policy on digital rights.
Majored in internet anthropology 
So piggybacking on this serendipitous discussion, RSS reader of choice in 2018?
.@Google killed its Reader in 2013 because RSS as a format gives readers agency, doesn't track browsing to sell ads, and lets the user chose what they want to read. As opposed to algorithmic personalisation which siloes us into increasingly homogenous demographics for advertisershttps://twitter.com/mikesusz/status/1013501238527320066 …
-
-
-
-
I use the
#selfhosted@FreshRSS and after a few months I feel very satisfied. It's free, I use more my#hosting plan and I don't give my#data to none..
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
@Lambo If Google had been acting to track user actions, they would have kept Reader because they would be able to track all of your interactions within that site. People going to Feedly, etc. loses that. -
Google moved to promote another mode of interaction (they were big on pushing google+ to compete with Facebook at the time), which dovetailed better with their ad targeting model. Nudging news consumption habits across the web by killing reader was part of that.
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Google and others would love to see all the standard open and license-free protocols that enable and empower people to suffer a similar fate. Thankfully SMTP, RSS, DNS, x509 PKI endure
-
I remember when Gchat supported XMPP; Google announced they were shutting that protocol down the month before they shut down Google Reader. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Talk …
-
When did Facebook kill XMPP? I remember that Google and Facebook basically collaborated to kill off chat aggregators.
-
OOF, that Pidgin supported protocols list stings more than I thought it would.pic.twitter.com/V2JW2umWGL
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Now hang on just a moment. They could track browsing in Reader far more easily than web; readers were already in an app! They could have introduced an algorithm to stack the articles, and introduced unwanted/un-subscribed/paid content any time.
-
(Not trying to defend Google, the Reader shutdown was a debacle, but I disagree with your assessment of their motivations. IMO it was fear, and not appreciating the position of power they were already in. which PS we should never have given them in the first place)
-
Fear of?
-
Facebook. They shut down Google Reader in the wake of launching their Facebook clone Google +. They thought they could simply shove Google Reader RSS users over to Google + and make it an instant hit.
- 1 more reply
New conversation -
-
-
@everydayfoxlife As a former member of the Social Focus Area in Google who worked with the PMs & SWEs that made it, I can tell you the real reason was more boring (& sad): it didn't fit in VicG's "everything @ GOOG must be Google+ed to compete with FB" strategy at the time. -
And remember, Google+ didn't do ads etc at that time (for two reasons: no critical mass to make it worth it and because having no ads differentiated it from FB, giving people a reason to "switch")
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
This is exactly what I don't understand about why they shuttered it-did it just not catch on enough? Google hosted that client, it was web-based, that was the best thing about it, it wasn't tied to a single PC. They could've tracked whatever they wanted
-
Shoutout to all the websites that just put the whole article text in the RSS posts along with ads to support it, and no shoutout to the major sites who decided it was better to put the first 10 words to try to force users to give them ad revenue
-
Every time I encountered one of those I unsubscribed, then deliberately didn't visit that actual site again for a long time, so that kind of worked the other way for them in my case, anyway
- 1 more reply
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.