During a class today, we had an interesting question — how do you consume news online these days? Google’s just announced that they’re killing off their RSS aggregator, Reader, which has prompted some folks to reconsider their sources.

One of our favorites is Flipboard, a free app on the iPad or iPhone. First, the basics. Flipboard is a free app that is compatible with a 3GS iPhone or newer, an iPod Touch or newer, or any iPad. It requires iOS 4.2. 

Once you’ve installed Flipboard and created an account, you can choose the kind of content you would like to see. Content types are are separated out and each category includes tons of options — we’ve looked at the News category in the screenshot below.

You can also add your social media accounts, from Facebook and Google+ to LinkedIn and Instagram. This allows you to see your accounts in the same clean, magazine like layout. There’s a twitter example below. 

How do you consume your news these days? Any apps you’d particularly recommend? If you were a google reader user, are you switching to one of the other rss services available?