I seriously miss Google Reader. For years it was an indispensable part of my day and the primary source of news and info for me. Since Google killed it I’ve tried several options with none really sticking. Reeder is the closest thing, and I forget to look at that all the time. I just can’t get in the habit of using anything else and feel like I’m missing out on my friends posts. It feels lonely. When I could trust RSS to let me know anytime a friend (even one I hadn’t been in touch with in years) updated their site I felt connected. Even in the early days of twitter when I only followed close friends I could trust that they’d post things there and I wouldn’t miss anything. But twitter has become something else and I can’t be anymore sure that I see all the posts from people I follow than I can be sure that anyone sees mine, and I know several people who follow me that often tell me they didn’t know about something I’d tweeted about repeatedly so my reliance on that is low and getting lower by the minute.
As a dude who is never terribly comfortable in social settings – initially irc, then blogs, then twitter really gave me a strong community that I felt connected to for the first time in my life. I miss those people – even the ones I talk to or see regularly – and I’m not even sure how to regain that. It seems like the decade from 98-2008 (at least in my mind) was exploding with online conversations and interactions with people. I could trust that any given day I’d be having several thought provoking conversations across many different sites. Now it’s all gifs and links and one liners – which are great, but I miss the other stuff. And I know I’m just as much to blame as anyone else but I just wanted to get that out there.