Bye Google reader

In what was a shock to many, Google decided to discontinue it much loved RSS reader product called Google Reader citing declining usage. This assertion though probably true doesn’t really paint the complete picture of why google may have scrapped the product.

RSS feeds grew in popularity along with the internet and were the primary medium of news distribution for a long time, though they were mostly used by power users. This phenomenon is something we can call the stream based distribution model where people subscribe to a source and receive all updates from it. Later on with the explosion of the internet and the rise of social media, we saw the rise of the newsfeed distribution model where people are subscribed/connected to a large number of publishing sources but receive only the updates that are deemed relevant. Slowly we’re entering a phase where who or what you are connected also is mapped out based on relevance, which basically means we’re replacing the part where we chose our sources and instead these are chosen for us automatically (Eg: Prismatic)

All this may make Google Reader seem like an antiquated and boring old RSS client; which it was! But the thing about RSS that makes it seem like a weakling: the fact that you get each and every update is in fact exactly what users want. Because users do not want what algorithms think is relevant to them but rather prefer to see what they deem is relevant to them.

So usually when you subscribe to someone RSS feed, you’re not just lending them a listening ear but almost giving then complete and undivided attention. Sadly however, this is not how most users of the internet function. They aren’t trawling the internet looking for awesome sources to subscribe to. Twitter has largely replaced the follow graph that was the bastion of RSS because it is simpler to use and understand. RSS has been relinquished to the realm of geeks and power users who however love the way it works because they take the trouble to filter, sort and classify their sources.

So what I’ve discussed above is the declining popularity of RSS as a follow graph on the internet due to the emergence of more lightweight and more social mediums.

But there’s probably another good reason why google shut down reader: Google+

Among the first things a human being does when he gets on to the internet is get an email. This is an area where Gmail has won the battle; they didn’t reinvent email but engineered the fuck out of it and fought spam like it was nobody’s business. The result was a super fast email product with tons of storage space and also a ton of benefits from other connected Google services like Gtalk. Now enter Google+, another attempt at enable social networking after Buzz and Wave. Google+ is apparently growing really quickly but what could be a really nice boost to the this network would be to provide a combined social and interest graph in one go with Google+.  You can easily imagine the product guys at Google thinking of : 'User meets internet, user gets email (gmail), user wants to hear/read about stuff on the internet, nag user about G+, profit' as nice growth sequence.

Whatever the reasons were, bye Google Reader we'll miss you.