What Should Have Been Culled Instead Of Google Reader? [You Told Us]

The company which has its many and varied tentacles wrapped tightly around all four corners of the Web recently announced the culling of Google Reader. This decision annoyed many people, some of whom immediately began looking around for alternative RSS readers. The chances of Google culling other services in the future are high, as the company has these spring cleans regularly.

Kannon tried to prepare us for this possibility by highlighting alternatives to existing Google services, which is a must-read for those eager to prepare for a possible forthcoming technology apocalypse. But wait. Aren’t there some things you’d actually like to get culled? That was the slightly offbeat discussion that formed the basis for last week’s We Ask You column.

The Results

We asked you, What Should Have Been Culled Instead Of Google Reader? We didn’t limit you just to Google products, though some people seemed to assume this was the case. There’s a lesson to be learned here… before you comment on a MakeUseOf article read more than just the title.

The response was fair, with dozens of you deigning to tell us what product, service, company, app, or operating system you’d like to see placed in a coffin and lowered into the ground. What I foresaw as being an offbeat, fun discussion actually prompted some really heartfelt (and often angry) comments.

Many Google products and services were named during the discussion, including Google Finance, Google Video, Google Keep, Google+, Blogger, Orkut, and Android. To top it off someone wanted to see the company as a whole disappear, mainly owing to privacy concerns.

Other notable mentions include Twitter, Klout (which ranks people online according to their reach), social media in general, the practice of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and misinformation/ignorance over open source alternatives to expensive products, with Microsoft Office being the example cited by the OP.

Comment Of The Week

We had great input from the likes of (our own) Chris Hoffman, Garey B, and gmvolk, to name just a few. Comment Of The Week goes to Suzannah, who, as well as the respect of myself and hopefully everybody reading this, receives 150 points to use for MakeUseOf Rewards.

Google Keep. Axe it.

Note to Google:

The date you launch a product to be used on a daily basis and designed to house carefully collected information crucial to your workflow …

….should probably not be the SAME DATE you axe a product used by so many on a daily basis and designed to house carefully collected information crucial to their workflow.

You miiiiiiiggght just run into a little bit of trust issues on your new product. Axing Google Reader while launching Google Keep just advertised “Hey, folks, stay with Evernote, because when it comes to daily workflow, we just can’t be trusted.”

Just sayin’.

We like this comment because it really got to the heart of why people are mad at Google for dumping Reader. The company launched Google Keep soon after ditching Reader, but it should realize how difficult it’s going to be persuading people to move from Evernote and the like when there is no guarantee Keep will itself be kept.

We will be asking a new question tomorrow, so please join us then. We Ask You is a weekly column dedicated to finding out the opinions of MakeUseOf readers. We ask you a question and you tell us what you think. The question is open-ended and is usually open to debate. Some questions will be purely opinion-based, while others will see you sharing tips and advice, or advocating tools and apps for your fellow MakeUseOf readers. This column is nothing without your input, all of which is valued.

Image Credit: Davidd

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