Google Reader Deserved to Die: 10 Reasons Why

by Don Reisinger

When Google Reader launched in 2005, it was based on the idea that the RSS feed would be the way in which people would access content for years. For quite a while, that appeared to be a valid assumption. But as the last few years have proven, the RSS feed is losing steam, making Google Reader far less appealing to most users who have other ways to access the same information.

Google Reader was designed to deliver all the latest news and information to users. However, Google News is designed to do the same. And Google News is right now one of the company’s most important content platforms. Given that, it makes sense that Google would want to kill off a service that competes with News.

Google is trying to maximize the amount of cash it generates across its many platforms. In fact, that was a key feature in Larry Page’s strategy when he took over the company. That’s why Google invests heavily in ad networks, like AdMob, and shutters programs that aren’t performing. Google Reader happened to be one of those programs. Sad to say, the RSS feed just isn’t a moneymaker.

The Internet is moving away from the time when it was an information fire hose, spraying a vast amount of unfiltered information in all directions. Web users are now looking for more curated information to zero-in on the information they truly care about and not everything a particular publication is putting out there. That’s why services like Flipboard are so popular. It’s another reason Google Reader went the way of the dodo.

Google said it: Reader’s user base was dwindling, making it harder and harder for the company to continue to dedicate resources to the service. If users don’t care about Reader, why should Google?

Larry Page could very well be the chief reason Google Reader is dead now. Since taking over Google, Page said that he was going to clean house and start eliminating the scores of services Google offered that either failed to deliver a solid experience or were simply extraneous. Since then, each year Google announces a “spring cleaning.” This time around, Reader was including the cleaning.

Facebook has become a surprisingly huge concern for Google. That concern has only grown over the past year or so as the social network becomes more of a gathering place for news and search. Facebook, in other words, has prompted a social-news revolution, where people care more about the events and news items their friends are sharing than anything they can find on content sites. Google needs more potent tools than Reader to counter competition from Facebook.

Google has a finite number of engineers. The last thing the company wants to do is dedicate too much of their time to platforms that are only fading in importance. According to some reports, Google had decided to remove engineers from Reader long before the platform was shuttered. So, the writing must have been on the wall for quite some time.

Although Google kept Reader updated with a few enhancements here and there, those upgrades were never all that impressive. Google was content to leave Reader alone for the most part, so it could focus its efforts elsewhere. The trouble is, users recognized that and went away. But it’s apparent that Google didn’t see a need to put a lot of development effort into this service.

Twitter has replaced RSS feeds and similar services as a popular destination for news. When anything major happens in the world, the news tends to break first on Twitter. That’s what happened when Osama bin Laden was killed and when other major events occurred around the world. Twitter is the new way to shout out the latest news.