Google Reader is Dead

Google announced the other day that Google Reader is being killed off. I'm not sure if you know of this fine program, but I use it several times a day to review and read many, many RSS feeds and websites. Combined with Flipboard on my iPad, it is one the best ways to consume content, I  think.

I have 380 feeds in my Reader, which I have collected over the years. I've been told that all of the other competing services are inferior and that they all basically crashed yesterday due to the crush of Reader users suddenly arriving to sign up.

I would happily pay money for this, until now, free service, but Google thinks that they have to focus scarce resources on other projects, which I understand.

I just seems to me that they could have generated some goodwill by releasing the source code as an open source project and let the users manage it.

Change.org petition to keep Google Reader alive attracts over 47K signatures - Venture Beat

Four alternatives to Google Reader - USA Today

The Fuhrer is not pleased...as you can imagine.