So Google Reader is going. It’s a shame, I’ve had so much use out of it, but in the last couple of years I’ve almost completely stopped. I just use Twitter now. To me, part of the art of Twitter is to follow enough of the right people so that you probably won’t miss a story that would interest you. Groupthink determines if like minds will bubble the important to my attention. It does save me a lot of time reading things I don’t want to to read.
The other thing to note with Google Reader’s demise is how they are going about closing it. They have given three months notice, and they link to the tool they have had set up for ages that allows you to remove all your data cleanly, in a format that you can use elsewhere (for me mainly, the OPML file I need for all my subscriptions should I ever set up a feed reader again). I can remember other useful services closing, including Google ones in years gone by, where this data transporting was between hard and impossible. They definitely need a little commendation for doing that.
2014 post update
Digg released a nice clone of Google Reader, branded as Digg Reader. If you want to carry on as before, use that!