Shauna Fisher

I had no idea what Google Reader was. In all honesty I am not a fan of the company of Google and it's practices but I do use it products because they are the best. Google, to me, has the best search engine and I really like using Google docs. I have a Google+ account because of my classes mainly but I don't really use all the features because I am not a social networking type person. I have a Facebook but I rarely use it other than to see how my friends in GA are doing and to see pics of my friend's kids (and to occasionally share pics of my dogs, as I have no kids). In honesty, I am not interested in what people are doing every second of every day. This is why I have avoided Twitter. I don't think I need to be that plugged into every one else's business and people don't need to know that much about me.

This is all for social purposes. Do I see the advantages for educational and school purposes- yes. My classes have taught me a bit about how I can use these things I have dismissed previously and use them to my advantage. Although I am still slightly upset I have to have an active Twitter account. It is not my favorite program. I'm just being honest here.

Back to my original topic: Google Reader. As I had no idea what it was I Google searched it and, ironically, looked at the Wikipedia page to garner an idea on what it was. As I have added all my classmates blogs to the Feedly thing I had to download for this class, I get the general idea of what it is and the Wikipedia page just confirmed it. Basically if I think something is important I can link it up or "subscribe" to it via Feedly and then just check that page to see if any of my pages have updates. I can sort things with tags and if I was one of those people that spent tons of time searching around on the Internet, I could see how it would be very useful. I can definitely see the merits of it for this class and for school purposes.

Will I use it in my daily life? Probably not. Can I see how it will be useful to others? Of course. It's just not something I see myself using.

Now Google Reader is going bu-bye. Why do I think that is? Well from what I know from the briefest of research that involved mostly Wikipedia (it has it's uses) my guess is that people stopped using it because they kept trying to update it to the point that users didn't recognize it any more. They do this with Facebook and emails. The interface is fine, there are no issues, but suddenly there's an update and my buttons aren't there anymore, I can't figure out how to upload a picture to where I want, and  my user settings are all jumbled- and I can't find WHERE to fix them! I think the companies believe they are making things "easier" when really, we are creatures of habit and we just want things to stay the way they are. I think Google updated itself out of a program.

Have we all learned to deal with Facebook's interface updates? Yes. Could we all adapt to Google's shiny, new interfaces? Yes. But when you have other programs that do the same thing, sometimes the competition kills you. Feedly looks like it's almost the exact same thing and I figured out how to use it in less than 90 seconds. I don't know how easy or hard Google Reader is/was but maybe Feedly just won this race? Or maybe Google just has 10,000 other things to worry about and a Reader is low priority, which is kind of what Google's explanation is. I don't know if we'll ever get a straight answer to that. It's all going to be speculation in the end.

Does it make sense to use an RSS reader? I suppose if you follow a lot of blogs it does. I will say I have gone this long without ever even knowing what was one or using one and I consider myself pretty computer savvy. But then, I'm not a social media junkie so I think I am outside the norm. I think they have their place, RSS apps, I just don't think it's something everyone needs. Or wants.

I wonder if Google has a stake Feedly?