Google Reader Backlash

I'm feeling upset about Google Reader lately. For those of you who don't know, Google Reader is an RSS reader that acts like an email inbox for the various things you read across the internet. You tell Google Reader "I'd like to be sent copies of everything so-and-so website publishes." Google Reader then keeps an eye on the so-and-so website, grabbing a copy of every new article. When I decide to sit down and read Google Reader, I've got a copy of all the new articles around the internet.

The problem with Google Reader is that it send you everything. You get every single article published on a particular website. This can result in about 20 to 30 a day, depending on the source. That's overwhelming. And even worse, I don't typically want to read 20 or 30 articles from the same source. I've really started to burn out reading a few of my favorite websites.

Much worse, a lot of the bigger internet blogs have engineered their feeds to make it difficult to read. Nowadays, they always include ads. Much worse, occasional websites won't let Google Reader copy the whole article.  As a result, I've got to actually visit the website to read the article.

So, every day, I've got 100 things waiting for me to read in Google Reader.  I've got to manually click through each one. Even if it's just a simple click to indicate that I don't want to read the article, it's still more work than I've been willing to do.

I hate to admit it, but I think I'm done with Google Reader. I think I'm going back to manually surfing websites I'd like to read.