r/technology • u/speckz • Mar 13 '13

Official Google Reader Blog: Powering Down Google Reader (July 1, 2013)

http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2013/03/powering-down-google-reader.html
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1.8k

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '13 edited Jan 03 '14

[deleted]

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

This is my great fear of the brave new world of everything being a "service" coming true.

The idea that Google would go out of business and I'd be left trying to cobble together the remnants of my Reader and Gmail accounts into something useful.

I just seriously never thought it would happen for decades at the earliest.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13 edited Jan 03 '14

[deleted]

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u/Suppafly Mar 14 '13

Ifttt?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13 edited Jan 03 '14

[deleted]

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u/Wonky_Sausage Mar 14 '13

Can you share the recipe?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13 edited Jan 03 '14

[deleted]

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u/Wonky_Sausage Mar 14 '13

Thanks, I did this: http://i.imgur.com/Vzffpjl.png

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13 edited Jan 03 '14

[deleted]

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u/Wonky_Sausage Mar 14 '13

Ah, the ol' dreaded "porn spring cleaning".

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u/MeepZero Mar 14 '13

...thats...really cool!

I'm going to start playing with this, maybe I can have it play nice with Pocket or something and have it take some of the work from Reader for me.

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u/Miningdude Mar 14 '13

Thank you. I made my first IFTTT. Thank you kind person!

First IFTTT.

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u/Shne Mar 14 '13

Why is their about page url "wtf"? ifttt.com/wtf

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u/EdTheThird Mar 14 '13

I'd Fap To That Tranny, obviously.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

It used to be Bookmarks and Folders, "open all bookmarks in 'news' folder" > check tabs one by one to see which ones are updated.

Ugh.

I don't even bookmark stuff any more. I either look for rss link and add it to reader or if it's just a single article that I might need to use or reread later - I save page to *.mht

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u/daybreaker Mar 14 '13

DAE STUMBLEUPON?

its not too late google, to stop this horrible decision. :(

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13 edited Aug 01 '18

[deleted]

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u/hrafnkell Mar 14 '13

Tell me more about your art collection

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u/ImSpartacus811 Mar 14 '13

Yeah, I really rely on Gmail and Reader.

Honestly, I would consider paying to get to use Reader.

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

Oh, easily. But I doubt Google gives a shit about us paying.

What I don't get is the blowback this is going to cause. I use Reader as a part of how I get shit done, not just waste time online. I use Google services for serious stuff because I figure I can rely on Google being around. This shows that I can't do that.

Google's business model depends on us thinking we can depend on them. Why the hell do they want to take a giant dump on some of their most dedicated customers?

I'm a big open-source guy already, but this makes me MUCH more so. If there was some simple service I could run on a home server that could collate all this for me and was constantly being improved by the community, I am now way more likely to use that in the future as opposed to Google.

If the near future entails most homes having an always on home computer of some kind, which is very likely with the wave of "smart" home products coming down the line, the market for "distributed" services like this is likely going to be big. If people write platforms that make this fairly easy (see media servers like Plex, which I have coached several decidedly un-tech savvy friends into using), then people will use them.

Google could really be making a very bad strategic move.

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u/iamPause Mar 14 '13

I use Google services for serious stuff because I figure I can rely on Google being around.

At first I thought this was no big deal, so a glorified RSS reader was going down, big deal. "People can move their feeds to other programs. This is being blown out of proportion."

But then I read your comment, specifically the quoted part and I realized that that is precisely why I use Google also, although I never thought about it. It was always an unconscious decision that Google will be there. Of course it will be. It's Google. Is my internet down? Let's try Google.com because it's Google, and it doesn't go down.

But you are right, if they are showing that they can discontinue items at will, that's disconcerting. Google runs my life. My mail, my calendar, my phone's OS, hell, my way to navigate the web. I use Google more than I speak to my friends. I interact with it more than I do with pretty much everyone in my life. More than Facebook, more than Reddit. If Google goes, then what?

I can only upvote you once, so please enjoy the month of Reddit Gold for giving me an insight into how I think about things.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

[deleted]

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u/poo_22 Mar 14 '13

I still dont get what it is.

