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Google Reader Being Retired
Edgewood_Dirk writes "According to the official blog, Google Reader is being retired on July 1st, 2013. The main reasoning seems to be its decline in usage over the last few years. Users and developers will be able to retrieve their RSS data using Google Takeout."
For what it's worth ...
https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-running
Refugees are already saying that http://theoldreader.com/ is the replacement.
I'm super unhappy about this, I use google reader every day and Google Currents is no alternative. Which alternatives do people like?
When they say it is declining, I wonder if they mean the web site only, or if they include all the apps out there that use it as their storage mechanism. The major loss here is that google reader is the standard. I can use half a dozen different RSS readers and know they all synch with Google Reader, and I can swap between them. Oh, and I know if one day I only have web access, Google's own web interface is pretty nice too.
Don't do it Google! I realize that Reader probably doesn't benefit you much directly, but it's a super important part of "the Google experience".
I realize that Google Reader probably did not make enough money, and/or drive enough traffic, to justify its continued existence. But I spend more time on Google Reader than any other website, by a considerable margin, and I'll miss it.
I'd even pay, if they offered it as a subscription service for a nominal fee.
"Oh, you didn't use Buzz and you aren't using Google+?
Well, now we're closing something you actually use!
That will show you to belittle our products!"
I have just moved back to Linux from OS X, RSS and Google Reader is on the way out, so it looks like I'll be reading mailing lists instead, and I'm posting on Slashdot again.
Google Reader used to have some useful features which they actually removed in hopes of pushing people to Google+. Didn't really work, usage declined, now they're killing it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
... the only reason I have and log into a Google account.
I say we start a class action suit and demand our money back. In fact, I want at least twice the money I've paid them back...
From Samuel Clay's twitter posts today - https://twitter.com/NewsBlur. Remember, NewsBlur is 100% open-source (web, iOS apps, Android). Follow @samuelclay on GitHub: http://github.com/samuelclay. Today's not such a hot day in terms of speed, but the next three months will be full throttle. I was preparing to launch the re-design in TWO weeks, not today. I'm spinning up more servers to handle the onslaught.
I had put a lot of time into Google Notebook. I was using it to maintain a very active log of technical documentation. I carefully choose tags to make it easy to find the information I needed quickly, and I spent a lot of time pruning the information to keep it clean. Then Google said they were no longer going to develop Notebook.
I started using Google Reader to catalog technical articles. Once again, putting a lot of time/thought into tagging and notes to make it as useful as possible. Now Google is dropping Reader.
If the product is not making enough money from data/ads, then at least give people the opportunity to pay for it. I would gladly pay for Notebook and/or Reader!
Should I put the time and effort into gmail? Is that the next Google product to just disappear?? After being burnt twice, I will be thinking carefully before putting a lot of effort into a free Google product.
Google pretty much demonstrates the iron-cast reason why you shouldn't move your apps to the cloud every time they have another round of "cleaning."
No, based on events surrounding their last couple "retirements", it's pretty obvious they're attempting to force people to start using Google+ by retiring most stuff that's external to that product. It doesn't really seem to be working, but it's hard to interpret the tea leaves in any other manner.
For such a huge company they sure are looking desperate...
#DeleteChrome
Why the hell does TheOldReader not have an API? "We're working on an iOS app" just doesn't cut it for the kind of crazy weirdos (like me) that use Google Reader.
I mean, hell, even on my Nokia N9---a platform stabbed and left to die bleeding by the side of the road---there are multiple Google Reader syncing RSS clients. That's what I want Google Reader for, as a central sync repository for my RSS feed reading (some on a desktop at home, some on a desktop at work, some on a tablet, some on a phone, some on my e-reader, etc etc). If sites like TheOldReader are just a website and, at best, an app or two they write themselves for a few of the largest platforms then they're nearly as useless to me as Google Reader will soon be.
