And yea, so we come to the end of the life of Google Reader, beloved by… by…Well, that was kinda the whole problem.
For those unfamiliar, Google Reader is, or rather was, a method of collecting RSS feeds in one place. It was actually a very effective program when it was introduced in 2005, but now Google is unceremoniously taking it out behind the woodshed.
We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader.
This is buried in a long, long list of programs Google is dragging to the trash bin, including Google Cloud Connect, Snapseed, Google Building Maker, and a bunch of other programs that you probably didn’t use.
The truth is that Google Reader has a dedicated cadre of hardcore fans who stuck with the program even after Google forced their entire subscription list to join Google +, a move that enraged the Reader community to the point that some nerds held a “wake” as a protest in front of Google’s offices in Cambridge.
But the reality is, apps like Flipboard (and social networks like Twitter) have made RSS readers a bit redundant. Google Reader has a hardcore community surrounding it, but Google has more important things to support, like laptops that break when you lose your Internet connection and glasses that are so dweeby bars are already banning them.
Still, we’re sure there will be an outpouring of grief — as evidenced below by Hitler’s dismay — followed by being promptly forgotten about. Kinda like LiveJournal.
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Solid video embed job.
GOD DAMN IT.
Thanks OBAMA!
This is so fucking stupid, why don’t they get rid of google+ instead? More people use myspace than that piece of shit.
Fuck, offer me a pay option. I’d pay a few bucks each year to keep it alive, as would, I suspect, thousands of others. Just leave it alone, don’t tinker with it, and let the revenue brought in pay to have a couple of people on staff maintain the product. Instead we get those stupid fucking glasses. Idiots.
Agree completely. I’d pay just to not have to deal with migrating 3000+ starred items. Fuck.
I am devastated. Would love some statistics on usage between people who write on the internet vs people who don’t. Pretty sure every single one of us uses in some capacity.
1. Google reader has been dwindling for a long fucking time. The only issue is that the users are dedicated and vocal.
2. Pay service does sound good in theory, I like that. But I for one am not paying, and I’m sure cutting out at least half of small group isn’t profitable.
3. Google+ has way more marketing potential than Reader. They can’t cut it. Also, I like it way more than facebook and everything else. Granted I can’t use it because no one is on it.
They could put a reasonable amount of ads or promoted material on google reader and I’d still use it. As for google+ isn’t an important part of a successful social network having people that actually use it?
To be fair, Google does have detailed instructions on how to pull everything from your GR feeds and transplant them to another service.
To be fair, Google can suck a bag of dicks.
Yeh, I’m going to miss having reader auto-fill my friend’s email addresses and the integration with other google apps. When they removed the social/sharing aspect of reader a while back it already lost a lot of appeal.
SUCK A BAG OF AIDSY DICKS GOOGLE.
Fear not people! Feedly will make a seemless transition using the same API and stuff.. I don’t really know anything about it but the GF was upset and found this: [blog.feedly.com]
I don’t ever feel comfortable when giving data to Google, so never used GR. I can recommend Tiny Tiny RSS, but you have to have access to mysql and PHP for the installation.
What the fuck do you use to search the net, webcrawler? I admit that google has some shady practices, but you must be doing some pretty shady stuff yourself if you’re afraid of google data mining you.
I grudgingly use the search engine and Maps. That doesn’t mean I have to use Google Mail, Reader, or Play Store on Android.
Googles not the only search engine. I use yahoo for example
I switched over to [feedafever.com] a self hosted RSS service that syncs with Reeder on my iPhone.
The issue with Google Reader shutting down is that a lot of services piggyback on it as a syncing service. Feedly, Flipboard and Pulse all integrate with Google Reader for personalization. Feedly says they’ll migrate everything to their own service but who knows how it’ll do.
They gutted it earlier with their G+ integration and are shocked, shocked I tell you, that usage has fallen off.
Fuck Google. It was the last service I used of their’s for personal use, so I am now Google free.
This is a surprisingly bad move. Not just for the users either but for Google as a whole because it erodes a significant amount of trust in them as brand. How can Google’s services be trusted when they arbitrarily shit-can heavily relied upon services? This whole fiasco is exactly why Google has such a hard time breaking into enterprise fields. Even from a strictly business standpoint this an incredulously dumb move.
Google shitcans stuff all the time, actually. Pretty much quarterly they have posts about products they’re going all American Psycho on. It’s just that most of them have a less vocal userbase.
Aww man. I’m an avid user of Google Reader and it’s freaking convenient. What am I supposed to do now!? Go to each webpage individually!?? NOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo *faints*