You’re born, you live, and then you die. It doesn’t matter what happens in-between: those three are constants as real and unavoidable as the rise and fall of the Sun each day. Google Reader’s death-date was pronounced today, and you shouldn’t be sad about that: it had to die, here’s why.
Google is killing Reader to continue with its strategy of refocussing. “More wood behind fewer arrows,” as Google explained it when Labs were closed way back in 2011.
Reader dies to give way to better integration with Google+ for social news content rather than just straight aggregations of information via RSS feeds.
Sure, you can just export all of your information using the handy Google Takeout service and import it into another service, but that doesn’t change the constants: that service, and all others like it, will eventually die.
Old MySpace, Kazaa, Limewire, Google Buzz, iGoogle, Bloglines, the concept of Shareware, Halo 2 multiplayer and even the idea of server browsers. Beautiful, amazing services for their time. All dead and gone now.
Don’t mourn for any of these services, and likewise, don’t mourn for Google Reader. I challenge you to come up with three services that have died that you weren’t able to find a better, more innovative replacement for.
MySpace evolved into Facebook, Limewire gave way to legal music streaming, Shareware gave way to free apps, Halo 2 has many multiplayer alternatives and server browsers were replaced with quicker matchmaking services. Everything evolves, it all gets better, and you need to let go.
Don’t mourn Google Reader, challenge developers and companies big and small to come up with something better.
Headstone image via Shutterstock