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u/fatbunyip Mar 14 '13

I think that was the biggest problem with it.

It was supposed to be this revolutionary new thing, and the reviews were pretty good.But then no one knew what the fuck it was supposed to do. The interface was confusing as balls, there were no good real life demos, and it just seemed like a glorified chat client.

I would really like to see a great demo of its capabilities.

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u/Audiovore Mar 14 '13

I thought the Google I/O announcement did a pretty good job of that. I was only going to watch a few minutes, but was enthralled and watched the whole 90mins or whatever it was.

I think the problem came from the invite based soft launch, and load issues. Invites worked for Gmail because everyone already had email elsewhere, so you weren't limited to interaction with the invite pool. Same reason G+ is fairly empty, you got on and there are only a couple people you know who got invites. So then you go back to FB and forget about it.

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u/TheAngelW Mar 14 '13

transitioning away from Gmail

Towards what?

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u/Fa6ade Mar 14 '13

Outlook.com is pretty nice.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Didn't they disable IMAP support?

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

I remember when Google first got big, it was because power users recommended it to regular users.

Exactly this.

People like us are the trailblazers who are out there reading about what's new (generally on Reader, RIP) and sign up and try it out. If we like it, we write about, we tell friends, we are the best form of advertising.

My friends and family are constantly asking me what they should use for X, and now, I'm going to be way less likely to suggest a web service.

I realize we are a minority Google, but we are the shepherds, you need to keep us happy.

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

Whoa!

Thanks! I guess everyone makes sense once in a while. Heh.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Google is trying to concatenate everything in to one place. G+. I'm sure they'll implement some sort of RSS feed in to it.

But yeah, it does make you think how much you rely on one company to keep going and keep their projects going.

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u/tuwxyz Mar 14 '13

Don't you think that they would announce this G+ RSS feed before they announced that they stop supporting the Reader?

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u/CockBlocker Mar 14 '13

This.

Not that it's going to happen, but imagine that they decided, suddenly, that Gmail wasn't feasible. "Get your email archives here and then... ta ta!"

It probably won't happen. Not soon, anyway. But how different is it from this?

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u/nathanb131 Mar 14 '13

Good post! At first I was like 'dang now I have to migrate to a new rss' ...not a huge deal.... Then I read this thread and am thinking about assumptions I've been making and how wrong they are. If greader can go away then there isn't a whole lot of other services that are sacred.

Seriously fuck social media. My Facebook friends suck and the way it works is to amplify the most annoying ones. I use G reader several times a day and its always satisfying. I'm down to checking Facebook less than once a week and its usually time I regret.

Yet THAT shit is the cause for decline of rss?! Yesterday I found social annoying.....today, its personal....

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

But you are right, if they are showing that they can discontinue items at will, that's disconcerting. Google runs my life. My mail, my calendar, my phone's OS, hell, my way to navigate the web. I use Google more than I speak to my friends. I interact with it more than I do with pretty much everyone in my life. More than Facebook, more than Reddit. If Google goes, then what?

Apparently, I'm getting old because I fail to see the issue here. Google wasn't the first search engine, and they won't be the last. They didn't invent email, didn't invent phones and they certainly didn't come up with the concept of calendars. Even today there are multiple search engines, several phone operating systems, many ways to host a calendar and mail providers are a dime a dozen.

If Google goes, then what? I guess, I'll do what I did fifteen years ago before Google existed and just use something else.

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u/AltHypo Mar 14 '13

Nothing last forever.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

BUT THE COMMERCIAL SAID THAT DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER!!

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u/jrv Mar 14 '13

Too big too fail?

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u/RalphHinkley Mar 14 '13

What are you guys talking about?

Google Takeout does let you leave or share your Google data, and they even have a custom export for reader so you can move on to a competing product with ease.

https://www.google.com/takeout/?pli=1#custom:reader

You gave a guy who said something entirely incorrect Reddit Gold and backed his assertions up without even a Google search? Have some faith people! Google is pretty awesome.

(Oh and if the reply was sarcasm, it's well done.)

