Google Reader mourners, rejoice! The RSS feeder is back… sort of

By Jam Kotenko September 13, 2013

google reader mourners rejoice rss is back sort of alerts

It was two months ago when Google Reader went kaput, and since then legions of RSS feed lovers have been forced to turn to countless alternatives. The reader’s death was quickly followed up by more drama as the company pulled RSS support from Google Alerts. These two cuts made it seem like Google was ready to cut ties with RSS completely, much to the chagrin of users. But lo and behold, the Internet giant has reportedly put the latter back in commission, allowing people to relive the days when they could receive Web search results both through email and RSS.

When the option to receive Google Alerts via RSS was taken away, users had no other choice but to switch to the only option available: Email delivery. Gmail inboxes were hopelessly and needlessly clogged – anybody who made it their business to be in-the-know when it came to certain phrases and search words soon regretted signing up for Google Alerts and were forced to try out other methods of keeping tabs on the Internet.

google-alerts-rss-dead_searchengineland

With the RSS option back, users may now re-enlist the service of Google Alerts and choose the Feed option. In case you have forgotten how, here’s a quick step-by-step:

1. While logged into your Google account, go to Google Alerts. If you didn’t touch anything back when the RSS option was removed, you should have your old search entries still listed under Manage your alerts. If it’s empty, you can easily create a new one.

2. Clicking on Create new one will lead you back to the main Google Alerts page, where you can enter a search query, result type (news, blogs, videos, discussions, books, or everything), frequency (as it happens, once a day, or once a week), and quantity (all or best results). Afterward, under the “Deliver to” dropdown menu, choose Feed. Hit save.

google alerts

An RSS link will then be generated, which you can add into your current RSS reader.

Although the option is back for Google Alerts, it doesn’t seem like Google has plans of bringing Google Reader back. But it’s better than nothing, right?

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Web
Google

Former Digital Trends Contributor

When she's not busy watching movies and TV shows or traveling to new places, Jam is probably on Facebook. Or Twitter. Or…

Social Media

Overdue: Google Reader to get design revamp, Google+ integration next week

google-reader

Well, it's about time. Google announced Thursday that it will be giving its Reader product a much-needed redesign. In addition, Google will added integration with its Google+ social network to make it easier for users to share stories with their Circles.
As part of the redesign, Google will also do a bit of house cleaning with Reader by retiring the current social features in the RSS reader, including friending, following and the sharing of links within Reader itself.
In an attempt to get out ahead of the user outrage that's commonplace anytime a company like Google or Facebook rolls out drastic changes to long-running products, Google says it will also make it possible for users who dislike the new setup to export their data, and move to a different RSS reader.
“We think the end result is better than what's available today, and you can sign up for Google+ right now to start prepping Reader-specific circles,” writes Alan Green, a software engineer at Google. “We recognize, however, that some of you may feel like the product is no longer for you. That's why we will also be extending Reader's subscription export feature to include the following items. Your data belongs to you, after all, and we want to make sure you can take it with you.”
The items include subscriptions, shared items, friends, likes and starred items.
The update to Reader is due sometime next week. And if you ask me, it couldn't come soon enough. As someone who must constantly keep on up as much as possible, I am a fairly heavy Reader user (but by no means the heaviest, for sure), with a few hundred websites programmed into my subscription list. When Google+ launched this summer, one of my first thoughts while testing out the new social network was how great it would be to have Reader integration. And pretty soon, Reader began to feel out-of-date entirely – but still the best option around.
In other words, I could not be more excited for the update. So I likely won't be one of the people packing up all my data and heading for the door. Unless, of course, Google completely screws things up, which is always a possibility. But I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic about this until the day comes.

Social Media

Facebook hits back at Google+ with ‘Facebook for Business’

facebook_like_button_blue_logo

Just as Google+ has been busy shutting down company profile accounts for violating their user policy, Facebook announced Tuesday its launch of Facebook for Business (facebook.com/business), a webpage that provides directions for how to use the social network's organization-centric resources. As Colleen Taylor at GigaOm reports, Facebook for Business does not include any new features. Instead, it simply makes it easier for business to use the wide variety of social networking services that have long been available to them through Facebook. "Facebook allows small businesses to create rich social experiences, build lasting relationships and amplify the most powerful type of marketing — word of mouth," a Facebook spokesperson told GigaOm via email. "We created Facebook.com/business to make it even easier for people to reach these objectives and grow."The services Facebook provides to businesses include: pages, which are user profiles for organizations; advertisements, which appear in a sidebar on users' profiles; sponsored stories, which are a different kind of ad that appears in a user's News Feed when one of their friends "likes' a business' page; and platform, which helps businesses create Facebook apps and use the site's social plugins.While none of these services are news in and of themselves, Facebook's timing for launching the new business help section certainly appears to be a hit back at Google, which has stolen the social networking spotlight in recent weeks, despite its decidedly mismanaged rollout of business profiles on Google+. Neither the launch of Facebook for Business nor Google+'s sluggish handling of business profiles will likely have much affect on the long-term battle for social networking dominance. Google+ is certainly growing at an impressive rate — it is estimated to have passed 20 million users in under 30 days — but Facebook remains leagues larger, with 750 million users in its ranks, most of whom are probably not paying much attention to any of these minor corporate spats.

Social Media

Twitter gives blue check mark to dead folks

The continuing saga of Twitter and its blue check mark has taken a bizarre twist as it seems that a number of deal celebrities are now paying for Twitter Blue.

On the orders of new owner Elon Musk, Twitter last week started removing blue check marks from accounts that have not signed up for Twitter Blue, its premium tier.