Google
Reader Should Learn from Coke Classic
Sam Ghandchi
Google has just announced it will discontinue Google
Reader product from July 2013. Already more than 100,000 people have filed a
petition asking Google to cancel the closing of Google Reader.
I am a user of Google Reader and love it. But I understand
why Google thinks of this product as not a priority anymore. Basically there was
a time that every Internet user wished to have their own web site. That
was when Geocities created a service that enabled users to make free web sites.
Later Yahoo bought Geocities. A few years ago with the success of blogs,
the interest in creating web sites subsided and finally the biggest such
service, i.e. Yahoo Geocities was shut down. Also services which helped people
read multiple web sites vanished. A similar event is happening today. Users are
moving away from the blogs to Facebook and other social networks like Google+.
Products such as Google Reader were created to help the bloggers to aggregate
RSS feeds from other blogs to keep abreast of so many blogs. But now people
need aggregators to read many Facebook accounts of their friends rather than
reading blogs. So perhaps Google has started making such products.
But Google needs to consider two factors in this assessment:
1. Many people including myself did not mainly use Google
Reader to read blogs. Actually RSS feeds are available for so many different
products including web sites and social networks. And just like radio, RSS is
going to remain on the Internet although it is used by more sophisticated users.
2. Although aggregators for Facebook and Google+ are needed
but users of the social networks mostly do not like to use public settings
for their posts which is a different habit from the way blog makers act.
Thus the issue of aggregating for such services may not be as forthcoming as we
may think and RSS may still be the way to go for those who like to broadcast
their stories on social networks by making them public and unfortunately
Facebook's support of RSS feeds has been dwindling not serving those customers.
Maybe Google+ can provide that kind of service as a competitive edge and
incidentally that strategy can fit into Google Reader perfectly.
Google Reader can support web sites and blogs as well as the
Google+ accounts and YouTube and any other social media that supports RSS which
may force Facebook to support RSS feeds better. Not stopping Google Reader is
not just to the benefit of someone like me-- the user -- but it will be a good
source of income for Google in the future.
I hope Google listens to its users the same way Coca Cola did
when it invented Coke Classic. Coca Cola benefited from listening to its
customers.
Sam Ghandchi,
Editor/Publisher
IRANSCOPE
March 16,
2013
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