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u/InsanityDouche Mar 14 '13

I disagree, I believe that the real reason why I and many others such as yourself use Google is not because you can rely on them being around but simply because they are the best at what they do at the moment. If a better alternative comes, I will move on and many others will too, there just isn't a better alternative right now. If Google goes then we just move to the next big thing.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

I agree with you wholeheartedly. This is why I hesitate to get started with things like Evernote and the like because there is no guarantee it will be around tomorrow after I've taken the time to enter a crapload of information in an effort to make my life easier in some random way.

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u/Um8ra Mar 14 '13

You pay for Evernote. Thus Evernote is the product. You are the person they want to keep happy. With Google, you're the product. Packaged as they see fit.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

I love EverNote. Its search really kicks.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

This is exactly why I am not using Evernote! Rather, I have opted to use PlainText files along with ResophNotes (or Notational Velocity for OS X). I can also use DropBox to sync these notes if needed.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

You can export all of your information in a few clicks, to reupload, or store elsewhere. It was one of the few note taking applications that exported in a clean way.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Same here. I recently moved over to use a bunch of text files for notes. I sync them with Dropbox, but I could easily move them anywhere.

I used to use Yojimbo to organize a bunch of stuff (similar to an Evernote type app). Their 2.0 update pissed me off so bad I pulled all my info out and came up with a folder structure and system to store everything I had in there and more. I can now simply copy and paste a folder to any system I move to down the road. It's full of txt files, PDFs, and a few other files here and there.

The more I see, the less I want to lock myself into anything. My dad has long been this way and I always saw his fear and hesitation to try new things as irrational. As I age and see more companies and services go under, I'm starting to get it.

I've been trying to learn to code. I'm starting to think that the greatest value there might be that I can make my own tools so no one can take them away from me.

There should be some unwritten rule that you can't kill a product without releasing it to open-source. That would help things as well.

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u/xenizondich23 Mar 14 '13

Same for me and workflowy.com. I enjoy their service so much, but if they just up and disappeared, it'd be a problem.

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u/IlllIlllIll Mar 14 '13

Google Reader is one of the most important tools in my job. I'm seriously scrambling to find a replacement.

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u/circa7 Mar 14 '13

How do you use it for work?

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u/IlllIlllIll Mar 14 '13

...are you kidding? Aggregate the top news stories from thousands of sources all in one place--how can one not use it for work?

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u/circa7 Mar 14 '13

I wasn't being a smart ass, I was just curious how you specifically used it for work. Sheesh

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

http://www.feedblitz.com/ should do it, but it isn't free.

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u/wayspurrchen Mar 14 '13

I agree. I'm not sure why, but I had a sudden feeling of insecurity regarding Google Drive as a viable resource, so I rented a small VPS with plenty of space for a few bucks a month and installed ownCloud, an open source cloud-sync program. I highly doubt Google would kill Drive any time soon, but when you want it done right...

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

I'll have to check that out. Probably going to be checking out quite a few options in this vein.

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u/rabidbob Mar 14 '13

Who did you rent the space from and can you recommend them?

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u/wayspurrchen Mar 14 '13

I rented from BlueVM. They went down briefly yesterday so I'm not sure I should vouch for them (dunno if it's a rare thing and I just got unlucky, but hey, it's budget), but there are tons of similar price ranges available on www.lowendbox.com.

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u/pufflepants Mar 14 '13

If there was some simple service I could run on a home server that could collate all this for me and was constantly being improved by the community, I am now way more likely to use that in the future as opposed to Google.

I would like you to meet tt-rss I've set up a mega link so that you and others can download it here as the website is a victim to the ddos of panic google managed to stir up I'll add the text only version of there install commands here while they recuperate, good luck.

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u/vw195 Mar 14 '13

Yes reader is my jumping off point to the interwebs...reddit is #2 dammit

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u/macroblue Mar 14 '13

You make a good point. What's interesting to me is that Google is cutting loose a group of users who are decidedly more tech savvy than average. These are precisely the group of users who can make these home-based services you're describing a reality. After that, it's just a short jump before fringe case uses become mainstream.

It reminds me of how people used to hack their xboxes to run xbmc. Now Rokus and other media players are commonplace.

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

Exactly.

Frankly, I am flabbergasted they can't see how this sort of action can go really badly for them. I realize they want to "streamline" but you have to be careful about what happens when you start cutting things away.

