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Chronicles

The story behind the story

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A second spring of cleaning

We're living in a new kind of computing environment.  Everyone has a device, sometimes multiple devices.  It's been a long time since we have had this rate of change—it probably hasn't happened since the birth of personal computing 40 years ago.

The Official Google Blog Urs Holzle

Context & Ripple Effects

Google had already made product pruning a recurring part of its portfolio management, including the earlier fall service cleanup. The March 2013 announcement applies that discipline to Reader as Google frames computing around people using multiple devices.

The closure drew unusually broad contemporaneous coverage, with attention focused both on Reader’s July 1 end date and on the dependence of RSS tools built around it.

First-order effects

  • Google Reader users must move their RSS routines to another service before the July 1 shutdown.
  • FeedDemon, whose creator announced its end alongside the Reader decision, loses the service foundation it depended on.

Second-order effects

  • Feedly, Flipboard and other RSS alternatives gain an immediate opening to win displaced Reader users.
  • Google’s cleanup strategy makes third-party products tied to a single Google service more exposed to abrupt platform decisions.

Third-order effects

  • If portfolio cleanup remains a recurring practice, consumer software will place greater value on portable data and services that are not dependent on one provider’s product roadmap.

The trend: Large platform companies are narrowing product portfolios around services that fit their evolving multi-device computing strategy.

Related: Platform dependency · A fall spring-clean · Google Goes To the Cloud For New Idea In PC System

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