Google’s excellent feed reader service is being retired in July. Visitors to the Reader site are seeing this message:

Clicking the ‘Learn more’ link takes you to a Google Support page that offers some assistance in exporting Reader settings. Google’s explanation for the change is, frankly, lame.

I recognize that Reader was a free service, so I’m not going freak out about all the cool stuff Google seems intent on shutting down, but Reader was a big part of my daily news intake, and I’ll miss it.

Techdirt’s Mike Masnick just posted his thoughts about this. As usual, he hits the nail on the head. I’m one of those people who has become almost entirely dependent on Reader and now I’m going to be scrambling to find an alternative.

Update: I’ve settled on RSSOwl as a replacement for Reader. It’s fast, powerful and flexible. So far, so good.