Yes it is right. Google is killing off Google Reader. According to a recent “Spring Cleaning Exercise” blog post by Urs Hölzle, SVP Technical Infrastructure and Google Fellow,
“We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader.”
Google Reader is a content application and platform that is an aggregator of content served by web feeds.
Google cited two main reasons for taking down Google Reader, viz,
- usage of Google Reader had declined, and
- as a company they were pouring all of our energy into fewer products.
Google recommended that “Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.”
Some of the alternatives to Google Reader are Feedly, NewsBlur and The Old Reader.
