We all knew that Google was turning off the Reader application today, but what I didn’t know was how it would effect me as I still use a stand alone RSS client/application. This morning when reviewing my daily feeds, all of my Google Alert feeds had a no longer in service message!

So I logged into Google Alerts to double check and I was greeted with this message:

 

Luckily there is another service that will assist us from talkwalker.com. The interface feels exactly like Google Alerts, and they even can import the csv file generated from the Google Alerts export feature! Migration was as simple of a few clicks for myself and the most time consuming piece was pointing to the new feeds.

So far the results seem to be accurate when doing sample tests which is certainly a good thing.

In general, I hope this is not the trend of RSS dying as it is a super useful mechanism for users like myself.

I’m still looking for a good solution to Twitter’s death of user and search based rss feeds as well if anyone has a suggestion.