{"id":7762,"date":"2013-03-14T08:35:05","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T15:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=7762"},"modified":"2020-08-26T10:07:33","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T17:07:33","slug":"goodbye-google-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/goodbye-google-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye Google Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google has finally announced that they were closing Reader<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I suspect that many folks have never heard of this product. Or maybe have, but don\u2019t know what it\u2019s for and have never tried it.
\n
\nThe concept of an \u201cRSS Reader\u201d is simple. You have a website that you like to read on a regular basis, but it seems cumbersome to visit dozens of websites just to find the few new articles. That\u2019s where an RSS reader comes in. That\u2019s a tool that lets you browse all that new content in one place.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unbelievably handy. I use it every day.<\/p>\n

I suspect that various forms of social media seem \u201cgood enough\u201d to solve that problem for most people. At least, for anyone who hasn\u2019t gotten comfortable with a news reader.<\/p>\n

On Facebook, for example, you would follow every person or company that interested you, then assume that you\u2019ll get their latest news in your feed. Of course, many companies won\u2019t be on there, or won\u2019t publish the same information there, and anyway the page is filled with creepy ads. So it\u2019s certainly not the same thing.<\/p>\n

You can see what I\u2019m getting at. An RSS reader provides a useful service<\/a>, and they\u2019ve been around for over a decade. I\u2019ve been an avid user that whole time.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a question of a certain means of distributing that information going away. The protocols are there, and there are numerous<\/em> ways of managing RSS feeds. But Google entered into a crowded field and now, 7 years later, are leaving a monoculture behind, with most apps created to browse news feeds just assuming that you are using Google for your service. All my favorite apps will need to be updated, or will just simply stop working.<\/p>\n

Could this happen to email? It\u2019s an open protocol, and anyone can set up a mail server. But imagine that Gmail became overwhelmingly dominant, with virtually every other service shutting their doors\u2026 then Google deciding to cancel their product on short notice.<\/p>\n

Having open protocols is one thing, and it\u2019s a good thing. But having open protocols but only one popular service providing an implementation is another. It\u2019s dangerous, and look where we\u2019ve ended up.<\/p>\n

You get what you pay for. It’s been said many times but is worth remembering: Google is in the advertising business, and you are the product being sold!<\/p>\n

Featured image: deathtostockphoto.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We bid farewell to Google’s Reader, an rss reader that allows you to have all your articles and news in one convenient spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[665],"tags":[27],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/DeathtoStock_Medium6.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7762"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/needmoredesigns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}