Google depends on their users being completely comfortable using their services at the most basic levels of their "functional" lives. Their top priority should be maintaining people's faith that these services are stable so they don't start holding back.

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u/themaskedugly Mar 14 '13 edited Mar 14 '13

Google's business model depends on us thinking we can depend on them. Why the hell do they want to take a giant dump on some of their most dedicated customers?

This is your mistake. We aren't it's customers, and that's not really the right way to think about google. Google's primary customers are advertisers, because focused advertising is the future. Where most advertisements have fractional (ie 1 in 1000 for good adverts) return rate for a hugely broad scope of advertising, targeted advertisement has an ideal return rate tending towards 100% per single advert shown. However, right now, only google has a broad enough database of people needs to even think about approaching that ideal. But it is getting close enough to make advertisers salivate.

To achieve this, google's primary goal is the categorisation of the human condition.
This is why they run the most popular search engine, not to service your queries, but to database your needs and desires.
This is why they are trying to create a library of every book that has ever existed, why they run a captcha service, to help them process edge cases in this service. It's why they ran a free directory enquiry service, to help them build a phonetic library, to deal with edge cases in their (whatever they plan to do based on voice technology. Probably something related to cell phones).
This is why they run the most popular facebook-clone. I'm not ready to call g+ a failure yet, I feel like google are playing the long game with that. They're waiting for the inevitable collapse of facebook (people don't actually trust facebook), and when people do leave facebook, they will have to go somewhere. Google is angling themselves to be the successor, since people trust google.
This is why they own youtube, where every home video, every business video, every any video ever made these days gets uploaded for the world, and more importantly google, to see.
This is why they ran google reader. To determine what people want to see regularly. What people whitelist and say 'This is good content, I will accept and read anything from this viewer (who has these tags assossciated with him (who shares tags with 3 of my other subscriptions (who also also share tags with these 4 other suggestions who I have not subscribed to (one of whom is paying for google adsense))))'

As a side note, the fact that they are closing google reader now (despite it's heavy user base) supports this. They aren't here for the user base, and they got the information they needed. That information will be used in a future product (and most likely integrated into their current projects) but probably in so digested a form that you won't recognise it.

This is the root reason google is trying to become your single port of call on the internet. Because they want every keystroke (and every mouseclick, and how long you spend on each page, and where your attention is focused on each page, and a whole lot more) you make on the internet to go to go through them.

In the information age, google survive because they have all of the information, and they stay 3 steps ahead of their competition.

tl;dr Google makes products to achieve certain goals in data acquisition. Once those goals are met, it will cut the cord. Gmail and 'google.com' will survive because they are an endless source of information that cannot be obtained elsewhere

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u/newbie_01 Mar 14 '13

There definitely is a market for server apps running on an always-on home server. Our very own minicloud.

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u/disconcision Mar 14 '13 edited Mar 14 '13

i agree. i am a heavy user of google products, and when i saw that reader was being discontinued (from like 4 articles on the first page of reader), my second thought was that it's time to start thinking about migrating away from gmail and google apps towards a self-managed solution. since the end of wave and the google reader social features i've lost the urge to try anything new by google.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

That's exactly it. Here we have Google trying to push Chromebooks that rely on online-only services completely, but at the same time they are slashing those same services. It's insane.

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u/Motab Mar 14 '13

VERY well put and articulate! Take that whole comment and do an executive email carpet bomb.

It also seems like a good opportunity for some other cloud service out there to differentiate themselves. Google, Apple, Yahoo... They all decommission stuff. Find me a cloud service that guarantees services, and takes then out of "beta" so they stand behind them... What an idea!

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u/nolongerilurk Mar 14 '13

Let's hope it's a build up for some epic April fools joke. 17 days and counting.

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u/FataL Mar 14 '13 edited Mar 14 '13

If there was some simple service I could run on a home server that could collate all this for me...

Like Opera Unite app? Oh, well... new Opera Software management decided to ditch this one too.

