Last night while reading about the upcoming demise of Google Reader, it hit me: Google Reader changed my life.

While looking for laptop to take to college circa 2006, I stumbled onto reviews of the brand new Intel-based MacBook; the ones with the crappy white plastic that turned yellow as soon as you touched it.

I bought that MacBook, my second Apple product behind a 30GB iPod. But perhaps more importantly, I started reading tech blogs. First it was Engadget, which ultimately led me to Ars Technica, Techcrunch, Boy Genius Report, and Gizmodo.

Soon, I would be in the market for a smartphone to replace my tiny Ericsson piece, which led me to sites like found under the umbrella of Mobile Nations.

So, here I am with all these websites and no easy way to read them other than to scroll through my Firefox bookmarks.

I think I ultimately heard about Google Reader on the Engadget podcast, though I can’t be sure. But whoever revealed its existence deserves a nice firm handshake, because finally I was able to put all of my favorite websites in one place. For a while, I used it to skim through to find virtually every phone, pc, laptop, or tablet review all in one place…

In a couple of days Google Reader simply will not exist, but RSS Readers will and they’ll be even better than Google’s product ever was.

But give credit where credit is due. Google Reader brought the RSS Reader to the masses, so that stupid kids like me, lacking of any knowledge of code or gadgetry, could finally bring it all together and discover what the beautiful tech-blogger world is all about.