Google Reader

Last updated
Google Reader
Developer(s) Google
Initial releaseOctober 7, 2005
Platform Web browsers, Android
Type Web feed reader
Website google.com/reader

Google Reader is a discontinued RSS/Atom feed aggregator operated by Google. It was created in early 2005 by Google engineer Chris Wetherell and launched on October 7, 2005, through Google Labs. [1] Google Reader grew in popularity to support a number of programs which used it as a platform for serving news and information to users. Google shut down Google Reader on July 1, 2013, citing declining use. [2] [3]

Contents

History

In early 2001, software engineer Chris Wetherell began a project he called "JavaCollect" that served as a news portal based on web feeds. After working at Google he began a similar project with a small team that launched an improved product on October 7, 2005, as Google Reader. [4] [5]

In September 2006 Google announced a redesign for Reader that included new features such as unread counts, the ability to "mark all as read", a new folder-based navigation, and an expanded view so users could quickly scan over several items at once. This also marked the addition of a sharing feature, which allowed readers to publish interesting items for others to see. [6]

In January 2007 Google added video content from YouTube and Google Video to Reader. [7]

In September 2007 product marketing manager Kevin Systrom (later, founder of Instagram) announced that Google Reader had graduated out of Google Labs. [8]

Discontinuation

On March 13, 2013, Google announced they were discontinuing Google Reader, stating the product had a loyal but declining following, and they wanted to focus on fewer products. They gave users a sunset period until July 1, 2013, [2] to move their data [3] [9] and suggested: "If you want to retain your Reader data, including subscriptions, you can do so through Google Takeout." [10]

After the closure announcement, Feedly said that more than 500,000 new users had joined them in the following 48 hours, [11] and 3 million in the following two weeks. [12] Likewise, NewsBlur's subscriber base immediately rose from about 1,500 users to over 60,000. [13] [14]

In response to the planned closure, Digg also announced plans to build a Google Reader replacement, rebuilding its API and adding features to take advantage of the implicit recommendations of social network activity. [15]

Several petitions were started to keep Google Reader running, including one on Change.org with over 100,000 signatures. [16]

Instapaper developer Marco Arment speculated that the real reason for the closure was to try to keep everyone reading and sharing information using the now defunct Google+, and that it signaled the end of the era of unrestricted and interoperable web services like RSS from large organizations like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. [17]

Enthusiasts re-created a work-alike replacement called "The Old Reader." [18]

In 2022, Techdirt called the discontinuation of Google Reader "one of the defining moments in the shift from a more distributed, independent web to one that is controlled by a few large companies." [19]

Features

Interface

Reader's interface evolved several times from an early version, described by a Google designer who helped work on the revision as a "river" of news, [20] to various experiences optimized for a wide range of devices, from browsers to the Wii video game console. [21]

In late 2008, Google Reader had a significant upgrade to its user experience and design. Led by Google designer Jenna Bilotta, the interface now included a cleaner visual style, collapsible navigation, "Friends" navigation, the ability to hide unread counts, and feed bundles. [22]

Some of the features of Google Reader in 2013 were:

Organization

Users could subscribe to feeds using either Google Reader's search function, or by entering in the exact URL of the RSS or Atom feed. New posts from those feeds were then shown on the left-hand side of the screen. One could then order that list by date or relevance. Items could also be organized with labels, as well as being able to create "Starred Items" for easy access.

