Top Services Google Killed Off

I used iGoogle until they announced they were killing it off in a few months, so I switched to Reader... which they killed off even sooner.

start.me is the best replacment for igoogle. Much better than most of the more old school replacements. It’s much faster and easier to use.

Of all of them, I miss iGoogle the most. I loved my one stop shop for all my morning news and feeds. :(.

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Agreeing with all the Inoreader fans in here, especially if you want Reader’s social features.

My husband is still bitter over the loss of Google Reader. I suggested he try out Feedly, and he looked at me like I suggested he replace a beloved pet who had died with a Tamagochi.

Honestly I really wish Google+ would hit the numbers and participation it needs to have critical mass to stay afloat, but it seems there’s no magic sauce to what social media platform can do that. I would have switched over to Google+ years ago, but the only reason I even started on FB was that so many people were already on it. The friends I keep up with on there often are people who use no other social media whatsoever. But FB itself has so many problems (primary among those being that there’s no way for it’s users to have finite control or any control over their news feed. Stop telling me I don’t want to see everything my friend’s post and let me create lists or groups or filters of my own, you can’t decide for me and you know it). Google+ reminds me of Livejournal vs. Tumblr. Functionally, LJ is the better platform for most things (there’s the Russia connection, but that’s another problem). It has more security settings and more user based control over who sees what. Add reblogging to LJ and it would be 100% the better option. But it’s mostly a ghost town and everybody is on Tumblr, which is a terrible website that hates it’s users and doesn’t think they’re using it right. I’d rather be using LJ but I have to go to Tumblr to see my friends. I guess it’s kind of like if all your friends love this really terrible bar and you know there’s a better one with cheaper prices two blocks over but nobody will go there with you. You’re stuck with going to the terrible bar or being the person getting drunk alone.

Google+ barely hanging on? Where’s the evidence in that? There is still quite a number of very active users on there. And honestly, it’s easier to get out of your ‘social bubble’ on Google+ then it is on Facebook.

“Only 6.6 million users have made 50 or more posts according to Eric Enge, who has spoken out on the challenges that Google+ is facing. Enge also noted that 90.1 percent of profiles (as of April, 2015) have never posted anything at all.”

Yes, there are at least 4 layout options now plus tuning options, including one that is pretty indistinguishable from Google Reader’s compact list view (this is what I use). I think that was one of the first things they ended up adding, since power users were pretty clear we didn’t want a magazine view.

I hated Feedly back in the day when I was trying to find a replacement before GReader was taken from us. I settled because it was the “least bad”. But you’re 100% correct at how much better it’s gotten.

To this day, I am still bitter about Google Reader. Don’t get me wrong, Feedly has come a long way and I pay for it because I like it but Google Reader was just so easy and I could recommend things to friends so much easier. Nowadays, I have to decide if it is worth sending via email. However Feedly has grown since its early days and they take suggestions. Their mobile solution is much better than what I had to work with on Google Reader but that could be just because everything is better now on mobile. I still think: RIP Google Reader.

Kill Allo & Duo because what is the point. Intergrate Assistant and RCS in to Hangouts. Deprecate Messages or whatever they are calling it and be happy.

If you don’t want the social features, Feedly is a much better Google Reader than Google Reader ever was. Yes, if you tried it after Reader shut down it was a bit of a mess, slow and sorta ugly, couldn’t handle many feeds, and the search took days, but they’ve spent 4 years improving it. I’ve got 250 feeds in it right now, and it works great, very responsive, looks clean (using the customization options), syncs well across all my devices. Hell, it might even have social features now, I just don’t care. So in a way it’s kind of a blessing. You knew Google was never going to substantially improve Reader, because that’s how they roll, so might as well just cut it loose and let more dedicated companies who employ humans improve it.

I really hated Feedly. I do think it’s a good replacement for the functionality of Google Reader. But the layout, especially the mobile layout, was a cluttered pill I couldn’t swallow. Some people have said that aspect has improved so it’s worth another try.

It wasn’t that hard!!! You just had to look through all the tutorial videos and get three people to join and then have three people they knew join and then and and and ... ;(

I loved Wave. I used it as a collaborative project management too for my company back in the day. It was awesome.

It didn’t have a lot of social uses, and it was too complicated for many corporate users. I mean, the people I work with can barely use Outlook. We’re trying to get them to use DocuSign, and they can’t figure it out, even though I’ve made it as easy as possible for the end users. And IME, it’s not even an age thing. The younger employees are just as bad as the older ones. It’s like there’s this sweet spot of people who grew up with PCs in the home, but before smartphones broke the youth. (jk)

Yeah, I clicked on this article specifically because I wanted to see what it had to say about Google Reader. I’ve actually vastly scaled back my RSS reading specifically because of it’s loss because nothing else made the experience quite the same. I use Feedly at the moment, though I tried Inoreader and I can’t remember why I didn’t stick with it. I think it was just I thought about trying to get used to something new again and it felt too tiring. But if Inoreader has a good Android app I might give it a go again. Feedly’s app has gotten better, but back in the original days it was really glitchy but I admit I haven’t had a problem in a long time, so they must have fixed it.

I never really recovered from Reader getting shutdown. I had like a hundred feeds carefully organised and the thought of trying to get that setup again with another service was so overwhelming I basically just stopped reading a ton of blogs that I was int

Yeah, it’s hard to understand Google these days... they repeatedly kill off services that are unique inside the Google ecosystem while keeping up stuff that has tons of counterparts like digital payment systems, chat apps, and others. They keep coming up with new apps only to abandon them afterwards. Not enough time to even let people find out about them. It’s past time Google started consolidating some functionalities into single apps and focusing on those instead of trying to come up splashy stuff all the time. This is more Android than Google itself, but like wtf... they just released Allo and Duo, and now are already talking about RCS replacing SMS? Dude, try spending at least a couple of years focused on a single chat app ffs.

Came here to give Google Notebook my respects and not disappointed.

I miss Google Sets. Such a weird little feature. You could input “Donatello, Raphael, Michaelangelo” and it would tell you the missing elements: “Leonardo, Splinter, Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang...”

Don’t forget Google News Archive. Google scanned millions of pages of newspapers, including nearly 130 years worth in my town (Spokane, WA). It was a fantastic source for local history especially because it was searchable. Then the search function began to degrade, and last fall it stopped working entirely. They digitized papers are still there but unless you know the date that something happened, they are difficult to use.

I adored Google Reader. I use Digg Reader now, but I wish I could search posts. Years ago, the said they were working on that feature but it never appeared.

I was never able to find anything that I liked to replace it. Now, I just don’t read near as many blogs as I used to. 3

Check out ttrss. It’s an open source project, that’s pretty close to Reader. The server is free, and you can compile the android app yourself or buy it through the app stores to support the project. The main drawback is that there isn’t much community support. The lead dev is, well, a bit of an ass, and is dismissive if he thinks your question has been answered somewhere else.

The magic sauce is the users. I liked Google +, but if none of my friends use it, I won’t, so then none of their friends use it, and that’s the fatal flaw. I’ve kind of started to hate facebook, but it’s where my friends are, so I’m stuck.

Tasks was clunky from the beginning and only available on a desktop, so I’m really happy with reminders replacing it (even if not officially), but agree it needs a standalone app in addition to being integrated with calendar, inbox, and keep.

Aww, no NewsBlur love? In Google Reader’s aftermath, it was the one that I felt came the closest to what I loved about Google Reader. Even though it’s exclusively a paid service, it’s totally worth it.