Of all the things Google has killed, I used Reader most of all.
I'm sad to see it go, but, unlike the end of Reader Social, I'm not angry. I'm just surprised Reader lasted as long as it did.
Reader feels now like something from a mythical Golden Age. Free, but with minimal and non-intrusive advertising -- particularly when used with Reeder.app and Readability. Standards based (OPML, RSS/Atom), and so open in a way that few things are in our locked-in locked-down era.
So Reader's end was expected -- and this time Google did things well. Unlike when they killed the 'sharebro' community, Google telegraphed this one. Even now we've got three months to switch -- much longer than I expected.
It will be interesting to see what our options will be; the end of Reader will open up a new ecosystem. An ecosystem that will, I hope, include services we buy. There is at least one upside -- I'm losing one of my big Google dependencies. It's getting easier for me to swich away from Google.
Incidentally, I bet Blogger will die in 2014.
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