A few months Google announced that they would be killing off Google Reader. The announcement was met with shock and sadness from Google Reader users around the world.
I was one of those Google Reader users. Today, I wish to say a fond goodbye to Google Reader.
Our heartfelt thanks for keeping us up to date with the latest news, insights from AdWords, Analytics and Marketing.
Google Reader has been a dear friend. May it rest in peace. We will grieve.
For those who don’t know the super awesome that was Google Reader, it was a syndication service that let us subscribe and read all to our favourite blogs and news sites without the need to provide our email address.
The beauty of the service was that our inbox did not get cluttered and we could filter the stories and just read the articles that got our attention.
Google’s reason for the closure was that not enough people were using the service.
That may have been true – the rise of social media has meant that people can get their news from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+.
The trouble is, most of us cannot be logged in every minute to see the latest news and many of us don’t want to.
It also adds to the risk that the information we receive is selective and the risk is that we can operate in a filter bubble where we are no longer challenged. If you don’t believe me, there is a great Ted Talk that speaks about this very issue.
Using a service like reader meant that I could set aside half an hour a day to sort through the latest news and ensure we didn’t miss anything.
It meant that we could stay at the cutting edge and provide our clients with the best service.
Luckily we can still do that. Google’s announcement that they would no longer support reader meant that a number of other companies raced to develop RSS feed capability.
While there are a number of providers, we have replaced Google Reader with Feedly.
We are so relieved.
Although we will need to adopt to a new way of seeing the latest news, we have managed to retain all our old feeds with the Google Takeout tool. Reader is set to retire 1st of July (yes today).
There is still a last minute opportunity for Australian’s to retain their feeds but only a few hours. Good luck.
Rest in peace Google Reader. We loved you.