Google Petitioned By Fans Of Google Reader To Reconsider Shutdown

http://www.fastcompany.com/3006994/most-innovative-companies-2013/google-petitioned-fans-google-reader-reconsider-shutdown

by ForFreedom • 13 years ago

93 55 13 years ago

fastcompany.com

prawn• 13 years ago

While it's frustrating for users of the service, I think this Reader shutdown provides a great opportunity for so many smaller developers to spruik their product or build another option in the space.

dccoolgai• 13 years ago

This is just like when they cancelled Firefly...

tuzemec• 13 years ago

... or Futurama...

orangethirty• 13 years ago

Google cant change its mind like that. It wod project a badly on them.

marknutter• 13 years ago

Here's an alternative: Google throws a credit card form in front of Google Reader and people can pay for the service.

bradleyland2• 13 years ago

Never happen. At best, Google could spin the service off in to a separate company, but as Google exists today the product makes no sense. The income from a paid Google Reader service wouldn't register a blip on Google's financials, but would detract from their focus.

rkwz• 13 years ago

>but would detract from their focus.

Why not just stop the development on it and let the service to continue?

I never had any problems with Google Reader, nor do I want a particular feature to be added to it. It's fine as it is.

mandelbulb• 13 years ago

Google Reader made quite a lot of sense for Google but they castrated the service so far that it became a standalone product with no relevant connection to remaining Google environment.

So, I agree, after all those bad decisions it would have been very difficult to make Google Reader a relevant revenue source. However, long-term support of such a core service is part of Google's reputation, it was even so important to the users Google could at least have been able to cover the costs.

arindone4• 13 years ago

I'm skeptical that it would be enough to even come close to pay the engineers working on the project, never mind supporting the data storage for all the users

mr_penguin• 13 years ago

Considering Marissa Mayer green lit the project back at google. It'd be nice to see yahoo step in to fill the void.

genericbrandx• 13 years ago

or Amazon? Cloud service, like Google Reader, plus Kindle support would be nice

arocks• 13 years ago

It is not just fans of Google Reader who are shocked, the fans of Google would be too. It goes against their "Don't be Evil" mantra which, as many would interpret, puts common good before sheer commercial interests.

Google might be able to prove that Reader usage has been dropping. However it was still the leading web based solution for reading feeds without any marketing or updates for a long time. As we notice now, people don't even know the alternatives!

A really bad move for the Google brand.

anon13852• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure the Google brand is already heavily associated with killing products whenever they feel like it, as they did to Code Search, Google Search API (twice), Google Video, Wave, Buzz, Google Labs, Google Desktop, Google Notebook, Google Sets, Google Squared, Google Catalogs, Google Answers, Audio Ads, Google Base, Browser Sync, City Tours, Click-to-Call, Google Dashboard Widgets, Dodgeball, Jaiku, Google Mashup Editor, Google Directory, GOOG-411, Joga Bonito, Aardvark, Lively, Music Trends, Ride Finder, Google Shared Stuff, Sidewiki, FastFlip, Google Translate API, Writely, Google Health, PowerMeter, Google University Search, U.S. Government Search, Slide products (Disco, Pool Party, Video Inbox, Photovine, Slideshow, SuperPoke! Pets), Google Pack, Image Labeller, Google Dictionary and now Google Reader.

psbp• 13 years ago

No, I expect Google to offer free services that serve my every whim until they go bankrupt.

gwern• 13 years ago

And Google Knol!

smnrchrds• 13 years ago

To be fair, Google didn't kill Writely. It now lives as Google Docs. There may be other services in your list that are not entirely dead.

stuartmemo• 13 years ago

What the hell is "evil" about shutting down a website?

jbigelow76• 13 years ago

Thank you, the day "inconvenience" becomes synonymous with "evil" you'll know you've lost all perspective.

netrus• 13 years ago

(Disclaimer: I have no idea about Google's code base) Why don't they opensource Google reader? Sure someone could build a small nice business out of hosting it. It's no loss for them, and gathers lots of goodwill in the nerd community.

schmrz• 13 years ago

I've read that Google reader is deeply integrated with Google Search so that's probably the reason.

