How to Switch (Successfully) from Google Reader to Feedly

The world heard a collective "WTF" only ten days ago when Google announced it was killing off their RSS program, Google Reader. Here's what this post is not going to be:

There are plenty of people who have written articles much better than mine could be, so why try to reproduce those? Exactly.

But, in all of the noise, it became clear that the real winner coming out of this debacle was Feedly. They were the first, if not nearly, to come out and say, "Use Feedly, and the transition will be seamless come July 1st." I didn't even bother looking at the alternatives. Feedly has a Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and iOS solution (also Android). So, I definitely had all my bases covered.

Let me tell you, the setup was pretty damn easy.

I went to Feedly.com and clicked "Login".

Automatically, I was connected to my Google account and was asked to give Feedly permission to access my Google Reader account. Once I did, I was presented with my new RSS home in Feedly! The home screen reminds me of the Evernote app in how information is presented — topics on the left sidebar, highlights up front-and-center, with some of my subscriptions on the right sidebar.

After perusing my feeds this evening, I definitely feel more comfortable using Feedly. It's nice to have a mix of the old Google Reader feel mixed with a little bit of the FlipBoard look as well.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that the transition goes as smoothly as Feedly says it will!

Let me know in the comments if you used Google Reader. What do you think about the news? How are you handling the transition?