Few days ago, Google Reader announced its retirement with short notice of only three-month. My mind went blank when I saw the popup saying it’d be gone on July 1. I had never thought that one day Google Reader would come to the end.

I now have really learned my lesson and this incident made me thought more.

1   Google Reader retirement

After the first shock, I was pretty clam and refraining myself from posting anything about it. I knew there would be a lot of voices and petitions and efforts trying to get Google reconsidering their decision. But to be honest, I have never heard of any products that Google put it to sleep had ever come back, I don’t think Google Reader would be brought back.

I have accepted the fate of Google Reader but not yet seeking for an alternative. I would probably wait until June to get started the migration process. It would have to be one similar to Google Reader, because I have 194 subscriptions, no way on Earth that I could use a desktop program to replace.

But I must say now, Google, how do you expect me to get updates of your stuff? I have around 20+ feeds of yours. Add Google+ circles? I want to read as in reading, not to do that kind of stuff.

2   Posting to Twitter, Google+, and Facebook

You may wonder why the retirement of Google Reader brings up the posting to social networks?

After the retirement announcements, I read a few reactions towards it and I learned there is actually a group of people uses social networks to get blog updates. I would guess some very light Google Reader users may consider to rely on social networks. So, with that in mind, I considered to provide alternative method of subscriptions or notification may be more proper to describe.

I currently uses HootSuite‘s feed feature to post to Twitter and Google+ Page, and Twitter posts to Facebook Page. You can read About page for those.

I chose HootSuite because I don’t have to do anything, I just use my b.py to blog as usual. It grabs the blog feed hourly and posts the new entries. I use the free account, it supports two feeds. Originally, I thought a feed can post to multiple accounts, no, only one. That’s the reason why I linked Facebook with Twitter, so notification can be posted onto Twitter, Google+, and Facebook.

3   Final thoughts

It’s sad that Google Reader is going to die. I really don’t get people why don’t use feeds if they actually read stuff. Tweets, Facebook, or Google+, those are not for reading in my opinion. It may be in yours, but in my definition of reading, they are far behind something I would even consider reading. That being said, I wouldn’t use them to be the alternative to Google Reader.

Google is just a company, now in my eyes, in my realization. Years ago, I felt Google had personality, but over the years, it seemed to lose it bit by bit and become what it supposed to be: a company. Regardless of what it says about public, freedom, openness, or transparency on its blogs. In the end, they are just sayings.

Google has its reasonings and it definitely can do whatever it wants to its products. But lack of users or losing users, that is kind of weak as a reason and I really don’t quite believe when you read how many users other alternatives have gained in just the couple of days.

Anyways, as the Google I thought it was, it would have taught people how efficient can be by using feeds. I wonder why it didn’t but sacked Google Reader, instead. Instead, Google is making every product Google-like or Google+, a unified, single-minded, that I would describe.

Some people may guess Google Reader has never been a product for profit for Google. We didn’t see adverts except the AdSense for Feeds, but it’s discontinued months ago. I am not totally saying it’s all about money, but it might be a precursor of why now Google Reader due retired partly.