Sharing

From 2007 to 2011, items in Google Reader could be shared with other Web users. Previously this was done by sending a link through e-mail, directing the user to the shared article; or by creating a basic webpage that includes all shared items from a user's account. In December 2007, Google changed the sharing policy so that items the user marked as shared were automatically visible to their Google Talk contacts. [24] Users criticized this change because there was no way to opt out. [25]

Google removed the sharing functionality built into Reader in October 2011, and replaced it with a Google+ +1 button. [26] Users criticized this change because it effectively dismantled existing social networks that used these features and disabled sharing and publishing functions that served as a communications medium for Iranians seeking news sources that couldn't be blocked by the government. [27]

The Google+ +1 button and count of how many people liked an article were removed in March 2013 shortly after the announcement that Google Reader would be discontinued.[ citation needed ]

Offline access

Google Reader was the first application to make use of Google Gears, a browser extension that let online applications work offline. [28] Users who installed the extension could download up to 2000 items to be read offline. After coming back online, Google Reader updated the feeds. Google Reader stopped supporting this feature in June 2010. [29]

Mobile access

A mobile interface was released [30] on May 18, 2006. It could be used by devices that support XHTML or WAP 2.0. On May 12, 2008, Google announced a version of Google Reader targeted at iPhone users. [31] in December 2010, Google released a Google Reader app for Android, available from the Android Market. [32]

iGoogle

On May 4, 2006, Google released a new feature [33] which enabled feeds from Reader to be displayed on iGoogle (formerly Google Personalized Homepage).

Play

In March 2010, Google announced [34] and released [35] Google Reader Play. Play presented a slideshow interface which displayed popular items one at a time. These items were drawn from assorted sites' feeds, and their appearance in Play was based on the data provided by Reader users' responses, e.g. how many people liked or shared the item. Unlike Google Reader, a Google Account was not required to access Play.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RSS</span> Family of web feed formats

RSS is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many different websites in a single news aggregator, which constantly monitor sites for new content, removing the need for the user to manually check them. News aggregators can be built into a browser, installed on a desktop computer, or installed on a mobile device.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atom (web standard)</span> Web standards

The name Atom applies to a pair of related Web standards. The Atom Syndication Format is an XML language used for web feeds, while the Atom Publishing Protocol is a simple HTTP-based protocol for creating and updating web resources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News aggregator</span> Client software that aggregates syndicated web content

In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, content aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader, or simply an aggregator is client software or a web application that aggregates digital content such as online newspapers, blogs, podcasts, and video blogs (vlogs) in one location for easy viewing. The updates distributed may include journal tables of contents, podcasts, videos, and news items.

RSS Bandit is an open source RSS/Atom aggregator based on the Microsoft .NET framework. It was originally released as a code sample in a series of articles the Extreme XML column written by Dare Obasanjo on MSDN in 2003. The code samples were developed into an open source project. It is currently hosted on GitHub and the primary contributors are Dare Obasanjo and Torsten Rendelmann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Gmail</span> Email service from Google

The public history of Gmail dates back to 2004. Gmail, a free, advertising-supported webmail service with support for Email clients, is a product from Google. Over its history, the Gmail interface has become integrated with many other products and services from the company, with basic integration as part of Google Account and specific integration points with services such as Google+, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Hangouts, Google Meet, YouTube, and Google Buzz. It has also been made available as part of G Suite. The Official Gmail Blog tracks the public history of Gmail from July 2007.

Picasa Web Albums (PWA) was an image hosting and sharing web service from Google, often compared to Flickr and similar sites. The service links with Google's photo organizing desktop program Picasa. It was discontinued in May 2016 and succeeded by Google Photos which does not support sharing photo albums on the public world wide web.

Feedburner, Inc. is a web feed management service primarily for monetizing RSS feeds, primarily by inserting targeted advertisements into them. It was founded in 2004 and acquired by Google in 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digg</span> Social media/news aggregator website

Digg, stylized in lowercase as digg, is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select stories specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launched in its current form on July 31, 2012, with support for sharing content to other social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

FriendFeed was a real-time feed aggregator that consolidated updates from social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and microblogging updates, as well as any type of RSS/Atom feed. It was created in 2007 by Bret Taylor, Jim Norris, Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh. It was possible to use this stream of information to create customized feeds to share, as well as originate new posts-discussions, with friends. Friendfeed was built on top of Tornado. The service was shut down at about 21:00 GMT on April 10, 2015, though the service blog announced it a month before.

