[llambda]

> Google made a big mistake cancelling Google Reader that will have severe ripple effects to its empire.

Oh come on: enough already. Obviously there was a /vocal/ user base which is very loudly now upset that the product is being sunset. Guess what, Google didn't see it as a large enough set of people to make it worth monetizing. Such is life. Move on. It's certainly not the end of Google if that's what this article is trying to imply. It isn't even the beginning of some horrible backlash either. It is however getting old.

[henrikschroder]

I don't think people who use RSS realize what a small minority they are. I don't use RSS or Google Reader, I've never even seen it, but this week my Facebook has been filled by a tiny slice of my friends who are incredibly upset.

The vast majority are just shrugging and not caring one bit.

Only Google has the actual numbers on how many people are using their Reader, and they simply did the math. End of story. It's not going to affect Google one bit that they cancelled a tiny non-profitable product.

[fauigerzigerk]

"they simply did the math"

Math is useless without a good model. The article challenges their model and rightly so.

[coldtea]

>I don't think people who use RSS realize what a small minority they are.

Maybe you don't realise how many they are?

I mean, your very next line admits total ignorance:

>I don't use RSS or Google Reader, I've never even seen it

Thing is, people who have successful technical blogs know that lots of people come from Google Reader.

So even if it's a minority, it's a pretty important minority in the business.

[sergiosgc]

> I don't think people who use RSS realize what a small minority they are.

They do: Contributors (curators) are, grossly, 9% of total users (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_%28Internet_culture%2...)

[Pro_bity]

Google reader is a pretty important tool for competitive intel. The only really tuneable alternatives are expensive services that don't do the job half as well.

[mcherm]

The point here is that your facebook has been filled. In other words, there may only be a few upset people, but they're people that other folks (like you) listen to.

[henrikschroder]

In this case it doesn't matter, because the vast majority of my friends don't know what RSS is, don't care, don't use it, and don't care about Google Reader.

The few that cared posted their angry rants, and noone cared. Noone commented. It's a complete non-issue.

And even if you accept the premise of the article, that the ones who care about Google Reader are influencers, what exactly does that mean in practice? Google doesn't have very many services that regular people use. There's search, and you'll never get people to stop using that. There's gmail, and you'll never get people to stop using that. There's Google+, and you'll never get people to use that, because they've got Facebook, and it's only nerds on G+ anyway.

I get the abstract point of the article, that if you upset influential people, they'll badmouth your product, and the Microsoft Word example made a lot of sense, because it stopped people from buying the latest version of it and sticking with what they had.

But that scenario doesn't apply here. Those of you who are upset about this, exactly which Google services will you stop promoting to your friends, and which alternatives will you suggest?

[incongruity]

The bigger issue isn't whether they influence the masses, it's whether they influence the decision makers who do matter to Google's revenue streams – and that's an open question, IMHO.

The idea that you can't rely on Google to keep services around is a bit of a chilling one for many and too much of that vibe may well mean that established companies and smart startups are more careful about what services they depend on (and who they get them from).

But we're not at that point yet... and Google is hardly alone in the general rug-pulling-out-from-under-you trend these days.

[mkr-hn]

I got a friend to give RSS another shot with this post: http://mkronline.com/2013/03/15/why-you-should-want-to-use-r...

The main issue for RSS seems to be that no one bothered to explain it in direct terms to all the tens of millions of people who rushed into the web starting around 2007.

[ersii]

Uhm, I've always thought I've been in a pretty small minority - but at least here in Sweden, RSS reading is pretty normal.

Though, the majority of people here aren't using Google Reader - so I guess I'm a minority there - but they're using "Bloglovin".

They're pretty large it seems.

[baby]

I don't know anyone in France who use Google reader or others. Maybe power users but even them... it's not that useful.

[camus]

i do , and all the french journalists i know.

[baby]

maybe in some professions, then it's a professional tool and not a "for everyone's" usage. There are several options out there aside from Google Reader, especially if you're willing to pay.

[pseut]

Yeah, that's the point of TFA. It's a professional tool for journalists and bloggers, or, even more bluntly, it's a professional tool for people with a platform to share their opinions.

[dllthomas]

As a regular user of reader, I'm more or less shrugging. The features I use aren't anything I can't put together for myself pretty simply out of available tools; having reader there just prevented me from bothering.

