This is the final installment in my series [rant?] about the death of Google Reader…
Teaching social media in my classes at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College and coaching my clients, I frequently quote the words of the great philosophers .38 Special who said:
Google Reader is gone. No farewell message. No thank you for the support. In fact, I can see my feeds in Google Reader, I just can’t interact with them.
A pretty clear indication that Google really doesn’t give a Tinker’s Damn for customers – only their data and the dollars they can glean from it. This whole experience has had a profound impact on me from the first moment months ago when I first learned that Google was killing Google Reader for no good reason [and believe me, I’ve read them all over the past few months].
This stupid move, along with other ones like Windows 8 by Microsoft leave me wondering where I can place my trust. Oddly enough, I find myself rethinking open source products like Ubuntu, Firefox and Thunderbird. Who knows where that will lead?!
In the meantime, thank you Google Reader. Thanks to you, I consumed over a half a million articles in the past 6.5 years of use and I am what I am today because of what I learned from you. And, thank you feedly for stepping into the breach! I have loved you for over 4 years and used you alongside Google Reader. I’m glad you won the reader race!
Todd Lohenry 