Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#351

Post by jemmyw » Mon, Mar 20, 2023, 10:44 AM UTC

codethief wrote: post #163

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inbox remains for me the best product they killed. It was in every way superior to Gmail and offered something I haven’t seen since.

What was it that made it so good? I had already degooglified my online life when it got released, so I never tried it out.

The bundling worked really well. It was time based as well, so you'd end up with this weeks "Updates" bundle and last weeks, which meant I could then scan last weeks to make sure I had everything then delete the whole bundle.

Somehow the way it dealt with notification emails was also really good. I was able to keep on top of github notifications and the became useful rather than noise. A combination of the bundling + displaying the most pertinent link and info instead of the subject line.

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#352

Post by Breza » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 11:08 AM UTC

DrBazza wrote: post #147

rhaway84773 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the reason they killed it for me. Google Reader was successful and growing. It wasn’t killed on its own merits. It was killed because Google decided Facebook was an existential threat to them so they had to do everything they could to make Google+ work, including killing otherwise successful and popular products like Reader because, killing it may lead to a slight increase in G+ adoption.

Even now, 10 yrs on, that makes no sense (their justification, not yours). How do you convince a bunch of blog authors to switch from 'free-to-air' and searchable everywhere RSS feeds, to move into closed social media platform? It seems like idiotic management making idiotic decisions completely out of touch with the userbase has been with us since the dawn of the web. Just this week, Spotify are turning the mobile a…

In hindsight, it seems that Google Reader could have offered a continuing alternative to social media. If Google had kept throwing resources behind it, they could have held a unique advantage against Facebook. It never would have gotten as big, but they still could have pushed it as an alternative and made more money than they ever got from Google+.

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#353

Post by Breza » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 11:13 AM UTC

chunkyks wrote: post #9

I switched to feedly. No biggie, in retrospect. But, that was the first Google product where it really hit home, to me, how even if a product is fantastic and useful, Google will kill it without a second thought. It fundamentally changed my attitude toward Google and made me far more deliberate about what services I choose to rely on, especially from the big G. Obligatory link to https://killedbygoogle.com/

I also moved to Feedly, but the shuttering of Reader meant that many websites stopped posting RSS links, and some big sites stopped supporting it altogether.

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#354

Post by Breza » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 12:49 PM UTC

eloop wrote: post #84

I often wonder how much data they would have accumulated with Google Reader and Google Code that would now be a gold mine for training AI. Short sighted management!

No kidding, being able to know the exact type of content that interests you would make Google Assistant much more powerful, not to mention their other projects.