Can you count the letter "." in:
Yes, there is a vague resemblance to the old Everly Brothers tune, but the truth is that Google is shutting down some of their most useful programs. I am sure they have some grand design that will propel them into the next great thing. It also seems they are making a way for startup utility companies to take up the slack, but in the meantime, those of us using the programs have to adjust. But is is sort-of like having your favorite ice cream discontinued or your favorite type of shirt going out of stock. You get used to some things and changing becomes one more episode in the never-ending-story of technological hassles.
I haven't really found a substitute for iGoogle yet, but my analysis of the situation told me that I only used the program to have a convenient interface for Google Reader. So now, Google Reader is going away. Anticipating this, I had already switched over to Feedly.com. That company assures all of us that the transition when Reader bites the dust, will be seamless. Whatever that means. Part of staying alive online and in the greater technological world is anticipating changes and making adjustments before you are forced to do so. Never wait until the end, always make adjustments well before hand.
For example, if you know, like I do, that desktop computers will probably die, then move to some other type of computer well before that inevitable transition. Making the change in advance gives you choices and options you may not have if you procrastinate. I will likely just go with the Google Chrome startup page instead of iGoogle. But I wouldn't rule out someone coming up with a more workable solution long before the promised end date of iGoogle after November 1, 2013.
Which Google program will go next? I could speculate, but there are a number of candidates and I am not likely to guess right. But if I were going to guess, I would look at some of the lesser used Google products such as Google News and Google Orkut. It is hard to guess because Google does not give out much information about the relative usefulness of its various products.
If I find a substitute for iGoogle, I will let you all know.
As you say, there are no metrics on how much certain apps are used. I would be surprised if Google News is one of their lesser used products. I'm not sure how I'd get my news, if it wasn't for Google News. Subscribe to a daily newspaper again? But I'd have to subscribe to about 10 of them to get the variety of viewpoints I get through Google News. Sure, I could subscribe to several Newspaper feeds, but I wouldn't be able to get just the stories on the topics I want.
So unless there were another site doing exactly the same thing as Google News...it's disappearance would be a serious loss.
I need a feedreader that works on Internet Explorer, so Feedly won't work for me. I'm going to try TheOldReader and NetVibes and see which I like the best.
Netvibes is a replacement for iGoogle and Reader combined. I've been using it for several months. Netvibes has the widget view to show things like email, calendars , notepads, weather etc that I keep on my home tab. Then on different tabs I have my news feeds and blogs that I read through the Reader view.

user
I counted thirty-six "."s in that text.
assistant