Google Reader, which has been serving bloggers and other online readers for eight years, shut down over the course of last night for the final time.
HumanIPO reported in March Google was to retire Reader as part of the company’s “spring cleaning” push, with the company conceding usage has been declining significantly over recent years, though it retained a “loyal following”.
In a blog post, the company said: “Today, wepowered down Google Reader. We understand you may not agree with this decision, but we hope you’ll come to love these alternatives as much as you loved Reader.”
Since its creation in 2005, the RSS reader organised timely news from multiple sources in a single, easy-to-navigate webpage.
But with the rise of Twitter, started in 2006, and the creation of Facebook’s News Feed the same year, Reader saw its user numbers decline.
The search engine giant said: “All Google Reader subscription data (eg. lists of people that you follow, items you have starred, notes you have created, etc.) will be systematically deleted from Google servers. Users can download a copy of their Google Reader data via Google Takeout until 12PM PST July 15, 2013.”
Google added that in future no data will be recoverable. “All subscription data will be permanently and irrevocably deleted. Google will not be able to recover any Google Reader subscription data for any user after July 15, 2013,” the company said.
