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Google Reader is dead

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Re: Google Reader is dead

#71

Post by batiudrami »

bdz wrote: post #28

"... we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience." Yeah, Reader held back the development of the robot car, glasses, floating balloon internet and the brazilian social site...

I'm pretty sick of this argument. Google is a company, they are not compelled to continue to support a product which is (presumably) not making money, or even if the resources they devote to it could be making more money elsewhere.

Honestly I think Google went above and beyond by giving advance notice, having an API which allows feed exporting and allowing subscriptions to continue to be exported after they close it down for those who ignored the advance notice as well as linking to alternative products.

Sure it sucks for those who used it, but can you imagine a company like Apple or Facebook doing all that for a product they're killing?

Re: Google Reader is dead

#73

Post by Narretz »

I use The Old Reade, which I can use exactly like Google Reader, with the exception that k does not always skip to the next article; if you're reading an article it skips to the top of that. Same strange behavior as Google Reader is that while the number of unread posts is correct, the content of your feed is not up-to-date, so you first have to click on the result number, then it is updated.

Apart from that, it's really nice. I never used any social features of the Reader, just the aggregation. That's why I couldn't care less if they implement RSS support or a recommendation engine in G+.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#74

Post by robin_reala »

tvwonline wrote: post #11
ihuman wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reeder has been cut off (or at least for me). It just had in update that adds feedly and feed wrangler.

Yep, it's gone now. The reeder update was just in the nick of time. I wonder if someone at google was waiting for it to update ;-)

Unfortunately it was only an iPhone Reeder update, not an iPad/Mac one.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#76

Post by tempestn »

mmahemoff wrote: post #69
tempestn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they should have done is announced that they were killing it, then when the entirely predictable public outcry hit, 'listen to the community', and make it a paid service instead. From the numbers Feedly and Newsblur and such are picking up, it doesn't seem like a stretch that a paid version of Google Reader could have brought in at least $10M/year, even given the resulting loss of users. The only difficulty woul…

You're talking about a company with $50B revenues; $10M isn't even pocket change. Running a "service on the side" doesn't just cause "focus" problems for senior management. It creates legal, technical, and reputation risks which far outweigh the few million bucks of profit Google might make.

Ha, ya, I just said the same thing in reply to piqufoh regarding pocket change. The technical and focus issues I think could easily be handled by hiring a few people and having them 100% dedicated to Reader. $10M should be more than enough for that. You'd still be talking about revenue per employee of at least a couple million. (Google as a whole, with ~$50B revenue and ~50k employees averages about $1M revenue per employee.)

The potential legal and especially reputation issues I hadn't considered though. If they're trying not only for internal, but also external focus - essentially shaping how people think of the company, which seems obvious now that you mention it - I could see how they would consider 'niche' products like Reader detrimental even if they do make good money.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#77

Post by simonw »

WildUtah wrote: post #22
steve19 wrote: post #8

Right up till the 11th hour I held out hope that Google would give Reader a last minute stay of execution. A sad day indeed.

And they actually, truly pulled the plug, with almost no warning. Now I have no idea what I'll do.

Apparently you can export your subscriptions using Google Takeout until the 15th of July.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#78

Post by chii »

mmahemoff wrote: post #69
tempestn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they should have done is announced that they were killing it, then when the entirely predictable public outcry hit, 'listen to the community', and make it a paid service instead. From the numbers Feedly and Newsblur and such are picking up, it doesn't seem like a stretch that a paid version of Google Reader could have brought in at least $10M/year, even given the resulting loss of users. The only difficulty woul…

You're talking about a company with $50B revenues; $10M isn't even pocket change. Running a "service on the side" doesn't just cause "focus" problems for senior management. It creates legal, technical, and reputation risks which far outweigh the few million bucks of profit Google might make.

I think the real cause is they don't want to promote a different platform (i m thinkin g+) as the mainstream source of content stream, and supporting RSS as a protocol is only going to dilute that goal. Even if they were making a profit on reader, they would still kill it (unless it's fuck-you profit, which it certainly isn't).

I don't agree with their goal, but since i m not a google customer, and i don't pay them money, i don't get to decide their goal.

Re: Google Reader is dead

#79

Post by chii »

davidjohnstone wrote: post #42
steve19 wrote: post #8

Right up till the 11th hour I held out hope that Google would give Reader a last minute stay of execution. A sad day indeed.

As much as my life would have been easier this year without the decision to close Google Reader (I think this is what they call #firstworldproblems), it's a good thing that they didn't change their mind and decide to not shut it down at the last minute. Too many people have invested too much time in creating viable alternatives to Google Reader, and un-discontinuing it would have thrown a massive spanner in the works…

you've raised an interesting method to disrupt new-comers - by faking an end-of-life announcement, then "listen to the community" and reinstate a product, you could effectively make the market harder to enter!
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