GENWI is a privately held technology company based in San Jose, CA that provides a mobile content enablement platform. GENWI is short for "Generation Wireless".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LinkedIn Pulse</span>

LinkedIn Pulse was a news aggregation app originally developed for Android, iOS and HTML5 browsers, originally released in 2010. The app, in its original incarnation, was deprecated in 2015 and integrated into LinkedIn.

Flipboard is a news aggregator and social network aggregation company based in Palo Alto, California, with offices in New York, Vancouver, and Bejiing. Its software, also known as Flipboard, was first released in July 2010. It aggregates content from social media, news feeds, photo sharing sites, and other websites, presents it in magazine format, and allows users to "flip" through the articles, images, and videos being shared. Readers can also save stories into Flipboard magazines. As of March 2016 the company claims there have been 28 million magazines created by users on Flipboard. The service can be accessed via web browser, or by a Flipboard application for Microsoft Windows and macOS, and via mobile apps for iOS and Android. The client software is available at no charge and is localized in 21 languages.

Flud was a social news reader application for iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows Phone. It was designed to display RSS feeds from blogs and news sites into individual streams for easy viewing. In Flud, articles and stories could be stored for later reading with the Reading List, shared as a favorite read with the Flud button, and shared with Facebook, Twitter, email, Tumblr, Instapaper, and ReadItLater. Flud was headquartered in the historic Spreckels Theater Building in San Diego, California, with remote offices in Detroit and Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feedly</span> News aggregator

Feedly is a news aggregator application for various web browsers and mobile devices running iOS and Android. It is also available as a cloud-based service. It compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customize and share with others. Feedly was first released by DevHD in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NewsBlur</span>

NewsBlur is an American software company based in New York City and San Francisco. It runs an online RSS news reader service accessible both online and via a free open-source mobile app for offline reading. Furthermore, the software powering NewsBlur is available and is published in an open-source application, licensed under the MIT License. Limited access to the service is free for up to 64 sites; unlimited access is available for an annual subscription fee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digg Reader</span>

Digg Reader was a news aggregator operated by Digg. The reader was released on June 26, 2013 as a response to Google Reader shutting down. The reader was web-based and also had iOS and Android applications as well as a Google Chrome extension. The beta for the reader has received mostly positive reviews. On March 26, 2018, Digg shut down Digg Reader.

The Old Reader is a web-based news aggregator that delivers website, blog, and other Internet content to a web-based inbox. The service sprung up when Google removed social features from Google Reader; the site supports social media sharing, including the ability to "like" content, and find friends via social media networks.

Kevin Fox is the user experience designer who created the interface for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, and Friendfeed.

Chris Wetherell is a software developer and musician from the US best known as the founder of Google Reader and as an influential "ex-Googler" since his departure from the company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inoreader</span>

Inoreader is a web-based content and RSS feed reader, a cloud-based service for web browsers and mobile devices running iOS and Android. It compiles news feeds from online sources for the user in unified layout to customize and share with others. Inoreader was first released by Innologica in 2013.

