Thanks Google Reader, We Can Take It From Here

A lot of people are upset about Google Reader shutting down at the end of July. This is kind of ironic given that AFAICT nobody actually liked Reader - it was just the only game in town.

At one time there was a fairly vibrant ecosystem for feeds and feedreaders. Google Reader’s entry into the market killed most of that. Then Google lost interest and the product strategy got muddy and most people I know ended up using 3rd party apps to connect to Google Reader, relegating it to a back-end feed management and syncing service.

I’m happy they’re shutting down and I fully expect we’ll see two things:

  1. App developers will go old-school and let you subscribe to feeds within the app.
  2. Someone will come up with an alternate service that replicates Google Reader’s management and syncing features.

We may also see some actual innovation.

So I’m not worried at all.

No Means No

This tweet by the inimitable Mitch Joel got me thinking (as often happens):

I’m not picking on Mitch here as I’ve hear this argument many times, so assume I’m riffing on the thought rather than the speaker.

Substitute sex for privacy.

“It’s hard to demand not to be harassed or assaulted when you spend your days walking around in sexy outfits and having multiple partners in bars.

No means no. The fact that I chose to share many things doesn’t give anyone else the right to share personal information I have not chosen to share.

Footnote: In no way am I trying to diminish the horror of sexual assault by using it in this analogy.