I’m playing with Feedly as a replacement for Google Reader. My first reaction was “o my gosh, this is such a busy interface” but I was able to quickly figure out how to set the feeds to display in compressed mode, which is much easier to scan without distraction (IMHO). The great thing was the ease of entry. Simple login with Oauth with my Google credentials and automagically picking up my Google Reader feed configuration without even having to set up an account @ Feedly! I figured out that bookmarking a post equaled “starring” a post in Reader. I’ve attached Twitter and Facebook, tho I’ve not tried sending anything thru those interfaces. I’m using it with Chrome and iOS right now, but overall, this looks like a quite viable alternative. There are some things I see already that I like better than Reader, such as the breakdown of historical posts by day. So, I give this a cautious thumbs up…
Well, looks like Feedly may be planning to cash in on their good fortune with the demise of Reader. They are reportedly planning a “freemium” model. See: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/040113-feedly-gains-3m-new-users-268270.html
As the article says, this may not be a bad idea, as it takes a business model to keep the servers up 😉 I do pay for a premium Evernote subscription, for example, though I probably don’t need it. I rely on that service and like to support it. Maybe that is the right model for Feedly.