Here's the link: http://gigaom.com/2013/03/13/chris-wetherll-google-reader/

teraflop• 13 years ago

Given the scale at which it operates, Reader is undoubtedly very dependent on Google's infrastructure (BigTable etc.), none of which is publicly available.

rjv• 13 years ago

Keep it for the goodwill. I can't imagine it's a huge hassle to keep it going.. nobody is asking for them to continuously update and evolve the product.

tiziano88• 13 years ago

when the rest of the infrastructure around it is changing all the time, it's hard not to end up spending a considerable amount of time and effort just to keep the service up and running

drzaiusapelord• 13 years ago

Whats incredible to me is that google co-opted RSS in chrome and practically forced us to use their Reader product via Chrome's defaults. So we all gave up on our stand-alone readers and readers built into other browsers. And now they pull this crap?

I just wish they'd leave well enough alone. I greatly prefer Firefox's RSS integration. Heck, RSS is more or less dying and I blame google and Chrome for this. Shifting the reader from the browser to a webapp isn't helping anyone and just means more backend infrastructure to maintain. Now they don't want to maintain it. Typical cloud fail.

Are they going to toss in a built-in RSS reader into Chrome now? Is the "cloudify everything" fad finally over? Simcity working yet?

overshard• 13 years ago

Your comment generally frustrated me as another "cloud basher" of which we've heard a million times before but then I saw your last sentence, burst out laughing and had to give you some props for it. The cloud is completely pointless and hindering in some situations. Thank you for reminding me of that. -- A Serial Cloud App User

pron• 13 years ago

With Google Reader I can read my feeds on my phone.

ececconi• 13 years ago

People who think there is going to be a reaction remember that the public's reaction to this is probably going to be...

"Google Reader? What's that?"

"Google Reader? Is that like Google Wave or something?"

"Google had a product that would read to me?"

arindone4• 13 years ago

Exactly -- it's a product with a loyal following, but not necessarily significant... and when you work on the scale of Google, a few million people (or even a few dozen) does not move the needle for them

orillian• 13 years ago

I refuse to build anything that uses Google API's for this exact reason, They could pull the plug on gmail next week if they decided they were not getting enough metrics from it.

Look at what happened to the translate API. How about the licencing changes to Google maps API. They build something like this and if they can't find a way to generate more money (maps API) it gets shut down(translate, now reader.), even if a bunch of people use it. And by a bunch I mean a small collective of tech people.

I would not be surprised to see Google Groups get munched once they finish adding a few more features into the communities bag.

I do use gmail, I have multiple accounts in fact, but I backup everything locally that I think might be valuable to me in the future...just in case.

mark_l_watson• 13 years ago

I have to agree with you here. For both customer work and some of my own projects I need a search API and a translate API. I went with the Microsoft APIs because I thought Microsoft would be less likely to "pull the rug."

pixelbath• 13 years ago

I'd also like to add: Google Web Search REST, Google Web Search JSON, Image Search, Code Search, Feedburner's API, and some 30+ others that I _don't_ have a personal interest in, but I'm sure were used by many others.

While it's great to have all this stuff in one place when it's all supported, it quickly turns bitter once Google becomes the only player in a market only to pull out suddenly.

Shooti• 13 years ago

FWIW Google Reader never had an official API, just a hacked up reverse-engineered unofficial API which everyone took to using.

smithzvk• 13 years ago

> I would not be surprised to see Google Groups get munched once they finish adding a few more features into the communities bag.

I would say that this is probably firmly in motion. I doubt that many users enjoy using the Groups interface. For instance, I can't remember if there was ever a time that the groups webpage correctly rendered on any of my Android devices' browsers (it always thinks I'm using an old version of Safari?!?), or was actually useful outside of a desktop (where it is merely annoying, but usable). I think this is a good indicator that they are divesting from any work there probably in preparation of dropping it.

> I backup everything locally that I think might be valuable to me in the future...just in case.

One thing I absolutely trust Google to do is provide a mechanism to get my data out of one of their services, particularly if the service is going to be discontinued.

soupboy• 13 years ago

I used to be a heavy Google Reader user and I'm actually happy they are shutting it down. This will force innovation in this field by removing the biggest player in the market.

torbit• 13 years ago

I like how that blogs links are the same colors has static text.

mwexler• 13 years ago

You know, I haven't seen anyone yet mention the obvious. I'd pay something per month to keep using Google Reader. Is there some reason they don't want my money?

We keep complaining that they are killing this free service. How about keeping it up, charging me something, and terminating only the "free" part?

Google Petitioned By Fans Of Google Reader To Reconsider Shutdown

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