We know it was coming, one of the best RSS feed reader on web ‘Google Reader‘ gets shutdown by Google sighting usage decline over the last few years. Google during it’s second spring cleaning will retire Google Reader on July 1, 2013 along with several other services including Snapseed Desktop, Google Cloud Connect, Google Voice App for Blackberry, GUI Builder, CalDAV API, Google Building Maker and Search API for Shopping.
With more services getting axed, bringing the total to 70 features or services closed since Google spring cleaning which began in 2011. With spring cleaning Google shut down services or certain features, they felt were not used a lot by users anymore. This has been done to make Google more focus on their popular strong service otherwise this services are too thin and lack impact.
If you regularly use Google Readers, then you may want to export all your data to other RSS alternatives. Users with the help of Google Takeout can download a copy of all their Reader data including subscription data in an XML file and other data as JSON files. Once downloaded, user subscription data can be easily transferrable to another product, where they can continue to keep up with their online reading.
Another popular product that got axed is Snapseed Desktop for Macintosh and Windows , Google will no longer sell or provide updates to this products. The innovative photo-editing application will be available for customers to download and will continue to offer Snapseed mobile app on iOS and Android devices for free.
Source – Google Official Blog