Say goodbye to Google Reader, its online RSS reader. As part of its spring cleaning efforts, Google has announced that it will kill off Reader; as well as other products like Google Voice App for BlackBerry and Google Cloud Connect.
In a blog post, Software Engineer for Google Reader Alan Green wrote, “There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience.”
“We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We’re sad too,” he also added.
The company will offer users a three-month sunset period in order to find alternative feed-reading solutions, and you can use Google Takeout to retain all your data, including subscriptions.
On other shutdowns – Google Cloud Connect, which automatically saved Office files to Google Drive, will no longer work as of April 30 due to Google Drive on your desktop does pretty much the same thing. Google Voice for BlackBerry will have no support beginning next week, and users are recommended to use the HTML5 app – which is compatible with BlackBerry 6 and newer.
You can read the full list of products closing on Google’s blog post.