A short time after the shutdown of WaSP, it was announced today that Google Reader will be closed on July 1st. While there are replacements available for the RSS reader itself, I can’t help but thinking of the larger picture. Is RSS dead?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a lightweight multipurpose XML-based format for distributing and aggregating web content. In plain English, it is used to grab news from several web sources and present them in a feed reader.

RSS readers are a great tool to keep up with blogs and news at a glance, without having to visit the sites individually. Since this could have a negative impact on ad revenue and pageviews, many authors tries to bring visitors to their sites by only posting excerpts in their RSS feeds.

Prague cemetery Life and death at New Jewish Cemetery in Prague.

Even though RSS was quite popular for a while, I guess it was a bit too technical for many, and proprietary social networks such as Facebook provided an easier alternative, while also being more entertaining with bells and whistles.

I started using RSS readers about a decade ago. At first I used Bloglines, which was later incorporated into Google Reader. Today very few people use RSS feeds and aggregators. The follow-up question is to ask whether blogs are dying, but that is probably some years away in the future.

In conclusion, it’s always sad to see old acquaintances pass away, but it is the way of life. For new things to emerge, one must clear away the old rubble. We don’t necessarily have to like it, but we still have to accept it.

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Posted in category Web industry.

3 comments

  • avatar
    Theresa
    15 Mar, 2013
    "Argh! Murgh" was my instinctive reaction. I hope RSS won't die, and I certainly don't want to move my RSS reading over to twitter-following, as one article suggested was the easiest way to go, as a replacement. So, what is your suggestion? What will you use iso Reader?
  • avatar
    Tess
    15 Mar, 2013
    Same reaction. Aaaargh! And I have only used google reader for about a year. Is there something we can do? Collect signatures, demonstrate, start a revolution? ;-) do you know any good replacements?
  • avatar
    Reine
    15 Mar, 2013
    The most popular alternatives right now seems to be Feedly and The Old Reader, but I haven't tried them out yet. Even old Bloglines seems to have risen from the dead. But I want a free web-based reader which works on both desktop and mobile without any fuzz, with a clean interface, and Google Reader was spot-on. Aaargh! There are several petitions to participate in, e.g. http://keepgooglereader.com/ and https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-running/. But unfortunately I don't think Google would blurp out a thing like this without serious contemplation first. Let's hope it's just an early April Fools' joke...

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