14 DAY TRIAL // While Google is shutting down Reader, it's not giving up on RSS/Atom feeds. In fact, it's still a big part of the ecosystem, via its Feed API, which is still being supported, and especially via its PubSubHubbub (PuSH) hub.
PuSH is a relatively modern invention and was designed to speed up feeds by removing the burden from the clients, which had to ping servers constantly checking for updates, and using a push system to notify clients (i.e. feed readers like Google Reader or Feedly) of any item in a feed.
The only hurdle in using PuSH as opposed to a traditional static feed is having to configure your feed to tap into a public PuSH server, if you don't plan on running one yourself.
Thankfully, Google is operating the largest PuSH hub in the world, which hosts hundreds of millions of feeds of its own, mostly from Blogger, and hundreds of millions of third-party feeds as well.
Now that Google Reader is gone, several contenders are popping up. Reader had direct and unimpeded access to Google's PuSH hub, but third-party apps don't enjoy that privilege. This is why Google is clarifying its stance on bots accessing the PuSH hub.
Specifically, Google is encouraging third-parties to rely on the PuSH hub as much as they need; limits will be very generous, as the system was built with massive use in mind. Incidentally, the specifications for PuSH 0.4 have just been announced.
"The PuSH hub is designed to be accessed by bots and it’s tuned for large-scale reading from the PuSH endpoints," Google explains.
"We have safeguards against abuse, but legitimate users of the access points should see generous limits, with few restrictions, speed bumps or barriers. Similarly, we encourage publishers to submit their feeds to a public PuSH hub, if they don’t want to implement their own," it adds.