Google Reader Shutting Down on July 1

Do you use Google Reader?  Well, if you do, you won’t for much longer.  Google Reader will be shutting down on July 1, 2013.  The news came today in a “Spring Cleaning” blog post from Google, where the company said:

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

This is somewhat of a shock to me, I knew Google Reader had been neglected by Google for quite some time now, but I didn’t expect it to end up on the chopping block. Many people use Google Reader to read their RSS feeds every single day, it can only make you wonder if FeedBurner is next on the list of services to be shut down.

I wonder how apps (e.g. Reeder) will be affected by this shut down (if at all)?  I know a lot of apps allow users to import their Google Reader subscriptions, and well, obviously they won’t be able to do that anymore.