Google to retire google reader on July 1, 2013

[nfbs]

http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2013/03/a-second-spring-of-cleaning.html

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. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

 

[rodga]

That's what happens when you move things from the top row of tabs and hide them in the more drop down section

 

[Chingha]

This is causing an outrage on the Web apparently topping the new pope on Twitter so hopefully it will either lead to a rethink, new G service or the success of the Feedly API.
I use it all the time and will be very sad if I cannot find a good substitute.

 

[rrh]

This is causing an outrage on the Web apparently typing the new pope on Twitter so hopefully it will either lead to a rethink, new G service or the success of the Feedly API.
I use it all the time and will be very sad if I cannot find a good substitute.

+10

 

[Heisenborg]

wtf !

 

[icyrus]

While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined

Translation: "Millions of people use it as a sync service but we can't figure out how to put ads in their faces"

 

[cerebus]

Translation: "Millions of people use it as a sync service but we can't figure out how to put ads in their faces"

Yep exactly. I use Google Reader daily as my primary source to the web (plus MyBB). I'm distraught

 

[AlphaJohn]

Brian Shih, Former Google Reader Product Manager

Let's be clear that this has nothing to do with revenue vs operating costs. Reader never made money directly (though you could maybe attribute some of Feedburner and AdSense for Feeds usage to it), and it wasn't the goal of the product.

Reader has been fighting for approval/survival at Google since long before I was a PM for the product. I'm pretty sure Reader was threatened with de-staffing at least three times before it actually happened. It was often for some reason related to social:

• 2008 - let's pull the team off to build OpenSocial
• 2009 - let's pull the team off to build Buzz
• 2010 - let's pull the team off to build Google+

It turns out they decided to kill it anyway in 2010, even though most of the engineers opted against joining G+. Ironically, I think the reason Google always wanted to pull the Reader team off to build these other social products was that the Reader team actually understood social (and tried a lot of experiments over the years that informed the larger social features at the company)[1]. Reader's social features also evolved very organically in response to users, instead of being designed top-down like some of Google's other efforts[2].

I suspect that it survived for some time after being put into maintenance because they believed it could still be a useful source of content into G+. Reader users were always voracious consumers of content, and many of them filtered and shared a great deal of it.

But after switching the sharing features over to G+ (the so called "share-pocalypse") along with the redesigned UI, my guess is that usage just started to fall - particularly around sharing. I know that my sharing basically stopped completely once the redesign happened [3]. Though Google did ultimately fix a lot of the UI issues, the sharing (and therefore content going into G+) would never recover.

So with dwindling usefulness to G+, (likely) dwindling or flattening usage due to being in maintenance, and Google's big drive to focus in the last couple of years, what choice was there but to kill the product?

Personally, I think that there is still a lot of value a service like Reader could provide -- particularly in a world with increasing information overload coming us from many different sources. But Reader at Google was pigeonholed as an RSS-reader explicitly, and didn't have a chance to grow beyond that to explore that space. But that's neither here nor there.

[1] See Reader's friends implementations v1, v2, and v3, comments, privacy controls, and sharing features. Actually wait, you can't see those anymore, since they were all ripped out.

[2] Rob Fishman's Buzzfeed article has good coverage of this: Google's Lost Social Network

[3] Reader redesign: Terrible decision, or worst decision? I was a lot angrier then than I am now -- now I'm just sad.

Source: http://www.quora.com/Google-Reader-Shut-Down-March-2013/Why-is-Google-killing-Google-Reader

 

[Heisenborg]

Ok so wtf should we use for RSS feeds now, and dont tell me MS outlook

 

[AlphaJohn]

Ok so wtf should we use for RSS feeds now, and dont tell me MS outlook

Well for one I do not think many people realize how bad a move this is, seeing that a crapload of app's both mobile and desktop used Google reader as a source. Hell even Flipboard could tap into that.

I also feel sorry for people that paid actual money for some of the readers Example gReader Pro and so on.

Also wonder if they will incorporate some of the reader functions into Currents? or are they planning to kill that 2 in the years ahead?

Google is making it very hard for me to trust any of their services with this constant culling going on, both as a user and a developer that use the API's.

 

[Trixanno]

I use reader all the time, sad to see it go.
Anybody have some experience with an alternative? I might as well start moving over to a new program now already.

 

[Mouse]

Ok so wtf should we use for RSS feeds now, and dont tell me MS outlook

Google+ or Facebook.
Click like on the sources for your current RSS feeds, and they share their articles with you via social media instead of RSS (I think this is why reader had to die, forcing users to move to social)

 

[diabolus]

Damn, first they freaking kill off iGoogle , where i was doing all my RSS feeds , then i decided i'm just going to make Google Reader my "home page" while they remove the solid and clean dashboard. Now they want to kill that off too?

