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RIP Google Reader

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Re: RIP Google Reader

#151

Post by javajosh »

arcticbull wrote: post #130
aasasd wrote: post #104

So basically, one can begin slapping together a competitor as soon as Google rolls out a service—because the service is likely to go the way of the Reader in a few years.

Indeed, Google's launch validates a market, creates enthusiasm, and once they shut it down you can be there to catch the users.

This is the VC cycle in a nutshell: venture capital does some PoC, business/tech R&D, and when it fails (usually does!) the lessons are still available to others.

It's no different even if the (defunct) startup has a patent: IP law doesn't really matter when the IP doesn't have any money behind it.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#152

Post by tomjen3 »

conesus wrote: post #35

It was in the summer of 2008, three years after Google launched Reader and had at least 5 million users, when I decided to write my own RSS reader. There were just so many features I wanted that I knew Google would never build and for some strange reason I thought I could make money with my own opinionated take on a news reader. Then at 4pm on March 13th, 2013, I got an email from Nilay at The Verge asking if I'd hea…

Thank you for making newsblur. I used it for a long time after google reader, until I moved all my RSS subscriptions to Thunderbird.

If anybody else wants a good cloud RSS service, take a look at newsblur.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#153

Post by aksss »

kypro wrote: post #117
vanderZwan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Google Reader was the social network for people who don't like talking about themselves but about things on the web that they find interesting, and nothing since has ever come close to it.

Isn't this exactly what Reddit is? I wasn't a Google Reader user, but I'd be interesting in understanding what I was missing.

For me, Google Reader was about high volume headline digestion, reading articles without having to follow links, read articles without having to switch between a multitude of publishers’ crappy and varied web UIs. It was about fast and efficient information hoovering from around the world. Reddit is a different animal altogether. Great for what it does but not like a clean RSS tree.

Also, just want to add: Google killed the “discussions” search filter, which let you limit your search results to forums, around the same time, IIRC. Screw Google.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#154

Post by atmosx »

mumblemumble wrote: post #80
ChrisSD wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In retrospect Reader's death marked a turning point in how Google was perceived. There were grumblings before that but Google was still the darling of the web. As you say, Google+ was consuming Google at that time. So when they killed Reader it was not just killing a beloved service. It also acted like a lightning rod for the discontent that had started to swell. A lot of people would never again view Google through…

It's that, but it's also a symbol for how the Web has changed. Google bulldozing Reader in order to clear ground for a (intended) social media behemoth reflects how all sorts of smaller online communities and spaces have been razed or faded away as everything continues to consolidate onto the social media giants.

... so everything consolidated in G+?

Re: RIP Google Reader

#155

Post by 8note »

OskarS wrote: post #45
cletus wrote: post #11

Whatever was said at the time, I’m convinced Google Reader was collateral damage from the Bay of Pigs Google Plus effort. It had social features (which I honestly never used) and anything social had to be G+. Still, I honestly don’t understand why this is the hill people want to die on, what they feel most betrayed about. Like I haven’t seen some people this upset since Firefly was canceled.

The social features were actually killed off before the product itself: a few years earlier they did a redesign which removed all of the social features. The social features were cool, I remember following a couple of journalists i really like who commented on the articles and discussed it with each other, it was a really nice thing. The reason people are so bitter is that Google Reader was the kind of thing that if…

"your own curated space" sounds like the problem. It's hard to inject paid for stories and ads in without making it unpersonal

Re: RIP Google Reader

#156

Post by seaman1921 »

crazygringo wrote: post #149
dpeck wrote: post #114

Those of you who don’t understand why people were attached to Reader: Please keep in mind that it’s generally not the death of the tool that we lament after all these years. It is the destruction of our communities there that we’re still sad about. Imagine your favorite coffee shop, bar, church or social club ceased to be. You’d still see some of the previous members at other places, but the community as it existed i…

Wait, what was the community? I thought it was just an RSS reader. This is the first I've ever heard of a Reader "community". I'm looking it up and it doesn't appear there were forums or anything. What was the community aspect?

there was no community aspect, they probably mean to say that it was their favourite hangout spot, like a library

Re: RIP Google Reader

#157

Post by hombre_fatal »

yreg wrote: post #68
cletus wrote: post #11

Whatever was said at the time, I’m convinced Google Reader was collateral damage from the Bay of Pigs Google Plus effort. It had social features (which I honestly never used) and anything social had to be G+. Still, I honestly don’t understand why this is the hill people want to die on, what they feel most betrayed about. Like I haven’t seen some people this upset since Firefly was canceled.

I too don't get this. I also used Google Reader back then. When iPhone was novel and WiFi spots were rare, so people had to preload a part of the web to get through the day. When they killed it I switched to NetNewsWire and didn't miss the previous product. What was so special about Google Reader?

Since you brought up NetNewsWire, Google Reader had a critical feature back in 2005 that most RSS readers today still lack: you could configure feeds to not just store the RSS but also visit the website to save the full article.

I just opened up NetNewsWire and, yup, 99% of my subscriptions are a few sentences and then a "Read more" link which kinda defeats some of the major upsides of an RSS reader. I don't just want a notification service, I want to completely cache the content locally so that I don't need to depend on an internet connection nor the fragility of the web.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#158

Post by crazygringo »

chippy wrote: post #124
dbrereton wrote: post #58

As someone who was born too late for Google Reader, I genuinely don't understand why people bring it up every 5 minutes. There are 1000 feed reader apps that exist right now, some of which have the branding of "it's just like Google Reader", so what am I missing here?

It was an app but with a network effect around it. All the replacements seem to have no community.

What was the network effect or community?

I thought it was just an RSS reader.

Were there forums or commenting on posts or something? I don't remember anything at all like that.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#159

Post by elliekelly »

dbrereton wrote: post #58

As someone who was born too late for Google Reader, I genuinely don't understand why people bring it up every 5 minutes. There are 1000 feed reader apps that exist right now, some of which have the branding of "it's just like Google Reader", so what am I missing here?

It's kind of like your favorite coffee shop closing. Sure, I can get coffee anywhere but it was part of my daily routine. And a part of my daily routine that I enjoyed. When it gets yanked away it still leaves a gap that can't quite be filled by the next-best substitute.
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