Today marks the end of Google Reader, a product that inspired a great deal of affection among its users. The Internet is so over-flowing with “stuff-you-need-to-read” that it’s hard to manage all that opportunity. Google Reader was a way of filtering, tracking, and presenting the most important stuff. Journalists, writers, researchers, and communications people of all types particularly found it of great value.

Google, on the other hand, has seen the value falling steadily over the years, and finally decided to pull the plug with this announcement in March. Today is the last day, and if you haven’t already downloaded and transferred, you may be in trouble. First thing to do, go to Google Takeout and download a backup of all your information. Then you’ll need to use an alternative.

The most commonly mentioned alternative is probably Feedly, followed by The Old Reader. A new product with an old name, Digg Reader, is just being released, and according to some reviews, feels a bit rushed.

Newsblur is a new product, and a paid service as well. But at $24/year, it may be worth the investment for people who want a lot of control over their feeds.

There are also a host of newer news consumption products, such as Flipboard, that have moved into the the same space.