Google Reader is going the way of the dodo. I am/was an active Reader user. Mostly from the browser while I had some spare minutes I would dip and read some of the latest news.

The news hast left me somewhat wary of online alternatives. There have been quite a few mentioned:

• http://www.newsblur.com/
• http://www.feedly.com/
• http://www.netvibes.com/
• https://www.pulse.me/

While all of these seem perfectly reasonable, it’s all coming back to the same issue for me. I want my data on my server.

So I’ve decided to try RSS Owl, a nice little open source RSS Reader. It’s not very bling, but it gets the job done. Of course, one of the reasons Google Reader is so handy is because it is in the cloud.

I’m starting to believe that there is a great opportunity and requirement for a personal web cloud based OS. Something that can run your contacts/photos/reader etc as plugins. Then 3rd party services can send your data there with your permission. I have contacts in god knows how many places, Flickr, Picasa, Dropbox, Google Drive, Apple iCloud etc for storing things. People need to take back control of this stuff.

As for who’s going to do this, I don’t know. I think personally it’s going to have something to do with the Mozilla Foundation or W3c