As of today, beloved Google Reader is history. While we hardly noticed the passing of past Google products like Picnik, Google Wave, and Jaiku (you can see the full Google Product graveyard here), we were sad to see Google Reader go.
Although revenue was reportedly not a factor in the decision, Reader’s lack of direct usefulness to Google+ may have been the primary factor in its demise. Reader users consumed and shared a great deal of content through the tool using intuitive social sharing buttons. However, when non-Google social sharing options within Reader were converted to Google+, the rate of sharing decreased along with Reader’s longevity. In fact, according to Brian Shih, a former Google Reader product manager, members of the highly skilled Google Reader team had been historically pulled away to work on social products including OpenSocial, Buzz and Google+.
Reader’s death leaves many of us migrating our feeds to services like Feedly, The Old Reader and Digg Reader. (So far, Feedly seems a likely contender with its familiar and friendly interface, although we’re not completely satisfied with the feed quality.)
Are Google Alerts Next?
Google Alerts may be next. We use Google Alerts to monitor when our clients are mentioned in news articles, on websites and in conversations on social networks. We recommend this tool to our clients as one of the simplest and most basic ways to monitor use and mentions of their marks and names online.
Throughout the spring, many search marketing blogs reported that Google Alerts had been acting up. For example, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land complained that he was no longer receiving alerts about all of the various keywords for which he had subscribed. We noticed the change, too. RepEquity account managers went from receiving many Google Alert emails every day to only a few a week. In addition, with the elimination of Google Reader, the delivery options for Google Alerts changed. As of a few days ago, Google no longer allows users to create new Google Alerts with delivery to feed readers. Instead, only email delivery options are available.
To date there has been no official announcement by Google to kill Google Alerts, but given the recent changes with Google Alerts and the company’s history of eliminating products and services, it may be only a matter of time until Google Alerts goes dark.
So Here Are Some Alternatives
Short of signing up for an expensive web monitoring service like Sysomos or Radian6, what are Google Alert users to do? Below, we’ve rounded up a few alternative tools that are poised for success if and when Google Alerts disappears.
Talkwalker – This service advertises itself as the ‘best free and easy alternative to Google Alerts.’ Alerts are easy to set up and can be sent to your email inbox or RSS feed reader.
Mention – Mention offers both free and paid services to monitor your keywords in real time. It allows you to access your mentions from anywhere using the web, desktop apps or iPhone and Android apps. The paid versions, which range from $6.99 to $64.99 per month, provide a larger number of alerts, language monitoring, reporting tools and even sentiment analysis.
Social Mention – Unlike many Google Alert alternatives, Social Mention doesn’t deliver results to your inbox or RSS reader. This tool aggregates content from across the social media universe and provides some analysis including sentiment, top users and top hashtags.
Related Insights
The CMO Who Gave Up Sales Pitches to Build Real Relationships
Chatting with Nathan Burke of 7AI on why relationship-building outperforms traditional B2B marketing Nathan Burke is intentionally doing less of what most B2B marketers are taught to do. As CMO of 7AI, he’s opting out of the usual B2B playbook, the awkward steak dinners with a pitch attached, the conference badge scanning arms race, and…
How UVEye’s Unicorn Drives Trade Show Excitement
Trade shows are crowded. Competitive. Expensive. Every booth promises innovation. Every brand is trying to stand out to the sea of overwhelmed and tired attendees. For AI-driven vehicle inspection company UVEye, standing out meant not just thinking creatively. It meant creating a unicorn. UVEye calls its technology an “MRI for cars.” It provides AI-driven technology that…
How WalkMe’s Melanie Pasch Humanized the Enterprise AI Adoption Problem with “AI Shame”
Ask an executive how many software applications their company uses, and they’ll probably guess 30 or 40. The average organization, according to research by digital adoption platform (DAP) pioneer WalkMe, actually runs about 625 applications. This staggering digital ecosystem is where most tech investments stall, not because the technology is poor, but because employees can’t…
From $200M ARR to Pre-Seed: How Karina Lawrence Rewrites the Marketing Playbook for Early-Stage Startups
When you’ve helped scale a developer-focused company from roughly $200M to nearly $250M in ARR, you know what “grown-up” marketing looks like. Today, though, Karina Lawrence is back at the very beginning—leading marketing at Macrovo, a pre-seed, ~10-person startup that blends AI and human expertise to help financial institutions make faster, smarter decisions. It’s a…
B2B Videos You Actually Want to Watch? Meet Jared Evers of Medallia.
For Jared Evers and his small and scrappy content team at Medallia – provider of customer and experience software – if you can’t do something stellar, there’s no sense in doing it at all. For proof, check out how the team is pushing the boundaries of corporate videos with Experience Now, Medallia’s own streaming platform.…
How HII’s Jaime Orlando Builds Connection, Culture, and Momentum Inside a Legacy Brand
Q: Jaime, for those who might not know HII Mission Technologies, can you give us a quick overview of what your team does? Jaime Orlando Absolutely. HII as a company has an incredible legacy. It’s America’s largest shipbuilder, with more than 135 years of experience. About 75% of HII’s business comes from shipbuilding at our…
How Jenifer Kern Helped Qu Redefine Restaurant Tech
On the Radar sat down with Jenifer Kern, CMO of Qu, to talk about how she helped create a new category in restaurant technology, why maintaining industry focus has been key to business growth, and what it means to elevate marketing in a longstanding industry undergoing rapid transformation. Q: When you joined Qu, what did the industry…
From The New York Times to Muck Rack: Linda Zebian on Knowing What’s Newsworthy
Linda Zebian knows how to tell a good story. As VP of Communications at Muck Rack, she leads a lean, high-impact team responsible for brand, content, product marketing, internal comms, and more. Her approach is grounded in the instincts she developed over 10 years in corporate comms at The New York Times, where she learned…
How Sam Baldridge is Turning Culture Into a Competitive Edge
At Applied Systems, Sam Baldridge wears a lot of hats. Officially, she’s the Senior Communications and Culture Specialist. Unofficially, she might be better known as the “Vibes Director.” Sam is part of a small but mighty three-person team tasked with building internal connection, shaping employer branding, and turning culture into a competitive advantage. We caught…
How Kristina McConnell Uses Precision and AI to Power Account-Based Marketing at H1
A Director of Marketing at H1, Kristina McConnell brings structure, creativity, and a test-and-learn mindset to every campaign she touches. With a small team and a niche audience in the pharma space, she has helped transform H1’s account-based marketing (ABM) approach into a tightly aligned, data-driven engine. Her team goes far beyond basic alignment with sales.…
WE HELP BRANDS OWN WHAT’S NEXT
Our integrated PR and digital campaigns build reputations, drive growth, and shape conversations that define markets. Let’s talk about how we can help you do the same.