Wow. It looks like people really don’t want to let go of Google Reader. A petition to keep the RSS feed reader running has gone past 48 000 signatures just hours after Google announced that it would be closing the service.
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The author of the petition, Dan Lewis, notes that Reader is still a part of many people’s online experiences. He suggests that it was Google’s decision to kill extra features in Reader that allowed people to share and comment on each other’s interests that saw the service go into decline.
Interestingly, Lewis suggests that killing Reader will cause people to lose trust in Google’s other products:
Our confidence in Google’s other products — Gmail, YouTube, and yes, even Plus — requires that we trust you in respecting how and why we use your other products. This isn’t just about our data in Reader. 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.
Oh.
So, please don’t destroy that trust. You’re a huge corporation, with a market cap which rivals the GDP of nations. You’re able to dedicate 20% of your time to products which may never seen the light of day. You experiment in self-driving cars and really cool eyewear which we trust (trust!) you’ll use in a manner respectful to our needs, interests, etc.
Show us you care.
Don’t kill Google Reader.
He’s got a point too. If you’ve been doing all your shopping at a store that has your favourite brand of milk and they stop stocking that particular brand of milk, chances are you’re going to stop going to that store. Fair enough, it’s much more difficult to avoid Google than a single store, but every time you open Chrome and see the RSS reader you’ve had to install to replace Reader, you’ll feel a little twinge of sadness (mixed with resentment towards the internet giant).
We hope this petition works — a good few of us here at Burn Media are fans of Reader. If however the petition doesn’t pan out (the more likely scenario), you can always try these five alternatives.
Lewis’ isn’t the only online petition out there either. According Mashable, the White House deleted a similar petition asking the President Obama to intervene in the closure of the feature.
