Image via CrunchBase
In what appears to be a relatively innocuous announcement from the Google Reader team at Google, Google has gutted Google Reader in favor of the unproven Google+…
Today we’re rolling out the new Reader design, and the Google+ features that we mentioned just over a week ago. Before the day’s over, all Reader users will be able to enjoy the following improvements:
- A new look and feel that’s cleaner, faster, and nicer to look at.
- The ability to +1 a feed item (replacing “Like”), with an option to then share it with your circles on Google+ (replacing “Share” and “Share with Note”).
Integrating with Google+ also helps us streamline Reader overall. So starting today we’ll be turning off friending, following, shared items and comments in favor of similar Google+ functionality.
We hope you’ll like the new Reader (and Google+) as much as we do, but we understand that some of you may not. Retiring Reader’s sharing features wasn’t a decision that we made lightly, but in the end, it helps us focus on fewer areas, and build an even better experience across all of Google.
If you decide to stay, then please do send us your feedback on today’s set of improvements. Google+ is still in its early days, after all, and we’re constantly working on improvements. If, however, you decide that the product is no longer for you, then please do take advantage of Reader’s subscription export feature. Regardless where you go, we want to make sure you can take your data with you.
Updates to Google Reader on the web are rolling out gradually and should reach all users by end of day. A new Android application will follow soon. If you have questions about today’s announcements, please check out our Help Center.
“So starting today we’ll be turning off friending, following, shared items and comments in favor of similar Google+ functionality.” WTF?
These were some of the most powerful, albeit underutilized features of Google Reader. I consider the ability to synthesize my own rss feeds and publish directly from Reader to be amongst it’s most powerful features. No, as you can see, users can no longer create clips, blogrolls, feeds or share folders with other users! There hasn’t been a worse change since New Coke…
Thanks to this brilliant maneuver, I can no longer use Google Reader as a social bookmarking tool to share content as I travel around the internet. I can no longer autopost my Google Reader shared items to Twitter. I can no longer autopost my Google Reader shared items to the sidebar of my blog. I can, however send them to the shrinking number of active users in Google+. In short, Google has crippled my internet publishing workflow…
I’m going to continue to track this issue and stay on top of Google Reader changes for you — for me, there is no more important tool in my workflow and ‘thought leadership’ marketing. From where I sit right now, Google’s changes were stupid and short-sighted; they sacrificed the power of Google Reader to the untested and flagging Google+. I feel another Wave coming on — a wave of nausea…
Related articles
- Google Reader Gets a Redesign, Adds Google+ Integration (mashable.com)
- Google Reader Backlash: 10,000 Users Sign Petition to Save Old Version (mashable.com)
- New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing (Alan Green/Official Google Reader Blog) (techmeme.com)
- The World Is Surprisingly Angry About the End of Google Reader (Adam Clark Estes/The Atlantic Wire) (techmeme.com)
- New Google Reader Wastes ~25% Screen Real Estate (wpmu.org)
- Serious Problem with the New Google Reader (ask.metafilter.com)
- Google Reader social sharing features moved to Google+ (slashgear.com)
I was dazzled at first by the design upgrade….but this is a sad way for google to force G+ down its users throats.
Truly a move that says “but wait, there’s less!” :-/
Can’t you just use a tool to scrape your g+ account for your content you want to share?
The future is unclear right now, but removing the creation of rss feeds, blogrolls and clips was a pretty stupid move. In time, they may all be replaced, but it’s a pain in the a$$ for now. As Jason Falls said ” Lots of people had some automated functionality tied to that. Now it’s just gone. Grrr.”
btw, do you know of such a tool? As far as I know, Google+ doesn’t produce an rss feed…
Todd ~ def keep me posted. I am pretty mad about it too though I didn’t realize the feature that i use the most — that you taught me about — was gone until last night since I hadn’t needed a new tag until now.
If I happen across anything I’ll let you know too. Stupid Google.