I’ve been using Fever for about a week now, and it’s been challenging. I’ve got it all set up and auto-syncing, but it’s just more clunky than Google Reader ever was. I don’t trust it; I feel like I’m missing articles from important feeds. My use is dropping off, and I’m looking for alternatives.
It’s frustrating to have lost a key element of my workflow. I’m using Twitter more, but it’s not a direct substitute. There’s a void in my information discovery mechanisms now, and I have no idea what – if anything – will replace it.
I think the demise of Google Reader is going to have a bigger impact than we know. Unfortunately, much of it will probably go away silently. We’ll just slowly get used to not having as much information flow as before. Some of our favorite sites will lose unknown quantities of readership, and maybe disappear because of it.
Google has also lost (more of) my trust. Even if they reinstate the service, I likely won’t go back to using it. And I certainly won’t move to something like Google+ to replace it. In the big scheme of things, I – a single user – certainly doesn’t matter that much. I wonder how many others are out there like me. En mass, do we make a difference? Can we even know?