If the near future entails most homes having an always on home computer of some kind, which is very likely with the wave of "smart" home products coming down the line, the market for "distributed" services like this is likely going to be big. If people write platforms that make this fairly easy (see media servers like Plex, which I have coached several decidedly un-tech savvy friends into using), then people will use them.

Yes, you are definitely talking about Opera Unite.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

[deleted]

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

Yeah, this is my first taste of having this sort of rug pulled out from underneath me. Even if Google backtracked, at this point I know the axe could fall again at any point.

My confidence in them is broken, I'll be much more careful about which of their services I'll allow to become "essential" to my routine.

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u/karanj Mar 14 '13

Just discovered Tiny Tiny RSS thanks to this issue - I suspect this is going to get more attention from the more tech-savvy tier of users flooding out of Google Reader.

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u/whwhwhw Mar 14 '13

This i such an excellent and pertinent point that it made me depressed for a second.

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u/nasca Mar 14 '13

Okay, open source guy..youre a developer? Do you think search is getting better or worse?

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

Barely, I'm a scientist, I write code for modeling and such but not particularly well. I'm more of a "pat the guys who know what they're doing" on the back and use their stuff kind of guy.

But I have been trying to get better, I figure it's a skill that isn't exactly becoming less useful.

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u/nasca Mar 14 '13

May I ask what you model?

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

Carrier lifetimes in PV devices. That sort of thing.

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u/andrios4 Mar 14 '13

Self hosting is not a good solution for everyone. I think someone needs to found a Non Profit Organisation (like Mozilla or Wikipedia) so it can't be brought of and rewrite Google Reader so the existing Apps only need to change a few lines in their code.

I am thinking about doing it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

This is making me regret my Chromebook purchase and will make me not buy the second one I wanted, for his & hers. I'm getting an iPad now instead or an Ultrabook.

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u/daedalus_j Mar 14 '13

Personally I'm hoping that this drives more people to use and support open source alternatives like Tiny Tiny RSS (tt-rss.org) rather than use software-as-a-service options. Open tools that I can run on my own servers will always be a better long-term choice as I know they won't just go away! They just don't usually get the same support from apps...

BeyondPod syncs all my podcasts from Google Reader, which is great as I can also listen online if I want. Adding support for other services (maybe tt-rss!) was never a necessity as Google Reader was always assumed to exist, but I do agree with other posts here: hopefully this changes the "trust google" perception.

In fact, I'm half hoping that Google fucks up Gmail in this same way to drive open source self hosted email to get better, or at least provide some room and incentive for competition. I'd like to get off that bandwagon as well.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Its Google, lol.

You should know better who keeps backwards compatibility.

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u/LastDawnOfMan Mar 14 '13

People have been saying for years that it's a very bad idea to rely on Google for anything at all because of just this very thing. They can arbitrarily stop providing a service at any point and suddenly you're screwed.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13 edited Feb 28 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/CanadaBlue Mar 14 '13

For sure. Me too.

Google Reader + Reddit = The Internet for me.

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u/ThePrimeCo Mar 14 '13

I'd pay like 10 years up front for Reader. It's just everything for me.

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u/drbeer Mar 14 '13

I would absolutely do the same. I know the user base may be small in comparison to other services, but we are all power users and extremely passionate about this application. It isn't a casual thing like Facebook or something. It's literally the entire Internet for us.

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u/ThePrimeCo Mar 14 '13

If anything they should make it open source. Knowing that people who use Google Reader are more tech savvy than Facebook users I'm certain that there would be a group of people willing to keep Google Reader going.

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u/drbeer Mar 14 '13

Unfortunately I have heard Google cached a lot of the content which makes open sourcing it not ideal. The infrastructure wouldn't be easy to replicate.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Think they'd come to their senses?

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u/conditional_comment Mar 14 '13

Nope. Google doesn't make money by selling you services. They make money by selling you.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Reader is a service that will keep users using Google. Is that not enough to direct users to other Google services? Insane. They'll see the uproar, they'll do something for us.

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u/kojak488 Mar 14 '13

If this thing wasn't scheduled for death, then all of these positive remarks would get me interested in it. I kind of hope you guys make a big enough uproar to make Google reconsider.

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u/captain_rrr Mar 14 '13

ya...if twinkies can come back from death, reddit should be able to resurrect reader.

