Google Reader is dead

March 14, 2013

Google is cleaning house. On Wednesday the company announced plans to purge Google Reader, Google Cloud Connect, CalDAV API, Snapseed’s desktop versions for Mac and Windows, and a handful of other products and services as part of an effort to focus on its core products. Google Reader will shutter July 1, giving the RSS feed’s devoted users a few months to port their subscriptions to another service. RSS has been on the decline in recent years, Google said, which is why the 8-year-old Reader is shutting down. The next time you log into Google Reader, you'll get a notice warning you of the service's demise. More instantaneous news sources such as Twitter, Facebook, and news apps have led to the downfall of RSS feeds and the readers that aggregate them. In a strange twist, Twitter users took to the social network to express outrage about Reader’s closure. But fear not, RSS diehards: Some alternative readers to check out include Pulse, Flipboard, and The Old Reader, which describes itself as “just like the old Google Reader, only better.” To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2030781/google-reader-is-dead.html#tk.rss_all