Guess Google doesn't want me to use their products then. I was looking into alternative "dashboards/readers" and a probable iGoogle alternative is Netvibes, but it doesn't solve my RSS feed management.

The whole point of Google Reader was not the webpage, but how you can manage all your RSS feeds and integrate it into other apps , like Flipboard (on mobile), i could manage everything all in one page and no matter what app i use to read my content, i would get the same content. It is a major schlep to load up 50 custom feeds on every app you want to read RSS content with, hence Google Reader solved this..

I think they just realised they just have no way of monetizing this or inject advertising when i'm skipping the webpage entirely and only use it as a "RSS Aggregator" in other apps. The fact that google never even bothered to make a better mobile reader , like Flipboard is probably a sign.

As much as they want to push me towards G+ , it's still far less efficient if i'm reading news and headlines. G+ is still like Facebook, i don't want to read RSS feeds between all the other social crap we're being forced fed.

Now i won't deny Google News is pretty nifty, if they can allow custom sources for my profile in THERE, i'll be all sorted, but they don't.

 

[diabolus]

I use reader all the time, sad to see it go.
Anybody have some experience with an alternative? I might as well start moving over to a new program now already.

The media world is already on it:

http://mashable.com/2013/03/14/google-reader-alternatives/
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_...s-dying-but-we-have-five-worthy-alternatives/
http://lifehacker.com/5990456/google-reader-is-getting-shut-down-here-are-the-best-alternatives
http://marketingland.com/12-google-reader-alternatives-36158


And i'm not using Google Plus. Screw that. It will nullify all my mobile apps that tapped into Google Reader.

So far NewsBlur and Feedly looks to be cropping up the most : http://www.newsblur.com/ . It also got apps for android/ios . So probably a good place to start then.


And for in case people are wondering what the fuss is about, not everyone used Google Reader like this, but i'd say "power users" did:

http://mashable.com/2013/03/14/google-reader-alternatives/

Replacing Google Reader isn't easy; the service isn't just an RSS reader — it's also the de facto cloud-based RSS syncing service. Many Google Reader users don't even use the web app as their primary feed reader, instead using the service to offer subscription, read, unread and folder information to other RSS clients such as Reeder, NetNewsWire and FeedDemon.

And while services and apps such as Pulse and Flipboard are a great way to visualize news and information, those services are not conducive to the needs of the power Google Reader user.

Thus, a good alternative needs to have a cloud- or web-based component — so that feeds can be accessed from multiple devices or locations — and it needs to be usable with hundreds or thousands of feeds. Finding services or apps that can support both of those requirements is difficult, but we've managed to find a few that fit the bil

 

[nfbs]

[video=youtube;A25VgNZDQ08]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A25VgNZDQ08[/video]

 

[magnetowasright]

So it's about a month left before Google Reader is gone for good, what have you guys migrated to? Or have you given up on RSS?

I have to say, I'm glad GR is going, without it;s departure I would have not taken the effort to start using Feedly. I love the experience, especially the mobile app.

 

[cerebus]

So it's about a month left before Google Reader is gone for good, what have you guys migrated to? Or have you given up on RSS?

I have to say, I'm glad GR is going, without it;s departure I would have not taken the effort to start using Feedly. I love the experience, especially the mobile app.

I'm still using Google Reader probably until the day they unplug it :/

Hm I see there's a Feedly for Chrome.. maybe I ought to give this a bash. Are they on track to fully replace the engine when Reader switches off the lights?

 

[magnetowasright]

Are they on track to fully replace the engine when Reader switches off the lights?

I'm going on faith :wtf: Feedly's userbase skyrocketed after Google announced that they're ditching Reader, it would be really silly of Feedly to lose all those new users because they didn't prepare properly.

 

[magnetowasright]

I'm still using Google Reader probably until the day they unplug it :/

PS: Feedly has a viewing setting that mimics the Google Reader view (among plenty of other views). The nice thing is you can customise the view for each feed, so if you want a magazine layout for feed X but find it pointless for feed Y, you can select the standard list view which looks like the good old Google Reader view.

 

[cerebus]

PS: Feedly has a viewing setting that mimics the Google Reader view (among plenty of other views). The nice thing is you can customise the view for each feed, so if you want a magazine layout for feed X but find it pointless for feed Y, you can select the standard list view which looks like the good old Google Reader view.

I closed my Reader tab today and I'm making a conscious effort to use the Feedly Chrome extension exclusively. It's not half bad actually and refreshes at about the same rate as the native Reader page.