The internet search giant Google has announced that it is to retire Google Reader on July 1 this year. Google announced in September 2011 that they would be having a ‘Fall Spring Clean‘ and shutting down some of their products.
Yesterdays announcement that Google Reader along with 7 other products were to be closed sees a continuation of the review of the Google Product estate. Since 2011 Google have closed 70 products, which is more products than some businesses ever have.
Other casualties in this round of retirements include
- Snapseed Desktop for Windows & Man
- Google Voice App for Blackberry
- Google Building Maker
On the Google Blog yesterday Urs Hölzle, SVP Technical Infrastructure, said
We’re living in a new kind of computing environment. Everyone has a device, sometimes multiple devices. It’s been a long time since we have had this rate of change—it probably hasn’t happened since the birth of personal computing 40 years ago. To make the most of these opportunities, we need to focus—otherwise we spread ourselves too thin and lack impact.
Google say that Google Reader is being retired because of a decline in usage, but is RSS really dead? Already there is a #savegooglereader campaign on Twitter, with people offering to pay for a replacement RSS reader
If you build a nice Google Reader replacement. I will give you money.
— Gaz Aston (@gazaston) March 13, 2013
We agree! “@amitlavi: Why doesn't anyone duplicate googlereader and sell it for 10 bucks a month? I'll pay happily! #savegooglereader”
— 2Like (@2_Like) March 14, 2013
so it is not as dead as Google may think or there is a model for a small business here.
Hyperlocal RSS
We see lots of hyperlocal sites using RSS to add extra layers of content to their sites, things such as feeds from local papers, or other local sites. Granted these feeds don’t rely on Google Reader or any other product, but if Google are saying there is a decline in usage in the reader and retiring it, is this the early signs that RSS really is dying, will sites stop providing RSS feeds in the future? Is it the begging of the end for sharing on the Internet?
Personally I never really used any RSS reader, I was never disciplined enough to read it every day and keep on top of it, I much prefer browsing my favourite sites (so maybe I have played a small part in this retirement).
What will you be using instead of Google Reader in July? Let us know what you think the best RSS readers are out there..
Mike Rawlins
Away from Talk About Local I take photos, fly my quadcopter and walk my two Beagles.
If I'm not doing any of the above then you'll find me volunteering at my local RNLI station as a press officer.
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I was an avid GoogleReader user – for many years – so I’m one of the people this is going to inconvenience. However, I had already started migrating some feeds to a platform I’ve been working on called n0tice.com – in part to test it, but also because it was easy – plus, for hyperlocals it’s got the added advantage of geo-tagging. One of the things I used GoogleReader for was simply to monitor the activity of some sites and blogs I’m interested in keeping an eye on but didn’t want the bother of visiting several times a day. As an alternative I set up feeds into a dedicated Noticeboard and simply let it run, checking in via mobile or desktop every now and then. See http://www.northerner.n0tice.com for an example – RSS feeds of the bigger news sites covering the north of England where I’m based. There’s some ‘how to’ here and happy to help anyone getting started too: http://n0tice.org/2013/01/04/using-feedwax-com-to-curate-information/
I never got in to RSS readers, but for some strange reason I have been looking for alternatives to something I never used and found this http://theoldreader.com which I may actually start to use.