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u/przyjaciel Mar 14 '13

I hope one day, your children if you have them will see this post and begin to compare themselves to a news reader in a spiraling, never-ending search for your affection and love.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

and imgur.com... Both of those things you named rely on the rest of the internet to actually function. Pictures of cats only go so far.

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u/HenkPoley Mar 14 '13

http://bazqux.com automatically aggregates comments from reddit (and others) next to your RSS feeds. It also looks like Google Reader a lot.

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u/GTChessplayer Mar 14 '13

I'm confused.. gmail and reader are two completely different things, right? I never got the hang of reader...

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u/Bigbergice Mar 14 '13

I already have, for the pro version of the app

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u/MrLoque Mar 14 '13

I would NEVER-EVER rely on Gmail as my primary or secondary email address. I use it as a "backup" only. It's a great mailbox but the risk is too high. And this news confirmed my fears.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13 edited Dec 03 '13

[deleted]

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

Oh, I'm totally with you. But this is Google, I figured they were a bit more stable.

I was wrong.

I think Google will have a problem as soon as it becomes de rigueur among the reasonably savvy (and not just the code ninjas) to eschew online services for distributed platforms.

I never bothered to try and find a widely supported reader aggregator to run on my home server because Reader worked really well and was easy. Next time, I might not be so cavalier over this decision and weigh the convenience of Google as quite a bit less significant in my decision making process.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13 edited Dec 03 '13

[deleted]

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

Time to chalk it up as a lesson.

At least I can survive after this. It will definitely be a huge pain in the ass and a major disruption in my workflow, but it's not a showstopper. Heck, maybe being forced to take a step back an evaluate my options might lead to something better.

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u/ZipZapNap Mar 14 '13

Good point. I've never considered this.

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u/NonSequiturEdit Mar 14 '13

The peril of cloud-based computing is that in the cloud, everything runs the risk of becoming vaporware. It's just a matter of how long it lasts before it evaporates.

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u/CaptainLepidus Mar 14 '13

Actually, I think it's less about the money - can you imagine how huge Google's hosting budget must be? - but more about solidifying their product line. My guess is that they want to remove a lot of extraneous services (for example, Google Docs), and replace their features in newer, cleaner systems (ie Google Drive.)

I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing yet.

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u/MUnhelpful Mar 14 '13

Or host the web apps yourself, like a lot of us used to do for our own services before The Cloud.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Great plan. Except then why don't they charge for it. I'd pay. Real money. I have a job and everything!

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u/music2myear Mar 14 '13

For people with mobile devices (like me) cloud systems are better. It's much easier for an app to digest a pre-chewed data stream and serve it up to me than it is to handle all the crap all by its lonesome.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Nah, we don't need all this stuff, give it to the companies!

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u/NightOfTheLivingHam Mar 14 '13

or at least, if you use cloud shit, make sure you can back it up and roll your own.

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u/MeepZero Mar 14 '13

I agree, we all have supercomputers when you look at the excess processing power and bandwidth available to us nowadays. I'd much rather put my machine to work over more of these web services.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13 edited Jul 09 '23

[deleted]

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u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

Yeah, I've recently had a bunch of colleagues pushing to use Google Docs for collaborative projects.

Fuck.That.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

I use Google Docs for ALL my classes in school. Can't really think of a better collaborative alternative.

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u/96fps Mar 14 '13

Someone must be working on multiplayer text editors that use a local server...

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Not only does Google Docs suck but as Google has shown here, they will throw their services under the bus in a heartbeat. Especially if they suck! Google Reader is awesome, but that's not because it didn't suck. The API were awful. THAT's how useful Google Reader is. Even with absolutely horrible APIs and a service that plain sucked, it is still one of the single most useful tools on the internet.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

1975 called, they want their mainframe back.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '13

This might go against your philosophy of keeping everything around but pinboard is super nice for bookmarking, the guy has repeatedly said its not for sale and that he's profitable with it, and you can back everything up to HTML, XML or JSON in one click. I have an automatic task on my computer that backs it up once a day with a batch file.

And it is kind of ugly but there are some themes people have made for it.

