A decision by Google to close its popular Reader, which
allowed users to easily follow updates from around the web, has sparked
a storm of criticism by devoted fans of the service.
Google
announced the move late on Wednesday as part of a “spring-cleaning”
strategy pushed by founder and chief executive Larry Page to cull
non-essential projects at the web software giant.
The
company announced a shake up of its top ranks on Wednesday with Android
chief Andy Rubin stepping aside in favour of Sundar Pichai, boss of the
company’s Chrome browser and operating system. Google broke up its
mapping and commerce unit, with executive Jeff Huber moving to research
division Google X, which is working on projects like Google Glass and
the company’s self-driving cars.
Urs Holze, senior
vice-president of technical infrastructure, said the decision was made
to close down Google Reader because it had been steadily losing users
over the years as people switched to Facebook and Twitter to keep track
of web updates.
“It’s been a long time since we have
had this rate of change - it probably hasn’t happened since the birth of
personal computing 40 years ago,” he wrote. “To make the most of these
opportunities, we need to focus - otherwise we spread ourselves too thin
and lack impact.” Within hours of the announcement, online petitions
calling on Google to reverse the decision had attracted thousands of
signatures, including one on online petition site that had been signed
by more than 63,000 people by midday Thursday.
“Our
confidence in Google’s other products - Gmail, YouTube, and yes, even
Plus - requires that we trust you,” wrote petition organizer Dan Lewis.
“This is about us using your product because we love it, because it
makes our lives better, and because we trust you not to nuke it.” Users
took to Twitter to vent their frustration.
“Google’s
shutdown of #Reader is a painful but important reminder of how much time
we invest into platforms we neither own nor control,” said one user.