I don’t want my preferences shaped by algorithms, as it always feels like I’m missing out on something. Sometimes, I read every item from a source every time it’s published. Sometimes I ignore a feed for 2 weeks, then catch up on all of it. I detest things trying to learn my preferences, because my reading preferences change all the time. Most people are suggesting Flipboard and Feedly as alternatives, but they either really don’t get it, or their needs have diverged from the usual RSS reading crowd. It’s more or less official – Google hates RSS. This clearly points towards them killing off FeedBurner as well. What I just don’t get is that Google serves up ads perfectly fine when people use FeedBurner, and now they’re killing off the biggest FeedBurner client? They’ve already killed its API, and the FeedBurner site still carries the pre-Google+ design. The corporate surprise adds to the decision itself to paint a picture of a company dangerously adrift from a real understanding of its audience, and the information ecosystem. Given that in the same announcement, they also announced that they’re killing off CalDAV API access to favour their own proprietary Calendar API, I can’t help but agree with The Guardian tech blogger Ruper Goodwin: This unfortunately smacks pretty hard of Google trying to dictate the direction of the web by trying to foist Google+ onto everyone. (Extend!)īut now, it appears to me that the real reason for pulling the rug out form underneath the many millions of users was the second one they mentioned, saying “as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products”. This went on till it effectively powered most of the popular “alternative” readers (Reeder, FeedDemon, Feedly) that relied on its (admittedly undocumented and private) API. Reader was the exciting new player – constantly innovating, adding new features, being fast to load, and with a great mobile interface. I was a staunch user of Bloglines for the longest time, until it stagnated, and then I played around with a few offline readers before jumping ship to Reader. For the most part, it appeared to be good. (Embrace!)īut having done this, Reader then essentially crowded out the entire market for RSS readers by just existing as a Google gorilla. Especially since they had thrown their weight behind PubSubHubbub, and bought FeedBurner. Despite the “+isation” of Reader (or The Great Reader Redesign) (or maybe in part because of it), I had assumed Google would remain committed to at least maintaining Reader, even no resources were being thrown at improving it. RSS is a great content consumption protocol that is fully open and interoperable. I wonder where Google gets their data from. However, a majority of my Internet content consumption is driven by Reader, which is why it was utterly baffling that the reasoning given was ” usage of Google Reader has declined”, especially given some of the rough userbase data that have popped up. Since I’m a techie, but not really a developer, a lot of the other Google properties being shut down hadn’t impacted me as much. Like many others, I was pretty badly struck in the face by the announcement of the Google reader shutdown.
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