Last December I made a post about rumors I'd heard through ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
enotsola that Google was going to shut down Reader. Well, today it's confirmed on Google's blog and presumably you too, if you are a user, got the warning box when you went to the site. AUGH. WTF. "Over the years usage has declined," the blog post says. I wish they'd been more specific because I really want to know what their criteria are. (Does it amount to "fell below some arbitrary threshold for how much ad revenue it had to generate"?) I understand the concept of retiring services that are underused vs. the work put into them, but I just find it very hard to believe that Reader really falls into that category, at least to judge by the gnashing of teeth in comments on LifeHacker. I'm also annoyed and perplexed by the shorter lead-time on this announcement than on iGoogle, which they started warning about more than a year in advance (July 2012 for November 2013). Is Reader really the less-used and less-useful of those?
With the loss of these two features it makes me wonder, would I even need a Google account anymore. I barely use my Gmail account. Almost everything I do use it for could be easily migrated to one of my own hosted email addresses. I would not cry if I could not use G+. I use Google Drive for a few things and it is convenient, but I coped before with only being able to access a couple of spreadsheets and things from one computer, and I could cope again. I think the only Google thing I need that much, aside from Reader and iGoogle, is the fact that I am a member of one "native" Google Group (i.e. mailing list, not Usenet) and I don't think you can subscribe to one of those without a Google account. Aside from that, they will soon have almost run me off the ranch.
eta: see also:
http://marketingland.com/12-google-reader-alternatives-36158
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/13/03/14/0617246/whats-the-best-rss-reader-not-named-google-reader
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/101011-6-google-reader-replacements
http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/google-reader/
enotsola that Google was going to shut down Reader. Well, today it's confirmed on Google's blog and presumably you too, if you are a user, got the warning box when you went to the site. AUGH. WTF. "Over the years usage has declined," the blog post says. I wish they'd been more specific because I really want to know what their criteria are. (Does it amount to "fell below some arbitrary threshold for how much ad revenue it had to generate"?) I understand the concept of retiring services that are underused vs. the work put into them, but I just find it very hard to believe that Reader really falls into that category, at least to judge by the gnashing of teeth in comments on LifeHacker. I'm also annoyed and perplexed by the shorter lead-time on this announcement than on iGoogle, which they started warning about more than a year in advance (July 2012 for November 2013). Is Reader really the less-used and less-useful of those?With the loss of these two features it makes me wonder, would I even need a Google account anymore. I barely use my Gmail account. Almost everything I do use it for could be easily migrated to one of my own hosted email addresses. I would not cry if I could not use G+. I use Google Drive for a few things and it is convenient, but I coped before with only being able to access a couple of spreadsheets and things from one computer, and I could cope again. I think the only Google thing I need that much, aside from Reader and iGoogle, is the fact that I am a member of one "native" Google Group (i.e. mailing list, not Usenet) and I don't think you can subscribe to one of those without a Google account. Aside from that, they will soon have almost run me off the ranch.
eta: see also:
http://marketingland.com/12-google-reader-alternatives-36158
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/13/03/14/0617246/whats-the-best-rss-reader-not-named-google-reader
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/101011-6-google-reader-replacements
http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/google-reader/
no subject
Date: Mar. 14th, 2013 07:34 am (UTC)From:I'm gonna miss the Reader. But I use my gmail daily, and there is no other comparable service.
Um. Any suggestions on RSS feed thingies? I don't want to port my reader subscriptions into DW feeds; one of the things I love about Reader is how it lets me sort by folders/categories.
no subject
Date: Mar. 14th, 2013 06:15 pm (UTC)From:eta: via annathepiper (one of the blogs I follow. insert grim laughter here), see also:
http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/google-reader/
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/101011-6-google-reader-replacements
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/13/03/14/0617246/whats-the-best-rss-reader-not-named-google-reader
http://marketingland.com/12-google-reader-alternatives-36158
no subject
Date: Mar. 14th, 2013 02:19 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Mar. 14th, 2013 06:04 pm (UTC)From:It's an RSS feed reader. I subscribe to a bunch of blogs, a bunch of webcomics, feeds of latest art with various certain search keywords on deviantArt, feeds of latest fanfic with various certain search keywords on a bunch of fanfic sites, and (insert wailing here, because I hate the tumblr dashboard) everyone I follow on tumblr via RSS feeds. 280 subscriptions, all told (although granted some of them are possibly defunct; I do weed them occasionally).
no subject
Date: Mar. 14th, 2013 10:38 am (UTC)From:===I suppose they are having an easier time gathering data from mobiles...and they think more folks are going to use their "Currents" news reader. By the by, not all that good. RSS readers I suspect allow too much ability to avoid advertising.
===Google is supporting things that make them money. The increase in mobile use has been a major boost.
no subject
Date: Mar. 14th, 2013 06:12 pm (UTC)From:Google is supporting things that make them money.
Hence my remark wondering if "decline in usage" amounted to "finally fell below this threshold we set for how much money it had to make for us." Even if it was just barely below and there are still, numerically speaking, a lot of people using it (as they even acknowledge, "a loyal following").
The increase in mobile use has been a major boost.
Not that Cel and I are part of that crowd :P We just bought an LG Extravert this past weekend because
it was on sale cheap at Fry'swe were finally fed up with not having a full-keyboard phone, and this was one of only a couple models where Verizon would transfer our pre-paid, pay-as-you-go plan to (we are not monthly fee, contract, data plan people), but it's still not what you'd call a "smartphone". We have a tablet (original iPad) since he won it in that raffle a few years ago, but it's not 3G so we're still not the "internet anywhere, all the time" user it seems they're trying to cater to.When I first heard about this last December I looked into some of the alternatives and did not like any of them. Despite its visual design flaws (and there is a Greasemonkey script for that), Reader did it for me in terms of functionality and UI in a way nothing else did. argh.