I’m not a big fan of most Google services, but I do use iGoogle and Google Reader intensively. Both services are ending this year unfortunately though.
Fortunately in most cases there are alternatives. In a previous blog post I’ve written about some iGoogle alternatives. There are also Google Reader alternatives of course, and some (like Feedly) have even made it easy to migrate. Still it’s never a bad idea to export your RSS feeds manually just in case. If you want to export your starred items, there are some external methods to do this as well.
Another annoying aspect is that you might have bought applications to access these services (better) which might not support the new service you are migrating to. Even though all of this is not that big a deal for personal use, it’s still inconvenient.
In my case I use the great Windows 8 app Nextgen Reader that has no Feedly support yet. Fortunately, it is expected that support will be added before Google Reader goes down. Feedly also plans to create Windows 8 and Windows 8 phone apps.
So even though cloud services are great because they’re available from almost any device as long as you have internet access, you have to keep in mind that you depend heavily on the companies providing the services. So before you start using a cloud service always take into consideration how easy it is to backup, export and migrate your data (data portability). If you don’t you run the risk of losing data and having to spend time to recreate it.
blog.bjornhouben.com 