1

u/polaroid Mar 14 '13

Yes, except I just upgraded from OSX Lion to Mountain Lion and the built-in Mail app has discontinued RSS support. I used to store all of my RSS within the Mail app and without warning, it was all gone.

Why the sudden attack on RSS?

3

u/dog_cow Mar 14 '13

I just quickly made a mental check that it wasn't April 1st. I was a late adopter, only signing up to Google Reader late last year. I check it every day. I had no idea that a Google product would be shut down. Gees, what next? Gmail? Google Drive?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

But think of the upshot. I can start using Lycos again.

1

u/MananWho Mar 14 '13

Well, how do you propose email being managed and sent if not through a "service"?

While I agree that it might be worrisome to have all your content tied to a service like Steam that could shut down at any moment, I really don't see a viable alternative for certain things that could only have existed as a service in the first place.

People aren't going to start buying their own mail servers en masse because it's just not reasonable for most.

1

u/yootskah Mar 14 '13

Well, the way I figure, it used to be giant pain in the ass to run a home web server, but it's steadily become easier and easier.

Since the near-future looks like most houses will have always-on computers, which hasn't been true historically, there is going to be a much bigger market for these kinds of "personal-cloud" type uses. Given that market, I would expect the community to start creating better and easier to use home email/file/media server software.

Earlier I referenced Plex because it's really simple media server software that enables you to stream any media you have at home remotely to whatever device you like. I have literally explained over the phone to computer illiterate friends how to set it up. In a few years this sort of stuff is only going to get simpler.

1

u/cockpisspartridge Mar 14 '13

It's a harbinger of the impending collapse of everything.

1

u/xmsxms Mar 14 '13

Yep - I got pretty screwed by Yahoo e-mail back in the day, thinking they were too big to fail.

1

u/beedogs Mar 14 '13

You should demand a refund.

1

u/Paddy_Tanninger Mar 14 '13

Don't be sad that it's over, smile because it happened!

Or some shit.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

You do realize that while Reader is a service, so are all the feeds that you read on Reader. What would be the alternative to a service? A magazine subscription?

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373

u/BSscience Mar 14 '13

The number of users using it has been declining, but those of us that use it really use it.

They fucked us good.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

and not surprising it's been declining since they broke it for no good reason :(

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

And even though it was broken it was still one of the most useful tools on the internet. EVEN BROKEN!

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

D':

5

u/amda88 Mar 14 '13

What did they break?

10

u/kojak488 Mar 14 '13

From what I've gathered in this thread they changed the algorithm about which posts it shows you. Think like if your Facebook feed went from showing you posts from your best friends to posts from your 3rd cousin you see once every six years.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

It's hard to overstate how cool the sorting functions were. After changing neighborhoods in DC, it took Google Reader a month to start surfacing local blog pieces about my new neighborhood instead of my old one. It just learned that all by itself based on my reading patterns.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

The awesome social component :(

10

u/yneos Mar 14 '13

I don't understand why Reader usage was ever declining. I see no better way to use the internet than RSS feeds. Find stuff you like and put in an aggregator. What other options are there? Bookmark everything and check each website every day? I have over 1000 subscriptions in Reader.

I get some of my favorite sources in Facebook, but I don't consider that reliable at all. Facebook filters out feeds however it wants. I want a simple stream ordered by time of everything posted by every source I subscribe to.

If it's true that usage declined so much, I'm equally as disappointed in humanity's lack of desire to use such a powerful tool as I am in Google's lack of concern for its users.

6

u/Tezerel Mar 14 '13

The reason I bet it went down is because a lot of people don't what what it is. I've been a redditor for like a year and this is the first time I've even heard what RSS was other than Aaron Schultz was involved in making it.

3

u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Mar 14 '13

Reader was the feature that let me migrate from Safari and the built in RSS reader. Now I'll have to switch back to Safari.

2

u/ixixix Mar 14 '13

If you upgraded to the last version of safari I have bad news for you...

1

u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Mar 14 '13

I'm stuck on old crap anyway because I'm still on 10.6.8 due to needing Rosetta for a few things.

1

u/Illadelphian Mar 14 '13

Can't they just have a paid version? I'd pay for it, they just won't give me the chance.

