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"Today Google announced what it is calling &amp;quot;[a]\u00A0second spring of cleaning,&amp;quot; shuttering another set of old applications that it views as no longer necessary.\r\n\r\nIncluded in the list is the venerable Google Reader product. In Google's estimation, &amp;quot;the product has a loyal following, [but] over the years [its] usage has declined.&amp;quot; The move is sure to shake those who remain dependent on the product for daily news gathering.\r\n\r\nOther closures include\u00A0Google Cloud Connect, and the\u00A0Google Voice App for BlackBerry, a blow to that mobile platform. Specifically, Google Voice's app for BlackBerry was announced in 2009, a very different time in the mobile world.\u00A0Google points BlackBerry owners to its HTML5 implementation, which is compatible with BlackBerry 6 and beyond.\r\n\r\nGoogle has also announced that it is dropping the Mac and PC versions of Snapseed, the photo editing software that it bought last September.\r\n\r\nAccording to the company's short blog post on the round of closures, Google has closed some &amp;quot;70 features or services&amp;quot; since it began the process. Google, a company famed for working on\u00A0myriad\u00A0fronts at once, now appears content to pare.\r\n\r\nThe decision to end Google Reader is not surprising. Google Reader broke in\u00A0February, with widespread bugs and issues cropping up for many users. It appears to have fallen into a sort of\u00A0disarray\u00A0in its old age.\u00A0And, as you surely recall, Google has announced such product cessations in prior blocs. One such &amp;quot;cleaning&amp;quot; included the death of Google Sync, along with several Calendar features.\r\n\r\nResponse to today's news hasn't been positive, with initial tweets opining views indicating anguish over the end of Reader. I would posit that even so, the chance of Google changing its mind is all but nil.\r\n\r\nTop Image Credit:\u00A0H\u00E5kan Dahlstr\u00F6m"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/03/14/google-to-axe-google-reader-on-july-1-as-part-of-larger-round-of-app-closures/>