Visit The Google Graveyard

I’m mourning the end of Google Reader. Are you?

Hearing that Google’s decided to sunset Reader due to lack of users and interest is strange to me because I use it every day. Sometimes it’s a quick sweep of selected industry blogs, to stay up on trends and check for breaking news. As a returned expat, I keep up with a lot of distant friends through blogs. Hearing that there’s just no interest in Reader makes me feel like I’m doing the internet wrong. How could something I use every day be canceled for lack of interest?

In retrospect, the signs were all there, of course. Google Reader hasn’t offered any new features or added support for troublesome ones in quite a while. I’ve struggled to find a smooth “click to subscribe” button as plugin for Firefox as a reader, or as a plugin for WordPress as a writer.

Geek Insider’s James Olinda recently wrote on the end of Google Reader, and discussed some possible reasons for Google’s shutdown. (Spoiler alert: No matter how you look at it, “spring cleaning” is a bit of euphemism for cutting a service so many of us use.) Also, Dilawer Soomro has checked out some possible alternative to Google Reader, with suggestions on the best replacement services.

The folks at Slate put together a Google Graveyard for those of us mourning the end of Google Reader. The virtual cemetery also includes headstones for Google Wave (Remember that?) and other canceled G-products. Visitors can view the Google graves, and click to lay a virtual flower on Google Reader’s headstone. A little online therapy before we start importing our treasured blogs into a new feedreader.

What do you think? Are you mourning Google Reader, or are you already happily browsing your favorite blogs on Feedly or Pulse?