Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Who killed Google Reader?

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

RSS has been my go-to technology since 1998 when I became the feed number 31 supplying content to Netscape's NetCenter. It's still how I find most things today, and is the essential tool in my distribution network (email services get blocked or fail, social media algorithms demote content to obscurity, but RSS just keeps chugging along). Ten years ago, Google Reader had become a staple of the RSS world. Then they killed it, right around the same time they were launching their colossal failure, Google+. This post describes how and why Reader was killed, from the perspective of a Google insider. I would't believe everything it says (like the bit where 30 million users is too small a customer base for a google tool). But it's still enlightening.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Oct 04, 2024 4:43 p.m.

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