I realize I won't be getting things like the recommendations, but I've got plenty of feeds going presently. There may well be other features others love that I've been missing out on, but obviously I won't be missing them :-P

[gbog]

Facebook users are also a small minority, if you want to go there.

The problem is that some minorities count more than others, because they are influential (vocal, if you prefer).

[SoftwareMaven]

They aren't just vocal; more importantly, people listen to them. They are the people that get products across chasms, so when Google encourages them to look elsewhere, they are encouraging many more people to look elsewhere, too.

The big question, which TFA states but provides no evidence for, is whether pushing these influencers away from Reader also pushes them away from other services, too.

My personal opinion is, by itself, no; but if you make Reader the frosting on a cake of discontinued products, it just might. Now, the general unease of "Will this thing I care about get terminated next spring?" becomes a much stronger fear, because it is tied to the personal emotions of Reader being killed.

[graeme]

You missed the article's point, which was that the vocal users were power users, and influencers.

Several tens of thousands of highly influential people are now less likely to speak well of google, less likely to install chrome on a friend's computer, less likely to urge a parent to switch to gmail, etc.

I don't know how big the effect will be; less likely is a relative term. (this confuses people to no end) But the effect will be stronger than numbers alone indicate.

[jdost]

It is more a combination of the small and vocal user base and the message it sends to them about Google being open to cutting any product that has a usage they don't think is significant. Those people who see Google cut a product that they have adopted into a regular usage will probably add an asterisk to any recommendation for adopting a new Google product. There is no certainty that the lifespan of that Google is dedicated to that product. With the shutting down or Reader, it sends a clear message that almost no product of Google's is safe and that we should all be wary of what of theirs we adopt into daily usage.

[vonuebelgarten]

> cutting any product that has a usage they don't think is significant.

Curiously, some products that are moribund for more time still alive (e.g. Orkut).

[ijk]

Orkut is big in Brazil and India, so it makes sense that Google wouldn't kill the only social media platform they own with an actual mainstream userbase (modulo YouTube).

[joedevon]

LOL, check out http://www.bonkersworld.net/usual-suspects/ by a googler.

[camus]

nothig else to add , you sum it up perfectly.

[efuquen]

Reading the commentary on this I feel like I'm only schlep in the tech industry that didn't use Google Reader. But then I ask my non-tech friends and guess what 90% of them say "Oh, I had some feeds on there from awhile back but I never really read them that often". I wonder if the people who used it are such trendsetters why that is the case ...

[ceol]

That's exactly my situation. I set it up, used it for about a week a long time ago, and never logged into it again.

I think the coolest feature of it was its massive database of RSS feeds. I liked being able to flip through tons of categories and add them. However, it wasn't enough to keep me coming back, and that's probably why Google is discontinuing it.

I wish there was some way to export all those feeds, though.

[anigbrowl]

That's exactly my situation. I set it up, used it for about a week a long time ago, and never logged into it again.

That pretty much describes my relationship with Twitter, and almost none of my friends use Twitter. But I don't think Twitter is any less important for that; likewise, don't let your lack of interest in Reader blind you to the fact that it has high utility for others.

[fraqed]

Google Takeout allows you to get all your data from various Google services https://www.google.com/takeout/

What surprises me most is that Microsoft, which has a severe case of Google envy hasn't created a web based RSS service of it's own. They should make an offer to buy Reader and Feedburner too, since Google seems to have little interest in supporting these products.

[hayksaakian]

Google isn't handing over the reader code any time soon. There's too much overlap with their search algos.

[jsz0]

Reader was basically a power tool for trend setting not a trend itself.

[ImprovedSilence]

I think google has been killing reader for awhile now. Me, and several people in my social circle had been using reader heavily for a while, to the point where it was like crack to me. But Once G+ came along and they killed the social bit of reader, they pretty much killed reader itself, we all stopped using it, and now they just have to swing the final axe...

[sergiosgc]

Google did the math, and they used the numbers. What everyone is saying is that numbers are useless without a model. Now, GReader caters to the needs of the 9% in the 90-9-1 rule[1], so you could never expect it to see huge numbers of adopters. Google did the math wrong, because they set the wrong expectation, based on a wrong popularity model, and they will indeed suffer.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_%28Internet_culture%2...

[InclinedPlane]

They came for the...

etc.