Google To Retire Reader RSS Service

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Google has announced that it will retire its Reader RSS service this summer. Apparently not enough people used the service so it is being cut along with a bunch of other features and services.

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader.
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goddamn it.. I love it, I use it everyday..

now I will have to find a new one... any good options out there?
 
While the product has a loyal following, we found we couldn't mine enough meaningful data from it so we're killing it. Thank goodness we can still keep a very close eye on you through Chrome and Android.
 
bazylik said:
goddamn it.. I love it, I use it everyday..

now I will have to find a new one... any good options out there?
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I'm in the same boat, used it 3-4 times a day. I'm in the process of trying Netvibes -Make sure you switch from widget view to reader view.

Oh and it's free
 
Tiny Tiny RSS :
your own server
no data mining
won't go offline in 5 years, unless you want to ;)
 
Don't use feedly. They promised a seamless transistion from Google Reader... buggiest slowest site ever right now. I want to believe they're being slammed with people moving over, but it shouldn't be that bad.

Google said what... there were 650,000 google reader users left?
 
bazylik said:
goddamn it.. I love it, I use it everyday..

now I will have to find a new one... any good options out there?
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rudedog said:
I'm in the same boat, used it 3-4 times a day. I'm in the process of trying Netvibes -Make sure you switch from widget view to reader view.

Oh and it's free
Click to expand...

Ditto. It is the only way I keep up with the dozens of articles per day on [H] News, Android Authority, and a few others.
 
colinstu said:
Don't use feedly. They promised a seamless transistion from Google Reader... buggiest slowest site ever right now. I want to believe they're being slammed with people moving over, but it shouldn't be that bad.

Google said what... there were 650,000 google reader users left?
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That's what I expected from Feedly when I read their proud announcement that it'd be a seamless transition. It didn't read as if they knew just how many users there are for google reader :p
 
I use it on my smartphone everyday. One of the google services that doesnt deserve to be shut down :(.
 
Something has to be off in their numbers. Way to many people use Reader for it to not be valuable. Even if you look at it from a data mining aspect, they have to get Value knowing what articles I read more on.

And yes, I use it to stay up to date on sites like the [H].
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
While the product has a loyal following, we found we couldn't mine enough meaningful data from it so we're killing it. Thank goodness we can still keep a very close eye on you through Chrome and Android.
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Given your user name, I would guess that you have absolutely no agenda whatsoever.

What's significant about this is not the number of users who make direct use of Google Reader, but the many applications that interface with its API. There are a lot of those, which means a lot of users are indirectly using Reader services.
 
This will really be a sad day if they remove Reader in July.
The alternative solutions just don't have the server and bandwidth power Google has to keep feeds updated frequently across browsers and platforms, not even mentioning that Reader works flawlessly and is a rock-solid piece of the web, elegantly concise too, at a time of tablet graphic UI predominance.

I assume they will also let go of the Reader API on which dozens of developers currently rely to synchronize feeds between different devices. That's fair enough, since they're using up Google resources without paying any fee, but I wonder when they have such a great app, why don't they try to monetize it adding some ads or paying services, like actually downloading the podcasts to read on the go offline.

Similarly, advertize the product and show how awesome it is: I see in many comments on the announcement in different sites that many users who apparently still visit many web sites manually could have used the awesomeness of Reader to automate this task.
I don't use all the sharing and social stuff, I just use Reader to keep track of a few Blogger (a Google service) blogs, my Youtube subscriptions (also a Google service) and a few other sites like Ars Technica and the TED talks.

Oh, and while you are at it, make "All Items" auto-refreshable, allow the left bar's width to be resizable, move the "Home" link on top as an icon so it does not take a whole 1.5 line, move the "Explore" items under "All Items" for the same reason and Reader would be purrrrfect!
 
I'm also looking for a good alternative now. Google Reader was what I used my mobile devices for 75% of the time. I don't like the stand alone apps - I prefer the mobile webpage view as you can just keep scrolling down and marking items as read. Tiny Tiny RSS looks pretty intriguing - I will look into that.
 
I used the Reader widget on my iGoogle home page so I lose both this year ... kinda sad they will basically force me back into the Yahoo or MSN camp most likely ... if that isn't being evil I don't know what is ;)
 
I suppose me using Google Reader to keep up on blogs/news means I supply less clicks to the sites that use Google Analytics. And I use a separate account for Reader, so...guess I'm part of Google's problem with profits :\
 
well before i used
bloglines and went to google reader afterwards.

I guess i need to go back to use bloglines again.

i cant believe they are getting rid of google reader, i use it everyday
 
TheBuzzer said:
well before i used
bloglines and went to google reader afterwards.

I guess i need to go back to use bloglines again.

i cant believe they are getting rid of google reader, i use it everyday
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I've always wondered if English is your native language?:confused::confused:
 
What are you getting rid of next Google? Gmail? Web search?

Every time you turn around they are making it more gooder by getting rid of something. :rolleyes:
 
This is why I refuse to use web-based applications. By doing such, control is taken away from the user and put into the hands of whatever random corporation happens to be hosting the application you are using. You have no control over updates and they can shut it down on a whim. There is also the fact that HTML is a document markup language and that it is wholly inappropriate to use it for making applications.
 
damicatz said:
This is why I refuse to use web-based applications. By doing such, control is taken away from the user and put into the hands of whatever random corporation happens to be hosting the application you are using. You have no control over updates and they can shut it down on a whim.
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Not "whatever random corporation", in this case a quasi monopoly in the field of RSS readers, because Google virtually killed the competition. A healthy web-based app market would avoid that problem. A good proprietary app working only on some versions of Windows can be abandoned just as well, with no control over updates.

damicatz said:
There is also the fact that HTML is a document markup language and that it is wholly inappropriate to use it for making applications.
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Most applications can be written as client-server, even if both platforms are hosted on the same machine, HTML is just an interface, and scripting languages are now everywhere on the web. Try installing the NoScript add-on for Firefox or use the integrated feature in Chrome, and you'll soon see that there is more to the Web than HTML.
 
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