RIP Google Reader – but RSS remains an important PR tool

There was plenty of hullabaloo across the PR and journalist community last month with the announcement that Google was killing off Google Reader from the start of July.  Indeed for many users (including me) the popular RSS reader was one of the main sources of keeping updated on the latest news.  Yet at the same time it has become apparent that people’s online news consumption habits are changing with the advent of the likes of Twitter or tablet-inspired news aggregation services such as Flipboard.

Clearly Google is of this opinion, with rumours it has a replacement news offering in the works.  However, certainly in the fields of PR and journalism there is still clearly very much a need for the trusted RSS.  For me it still remains the best way to monitor your chosen news sources on a daily basis without having to filter out the noise of social media chatter.  It just isn’t as easy to find an interesting technology story amongst tweets about holidays, football and the latest celebrity meltdown!

Indeed being able to keep on top of the breaking news agenda is also a great way to capitalise on those important issues response opportunities – so I would recommend any one getting into PR that setting up an RSS feed (to monitor key publications, analyst houses, clients and their competitors) should be one of the first things they do.

So with the upcoming demise of Google Reader here are some of the alternative RSS services you can sign up to. (NB.  I have signed up to Feedly which also has a couple of excellent iPhone and Android apps. It appears many other people have made that move too in the last month).