NewsBlur seems slightly better in that their apps for the mainstream platforms already exist, but that's still extremely weak compared to the flexibility of interface and location that the current Google Reader + APIs have allowed for.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Feedly seems to be the best alternative if you've become accustomed to using Google Reader. It synchronizes itself with Google Reader (or it will until July). It even has some the same keyboard shortcuts. Transitioning is seamless; it uses Google's OAuth to gain access to your Google account and pull in all your feeds & tags.
It looks like the app is a little slow right now as they are dealing with the surge in demand.
http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/google-reader/
-Shawn "If the Name Don't Rhyme It Ain't Mine" Conn
Immediately after seeing the original post from the Google Reader blog, I started looking for a solution. It seems that practically every RSS program or service out there actually uses Google Reader as a centralized syncing platform.
I read news through RSS feeds at different computers throughout the day and on different OSes. The ability for a service to synchronize between all the places I access the feeds is paramount in a replacement. Thus, all those services which use Google Reader for syncing purposes will break once Google shuts down Reader, so, sadly, they are not a viable option as things stand right now.
I do like some of the alternatives posted by other commenters; I'll check out some of them when I have the time. I also signed the petition in one of the first comments above — it may have no effect, but it's worth trying, I suppose.
I just went and deleted my Google+ account in protest of this and I would suggest that others do also. You are given an opportunity to tell Google why you are leaving Google+ and it seems to me there is no better place to sound off on this incredibly stupid decision to kill Reader.
With everything being in the cloud, what if the cloud is gone someday. The google reader is just an example here.
If google reader is just a desktop app, we can happily conitnue to use it even it is abandoned.
But if it is in the cloud, we are screwed.
The plain and simple truth is that Facebook style usage is more valuable or at least perceived as more valuable. RSS consumption is too passive by nature. Even when it did have the ability to 'share' items with friends (before trying to force those people over to Google plus), comments and notes were rare and an existing article was pretty much required before any discussion would happen (yes, you could create a note and share without an article attached, but the UI design didn't really encourage that usage. Now with even that removed, Google doesn't extract a lot of value from the users. It is a respectable implementation, but not a profitable one.
I personally plan to explore self-hosted solutions. I intended to when google reader dropped the share feature, but was too lazy and it still worked fine as a standalone reader.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
After messing around for an hour trying NewsBlur to work, I exported my RSS data from Google Reader and imported it to Thunderbird. Bye bye Google Reader.
It's one thing to shut down a product that is didn't make it out of the gate (e.g., Buzz), but it's another to shut down a product that is considered to be the premier product in its space.
I've been using Google products for a long time, and have understood most of their shutdowns. I used to think that as long as the service wasn't "experimental", it'd stick around. But going forward, I have 0 trust, since obviously even having the #1 product isn't enough.
This kind of thing is one of the reasons I made that Marge Simpson murmur when my last company's head of IT declared that we were Googleizing. Part of Google's pitch is to list the huge number of apps and tools they have available. Trouble is, you can deeply integrate those apps into your company's procedures, then Google decides to clean house and discontinue something that's become critical to your company and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
Statistics as always ruin everything.
So usage is declining. But who continues to use Google Reader? Everyone who leads the social web, as evident by this story exploding everywhere. Google retiring Reader got more press than any Google innovation got in years.
Maybe Google should use the statistics of attention and rage rather than usage for deciding this one.
I've seen so many "Fuck you Google" said today I'm beginning to think Google has officially transitioned into being the new Microsoft.
No, based on events surrounding their last couple "retirements", it's pretty obvious they're attempting to force people to start using Google+ by retiring most stuff that's external to that product.
Wouldn't that require that google+ at least had half of the features of the products they kill?
bickerdyke
I accept that Google knows their own metrics and usage is declining, but am surprised no-one in marketing asked - what *kind* of users are the ones who still use Reader? Because the answer is - evangelizers. Sophisticated technology users who find RSS incredibly useful. More broadly, folks that love their technology, and many who see Google as a great technology company. This is in practice, if not intent, a narrow-beam fuck you to those folks. Oops.