What a bunch of moochers!
The big deal this past week, was the decision by Google to sunset Google Reader, the company’s proprietary product designed to replace RSS.
From the amount of noise pollution in the blogosphere, you’d think Google had killed their babies.
Again, what a bunch of moochers!
Prolog: Google & abuse of power
Google entered this market with the same formula: muscle into a space with a solution tied into its eponymous and market-leading search engine. kill the incumbents – or worse, relegate them to irrelevancy, then stretch the bounds of antitrust laws by attempting to tie that product to Google search for monetization. Failing that, the product is dropped like the proverbial hot potato.
Unfortunately, Google’s entry into these markets also scares away further investment in the products occupying that space, and stifles competition due to Google’s deep pockets.
The landscape is littered with Google’s victims. Below, is a representative list of Google’s forays.
When Google exits, everyone suffers.
Act I: Back to the Freeloaders
All over the internet, hipsters and self-styled influentials are all agog over this development.
And I wonder why.
RSS, the standard Google sought to supplant, was created back in 1997, and it still works.
People flocked from RSS to Google Reader because they were lazy.
Too lazy to discover their news themselves, and too lazy to use one of the several RSS feed readers available.
Now, Google Reader has gone away, and the intense hatred for Google generated by that is amazing for one thing: Google Reader was a free product/service.
Seriously, it was free!
Act II: Show Google the money!
So far, there is an online petition hoping to get Google to rescind the death order for Google Reader. That petition has garnered over 100,000 cattle signed on.
Funny enough, the 100,000 moochers haven’t answered this question I posed on Twitter.
Only my friend Cody Bunch replied that he would.
Now, I am begging the moochers to stop the bloggorhea, and either pay up, or shut up.
To help them in their decision-making process, I give them their choice of any version of the old-time Reggae hit, Hypocrites & Parasites.
This is actually a good development for RSS feed readers, for the people have been burned by what they thought was the panacea for their news reading but it wasn’t so. The renewed focus on pure RSS apps will spur innovation in available readers.
So, as you see, Chicken Little, the sky isn’t falling.
Just whip out some danarii, and pay the piper Google any RSS feed reader ISV!
Epilog: The Aftermath
By the way, the best Windows (desktop) RSS Feed Reader out there is RSS Bandit.
What I’m hoping right now is that the developers of the product would have some free time to develop the product further and maybe get it to sync with SkyDrive. Better yet, maybe link up with a good UI designer and bring a Windows 8 Metro version to market.
That, folks, would be the shizzle!
Related
ZDNet’s Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols: RSS inventor doesn't see what all the fuss is about closing Google Reader
In Memoriam
The Google Apps Who Would Be Internet Kings or Queens
© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited
