Google to kill off Google Reader, Snapseed for Mac in continued service culling
Google on Wednesday announced the continuation of its "spring cleaning" that began in 2011, with the latest services to fall under the hatchet being Google Reader and the desktop version of Snapseed, among others.
In a post to the company's official blog, SVP Technical Infrastructure Urs H?lzle said that Reader's numbers have declined over the past few years, and Google will thus retire the service on July 1, 2013. Many users rely on Google Reader to aggregate the RSS feeds of their favorite websites, and there are a multitude of third-party apps already tightly integrated with the service.
According to Google, current users can export their data and subscriptions with Google Takeout over the next four months.
As for Snapseed, Google is immediately stopping sales and updates for the Mac and Windows desktop versions of the title, though existing customers can still download the software and will be offered continued support. The free Snapseed mobile apps for iOS and Android will live on.
The remaining Google services announced as reaching end-of-life:
In a post to the company's official blog, SVP Technical Infrastructure Urs H?lzle said that Reader's numbers have declined over the past few years, and Google will thus retire the service on July 1, 2013. Many users rely on Google Reader to aggregate the RSS feeds of their favorite websites, and there are a multitude of third-party apps already tightly integrated with the service.
According to Google, current users can export their data and subscriptions with Google Takeout over the next four months.
As for Snapseed, Google is immediately stopping sales and updates for the Mac and Windows desktop versions of the title, though existing customers can still download the software and will be offered continued support. The free Snapseed mobile apps for iOS and Android will live on.
The remaining Google services announced as reaching end-of-life:
- Apps Script will be deprecating the GUI Builder and five UiApp widgets. GUI Builder will continue to be available until September 16.
- CalDAV API will become available for whitelisted developers, and will be shut down for other developers on September 16.
- Google Building Maker to retire on June 1.
- Google Cloud Connect to retire on April 30.
- Google Voice App for Blackberry ends service "next week."
- Search API for Shopping to retire on on September 16.
Comments
hmm
Apple: put RSS back in Safari, please, with iCloud synching.
A good reminder to use services that have an actual business model--even if they cost money. I won't be jumping on many future Google experiments to see whether they last or not. (Not if they do anything important to me.)
I did start feeling antiquated for using it a few months ago. Guess it's time to look fir something else.
That is exactly the phrase that I thought when reading this. Apple dropped RSS support in Safari and Mail in Mountain Lion so I checked for RRS readers and the decent ones are all based around Google Reader. It's not Google's fault of course that 3rd parties are too lazy to use the RSS feeds directly but it sucks when the plug is pulled on stuff that works. Hopefully 3rd party readers will just implement RSS properly.
I don't think so but I do think there's an ulterior motive. With RSS, you can get your news articles concisely without adverts cluttering up the view. I browse hundreds of articles without seeing a single advert but visit the website they are on and I'm inundated with them. RSS feeds load faster too and there are notifications for updates.
Quote:
Originally Posted by unother
Agreed about Reader but it's obvious that RSS is fading from importance.
I did start feeling antiquated for using it a few months ago. Guess it's time to look fir something else.
I'd be just as happy to have a good RSS replacement as to have RSS. But what? If it's antiquated, what has replaced it?
What RSS does for me: aggregate news items from many sources into a single list, and keep track of which ones I have read across devices. FAR more efficient than just visiting all those sites. For me, it doesn't replace the article pages--I still click through to read the articles that interest me (ads and all). What it replaces is visiting a lot of HOME pages. List pages, in other words. RSS is a better way to get me to the content.
Yes but lets not forget that by killing it off Google benefits from all these ad impressions we now get to use.
You're right. Most do piggyback, I wonder if Google realizes that?
Twitter is quite useful in that regard. Most articles are tweeted before they even show up on RSS.
Wow, this is going to cause a serious disruption in my daily news reading habit. I hope a decent alternative shows up soon, but I'm not too hopeful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
I don't think so but I do think there's an ulterior motive. With RSS, you can get your news articles concisely without adverts cluttering up the view. I browse hundreds of articles without seeing a single advert but visit the website they are on and I'm inundated with them. RSS feeds load faster too and there are notifications for updates.
Quote:
Originally Posted by unother
@nagromme
Yes but lets not forget that by killing it off Google benefits from all these ad impressions we now get to use.
I agree that it's probably not just the falling numbers but the need to sell ads that is driving Google's decision here. It's sad that Google would drop any service they can't directly monetize through advertising, rather than allowing it to be another service that keeps people in their ecosystem.
I recommend that Google next kill off Android and Plus. Stick to search and ads. It's the only thing they are much good at. ;-)
This is what happens when you trust a glorified AD COMPANY to provide a consistent and reliable User Experience.
Google isn't built around pleasing the user. They are built around SELLING THE USER.
Be warned.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Akac
The main issue I have is that I used Google Reader for syncing my read RSS articles between Mac and iPhone. I hope Reeder will add iCloud syncing for this and that'll solve my problem.
Reeder has announced on their twitter feed that Reeder users will be unaffected by the Google Reader shutdown. Presumably they are coming up with an alternative solution.
Quote:
Originally Posted by retroneo
Reeder has announced on their twitter feed that Reeder users will be unaffected by the Google Reader shutdown. Presumably they are coming up with an alternative solution.
I hope so. I have a lot of feeds that I read and I don't particularly want to start over. Hopefully they will do something where we can import our reader set up.
or someone make a reader app for Mac. Wonder how hard it would be to try to reverse engineer the lion version of Mail.
I never bought Reeder bc it relied on Google.
It's always a bad business plan to rely on something another company gives away for free.
Glad that they have a plan B.
Bummer about Snapseed on Mac, but since it doesn't show Google ads, it's not worth their while to keep investing in it. Makes sense business wise.
These moves re-enforce the idea that Google only offers products that data mine in order to sell more ads.
Rant:
To paraphrase someone wiser than myself and I forget who originally said it, in reference to Facebook and Google.
It's sad/disturbing that some of the most brilliant minds of our generation are focused on finding ways to make us look at more ads.
My own:
Rather than looking to cure cancer, AIDS, etc... It pays more to work for data mining advertising companies.
These are the values off our society? Depressing
Great.
(Posted using Flipboard on iPad)