Feedly Has Best Day Ever, Adds 500,000 Users From Google Reader Exodus

RSS reader service Feedly witnessed a 10x increase in bandwidth usage following Google’s announced plans to shut down Google Reader on July 1.

According to the popular web-based RSS platform, 500,000 users joined the highly rated service within 48 hours of the Google Reader announcement.

In a blog post from Feedly, the company said its top priority in the next 30 days will be keeping servers running smoothly. Engineers for the service must closely monitor activity and determine the needs of users.

Feedly recently announced that it was working on a clone of the Google Reader API. That program, named Normandy, will help Google Reader users make the transition to the Feedly service.

Feedly engineers are hoping to take advantage of the platforms new fortunes by adding new features on a weekly basis. Feedly has also promised to listen to user suggestions so they can build the best possible platform for users.

The race to capture Google Reader customers has heated up in recent days. Less than one day after Google Reader announced its discontinuation, the popular CNN application Zite rolled out a basic feed reader of its own. Digg also announced plans to build a better RSS reader. Digg owner Betaworks has made the Digg Reader its top priority project.

Another service receiving a massive amount of attention is the open-source RSS reading service NewsBlur. The open-source platform is now running 14 servers just to keep up with demand for its platform.

While RSS syndication has never reached the same type of mass appeal found on social networks and other platforms, the technology is none-the-less used to push website data to various third-party services. RSS is also used by millions of users through third-party network connections.

Do you think RSS syndication will ultimately go the way of aging technology or find new ways to serve customer needs?