Google Reader is dead. Here are five alternatives.

Google Reader officially closed on Monday, leaving a void in the information aggregation market. Check out our list of Google Reader replacements.

2. AOL Reader

AOL Beta website
AOL Reader is still in Beta form, but users can request to get on the site's wait list.

With a slightly irreverent air, AOL Reader launched the same day that Google Reader shut down. AOL’s reader is still in its Beta version, and advertises itself as an “upgrade” from other reader sites. Borrowing from other aggregator sites, AOL Reader includes thumbnail pictures with article headlines for a more visually appealing interface.

The site lets you share with Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and LinkedIn.

Coming soon to the site: Search features, notifications, and sharing with other AOL Reader users.

Is there an app? There are no mobile apps yet. 

Cost? Free.

2 of 5

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.