I’m kinda upset that that Google is killing reader.
It’s not like they need to spend any money on development, they haven’t done that for years anyway. Leaving it as it is doesn’t cost them a cent.
They say it has a relatively low number of users. Compared to what though.. Gmail? Yes, OK, it probably does.
But compared to other RSS readers out there? No way. It’s easily the most popular.
It’s the number 1 referrer on this website by far and has been for years. And I’m sure that’s the case for other websites too that have a lot of RSS content. But that’s not why I’m upset, hardcore slurper users will just switch to another product. And the ones that don’t just saved me a heap of money on bandwidth.
There are 2 reasons I’m upset. Number one is: I’m a user myself! I use reader every day. I rely on it to keep up to date with content on websites that I just don’t have time to visit individually.
But secondly, Google promised they would “do no evil”. And killing off something that is so clean and functional, so elegant and simple, which costs them virtually nothing to leave running, IS evil.
I don’t believe internet petions actually work, but I signed this one anyway.
Have you tried feedly yet? I’ve entirely moved to it – at first I didn’t like it at all but now they have made some changes and provided some options to make it easier for people moving from reader I’m fully converted. In fact I prefer it now!
Also, sadly, these things do cost to run, and that is looking like it is what killed it – compliance: http://www.simplysecurity.com/2013/03/28/privacy-concerns-cause-google-reader-to-close/.
Hey Tobs! Yep, I have been trying out feedly and theoldreader. I haven’t had a lot of time to fully play with them yet but I have imported all my reader feeds.
It’s just not the same though. 🙁
Interesting link, I wonder what the compliance and privacy issues were? RSS feeds are public after all.
Feedly – when configured well – is better, I think… Take some time to play with the options. It’s syncing between my Nexus 7, 4 and PCs well.
I imagine it’s because Google probably was keeping track of who was reading what for the recommendations. That’s just a guess though.
Also – do you know what’s happened to LICD and LFG from the slurper :o).
One of my worries with Feedly is there is no OPML export. So when they do to us what Google just did we loose all our feeds.
Forgot to say, http://www.feedafever.com/ is also nice.
OK, so I’m getting used to feedly now and I think I like it… mostly. 🙂 It’s definately more feature-full that’s for sure.
Although yes Robin agreed, no OMPL export does worry me. 🙁
My husband moved his stuff from google to theoldreader and is happy with it, though still upset with google. I never used it but I definitely feel your pain. When they got rid of igoogle (which was my homepage) I was lost for quite a while trying to find an adequate replacement.
I just don’t understand how they can be blind to the fact that they are losing a ton of people by droping all their extra options. They are forcing people to go to the competition. I am now a lot less likely to use anything but their search page, since they just keep dropping things.
@lcsa99
They haven’t gotten rid of igoogle. It’s good until Nov.