NewsBlur is very cool, and it's a great UI. It hasn't always been around though. They are missing one thing though, the Human Curation part of Google Reader. There is no built in social core. That is a very big piece of what people will miss about Google Reader.
Right, Google Reader won't ever be for the masses. That is exactly why another company can swoop in. Google is a company for the 90%, but 10% is still big enough to make a successful company.
Yea, I am with you. But, like the point I made in the article. What is feedly going to do with the share button? Or, reeder for that matter.
I really think there is a space for someone to do a Google Reader like API, and publicly support it. Google Reader has yet to release an officially support API.
If they were to start as a drop in replacement they could be huge.
Hopefully clients like reader will begin to notice your stuff as well, and we can develop an ecosystem around NewsBlur.