, you can drag the column to widen it and turn it into a text-based list instead.

The icons floating along the right side of the top bar can be customized as well. You can add your frequently-used “services” to it, allowing you to easily copy the item’s permalink, tweet the article, save to Delicious or Instapaper, etc..

One impressively styled, but infrequently used, element is the screen used to connect to your Google Reader account.

Reeder for Mac looks like a very promising application, and I cannot wait to see the final version. I currently use Reeder on my iPod and NewsFire on my laptop, which lessens the newsreading experience on both. Not having feeds and read items synchronize is a bit inconvenient. Reeder should solve that. NewsFire is a great RSS aggregator, but it lacks syncing.

When I first started using Reeder, I thought the interface was pretty good. The only real problem was that Google Reader sync was slow. In version 2, a free upgrade for existing users, that has finally been fixed. It only takes 3-5 seconds to download about 250 unread items. Once that is done, the app starts caching all of the images it can find in the feeds so you can still see them when offline. This takes awhile, but you can still read while it works. (You can turn the feature off if you don’t like it.)

Reeder 2 now offers state-saving functionality, as well. If you exit the app to check your email, Reeder resumes right where you left-off when you come back.

Really, it strikes me as the “Tweetie 2 of RSS readers.” It’s one of the apps that easily earns its spot on page one of my iPod’s home screen.

Now, if only the developer of Newsfire would add Google Reader syncing. Then my feed-reading experience would be excellent.

I decided to take this as an opportunity to compare “normal” feed readers with my own MyNT RSS reader. How? I kept a record of the amount of time it took to read my RSS feeds for a total of one week (using MyNT). Next, I repeated the test with FeedDemon. Here is a chart of the results:

Interesting, isn’t it? The red line represents FeedDemon, and the green MyNT. The dates are 1/6/08 to 1/12/08 for MyNT, and 1/13/08 to 1/19/08 for FeedDemon.

There are things I like about both readers. I really like being able to instantly tell whether a feed has new items in it (a feature not included in MyNT), for example. Really though, I’m not about to switch over from MyNT. I just prefer to read RSS feeds differently than most people (a byproduct of Firefox Live Bookmarks being my first feed reader). Instead, I’m going to keep improving MyNT. I plan to start work on MyNT 2.0 in the near future (read: sometime this year when I have time). Some of the features I’d like to include in MyNT 2 are

• categorical “folders” to organize feeds
• a way of telling whether or not a feed has new items in it (though it would work in a different, possibly better, way than FeedDemon)
• an easier way to find feeds that other users read (a directory of sorts)
• “private” feeds that you must be logged-in to view
• easier feed management

I really want to release a more polished product this time around, a web app that doesn’t feel like it was thrown together in a week (it actually took over a month, working alone, but you get the idea).