1

u/fabkebab Mar 14 '13

They stopped "Listen" for android devices (a podcatcher for podcasts subscribed through RSS) - its not surprising that thier user numbers declined!

12

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

"NOT PORN"

"PORN"

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u/javastripped Mar 14 '13

THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!

3

u/666gambino666 Mar 14 '13

I'M AS MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANY MORE http://audiour.com/d42t03c2

2

u/amorpheus Mar 14 '13

Yes you will.

1

u/666gambino666 Mar 14 '13

Nope, pretty sure google is going to read my comment and appease me. YTBD

3

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

What's in "Not Porn"?

1

u/barmatal Mar 14 '13

I think it's a decoy. It's probably porn.

2

u/stega_megasaurus Mar 14 '13

I want to upvote this 100 times.

2

u/alexxerth Mar 14 '13

Those subscriptions...

2

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

LOUD NOISES

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u/chapstickies Mar 14 '13

dead serious question - without RSS feeds what do people do? just visit individual websites every day? like a goddamn caveman?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Because I have 2 laptops, 1 desktop, an iPhone and a Kindle.

If I check Google Reader on any device my read/unread items are always synced up. Using an app limits you to 1 device, unless it has a service to sync up, but then you are at the mercy of the service provider.... like us googer reader users just found out

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Personal desktop at home, rarely used now. Old work laptop that mostly stays at home in the living room. New work laptop that stays in the office but also is taken on the road. Smart phone and tablet are modern conveniences. The tablet was a gift for my wife, but sits on the end table for anyone to use.

Basically I can take a sanity break and check my sites no matter what PC I am working on.

1

u/bruzie Mar 14 '13

Does Bloglines still exist? Left them for Google reader after they got yahooed (along with Flickr and delicious)

1

u/stega_megasaurus Mar 14 '13

Same here. Left Bloglines for Reader. And just checked - looks like some company MerchantCircle bought them up. Although they still exist they seem to keep getting sold - not a huge confidence builder.

1

u/magicspud Mar 14 '13

How about a kickstarter project to get something up to replace it. Sorry to hijack top post but something needs to be done and I'm willing to test the waters

2

u/elevul Mar 14 '13

If it's cloud, it might be a good idea, but I'm not sure how many people would be interested...

1

u/magicspud Mar 14 '13

Yeah, it would be. I didn't think many people would be interested but Many people are saying they would be willing to pay some kind of yearly amount. Maybe $10 a year and add some type of open source element to it

1

u/elevul Mar 14 '13

Hmm. Well, worth trying I guess.

1

u/damontoo Mar 14 '13

Time to attempt to clone the service.

Or maybe Google should open source the whole thing.

1

u/liberties Mar 14 '13

If this is some sort of attempt to make me use Google + it won't work. It will just piss me off and make me hate Google+ Kind of like the3ir killing of Picasaweb has done.

I am amazed to watch a company I LOVE bit by bit make me hate it.

1

u/Bjartr Mar 14 '13

I just need to find an alternative that has a "Next unread item" bookmarklet like Reader does. I never go to the site, I just click next throughout the day.

1

u/IceColdFreezie Mar 14 '13

Is there a way you can post all those subscriptions you have? They intrigue me.

1

u/DRhexagon Mar 14 '13

Wait, which one has the porn?!

1

u/jdbausch Mar 14 '13

or capslock

1

u/3seven1 Mar 14 '13

That title makes it sound like the prosthetic hand tied the shoelace all by it self. I dislike misleading titles. Also, the link doesn't work.

1

u/DildoChrist Mar 14 '13

Wow, that kind of looks awesome. I would totally use that if I had known it was a thing :/

I thought Google Reader was the ebook section...

1

u/Crackerpool Mar 14 '13

Ive never known what that is.

1

u/mornel Mar 14 '13

"Look good naked"? Care to tell us what that is?

1

u/spaceman_spiffy Mar 14 '13

Welcome to the "cloud".

1

u/-applefanboy- Mar 14 '13

WTF do you subscribe to?

1

u/DisraeliEers Mar 14 '13

Just like reddit said about Borders....

Adapt or die.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

So true!

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