References

  1. ↑ Wetherell, Chris. "Google Reader: Two weeks". googlereader.blogspot.com. Retrieved October 21, 2005.
  2. 1 2 Hölzle, Urs. "A second spring of cleaning". googleblog.blogspot.com. Retrieved March 14, 2013.
  3. 1 2 "Google Reader Bites the Dust. Who's Next?". PC Magazine. March 15, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2013.
  4. ↑ Wetherell, Chris. "Massless - About Google Reader's Birth: Part 1". massless.org. Archived from the original on June 19, 2012. Retrieved May 17, 2007.
  5. ↑ Wetherell, Chris. "Massless - About Google Reader's Birth: Part 2". massless.org. Retrieved May 21, 2007.
  6. ↑ Darnell, Ben. "Something looks...different". googlereader.blogspot.com. Retrieved May 21, 2007.
  7. ↑ Wetherell, Chris. "Getting embedded in Google Reader". googlereader.blogspot.com. Retrieved January 30, 2007.
  8. ↑ Systrom, Kevin. "Breaking up isn't hard to do". googlereader.blogspot.com. Retrieved September 7, 2007.
  9. ↑ "Official Google Reader Blog: Powering Down Google Reader". Googlereader.blogspot.ca. March 13, 2013. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  10. ↑ Alan Green, Software Engineer (March 13, 2013). "Powering Down Google Reader". Official Google Reader Blog.
  11. ↑ "Priorities: Keeping the site up, listening and adding new features". Blog.feedly.com. March 15, 2013. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  12. ↑ "Announcing the New Feedly Mobile". Blog.feedly.com. April 2, 2013. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  13. ↑ "Google Reader Who? Feedly Became Top News App On iPhone, iPad & Android This Week; New App Now Awaiting Approval". TechCrunch. 2013-03-22.
  14. ↑ Samuel Clay (2013-03-17). "Three Months to Scale NewsBlur". The NewsBlur Blog.
  15. ↑ "Digg Blog: We're building a reader". blog.digg.com. March 13, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2013.
  16. ↑ "Petition to save Google Reader passes 100,000 signatures, but don't expect Google to reverse its decision". The Next Web. 15 March 2013.
  17. ↑ "Reader May Have Died To Feed Google+'s APIs". Fast Company . July 3, 2013. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  18. ↑ "Product Tour". The Old Reader. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  19. ↑ Masnick, Mike (2022-06-03). "The Internet Can Still Be Small And Nice, But It's On All Of Us To Make That Work". Techdirt . Retrieved 2022-06-04.
  20. ↑ Lenssen, Philipp. "Kevin Fox of Gmail & FriendFeed on User Experience Design - Google Blogoscoped". blogoscoped.com. Retrieved May 29, 2009.
  21. ↑ Lenssen, Philipp. "Google launches Google Reader for the Wii". zdnet.com. Retrieved May 29, 2009.
  22. ↑ Bilotta, Jenna. "Square is the new round". googlereader.blogspot.com. Retrieved December 4, 2008.
  23. ↑ Parparita, Mihai. "We found it!". googlereader.blogspot.com. Retrieved September 5, 2007.
  24. ↑ Finne, Chrix (December 14, 2007). "Reader and Talk are friends!". Google Reader Blog.
  25. ↑ "New Feature: Sharing with Friends". Google Reader Help. December 14, 2007.
  26. ↑ Green, Alan (October 31, 2011). "New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing". Google Reader Blog.
  27. ↑ Perez, Sarah (October 25, 2011). "Iranians Upset Over Google Reader Changes". TechCrunch.
  28. ↑ Wetherell, Chris. "Oh Sam I Am, Can I read it on the tram?". googlereader.blogspot.com. Retrieved May 31, 2007.
  29. ↑ Parparita, Mihai. "Spring Cleaning: Comments, offline, and older browser support". The Official Google Reader Blog. Retrieved May 24, 2010.
  30. ↑ "Official Google Reader Blog: You can now use Google Reader from your phone". Googlereader.blogspot.com. May 18, 2006. Retrieved Mar 20, 2013.
  31. ↑ "Official Google Reader Blog: 'Brand new Google Reader for iPhone'". Googlereader.blogspot.com. December 5, 2008. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  32. ↑ "The Android Google Reader app is here!". Googlereader.blogspot.com. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  33. ↑ "Official Google Reader Blog: There's some Reader in my Homepage!". Googlereader.blogspot.com. April 5, 2006. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  34. ↑ "Official Google Reader Blog: And now for something completely different". Googlereader.blogspot.com. October 3, 2010. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  35. ↑ "Google Reader Play" . Retrieved March 20, 2013.

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