The crisis of blogging
Google will shut down its greatest function of the whole Google system. Google Reader will not be there anymore on the first of july. What this means for bloggers is obvious. It will be not easy to help people following your blog post in the future.
This shut down is only an economic decision for a moment. The reason why Google is making this decision lays in its social media strategy. I wouldn‘t be surprised if Google will soon announce a Reader like implementation on Google Plus.
Social Media aggregators are demanding our content in first place for obvious reasons. Why sharing add profit with a blogger when you can display adds nearby the same content in your own social media system like Google Plus?
The times are over, that Google only wants to have our personal information for „not being evil“ delivering you information and adds you really like. A big +1 for that.
It is about the content that Google is after like every other social media strategist. You can recognize this strategy also in the new function of Goole image search. High resolution image theft never has been more obvious and bold.
The future of content has been and should be the freedom of the internet.
Freedom in Social Media? German moderator Domian ranted about the catholic church last week. Facebook deleted his post. Welcome in the world of tomorrow.
This censorship is not a big problem if the content stands on his blog in first place and could be found by the people.
The Google Terms of services are allowing Google to use and sell your content in the Google world. Selling your photos in a Google stock photo agency that only displays your photos in Google system adds could be a good way of income. Especially when there is no more place to post content in the world outside of Google Plus (…or Facebook or the closed Apple system. Although I am writing about Google Facebook is more evil because it is obviously harming our personal borders).
Your content will not be your content anymore very soon. Sharing will be the first commandment if you don‘t want to disappear. If there is no open internet anymore sharing automatically means sharing with the internet content extractor of your choice. So make your choice wisely where you will post your content first.
After releasing your word, your image, your video you will not own it!
I don‘t have the right answer but I believe in blogging as a free and open system. So I will keep on blogging in my own little space.
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March 20, 2013 at 14:29
Chris
As a huge Reader user, this sucks!
But I don’t think it means Blogging or freedom of speach is in trouble (always need to keep an eye on it though). Feedly, and I’m sure others, will provide simple transition from Reader to their service. And if they don’t now, they will provide access with Google login credentials. So it won’t be much different than before.
RSS is the core of sharing and this isn’t going away unless bloggers want it to. I’ve found myself drawn to G+ as a potential blogging platform, so maybe this is where Google is going? Not a huge fan of that idea… at the moment.
Google is all about ads, which means it is all about enhancing the value of those ads. So understanding people, behaviors, purchases, interests, etc will add more value to their service. I don’t think Reader supports that anymore. So to their suite of products, it doesn’t add much or any value.
I would love it if Google would open source their products when retiring them. Let the dev community have at it and build derivative works.
March 20, 2013 at 15:19
Olaf Bathke
Chris, I don’t want to be misunderstood. It is not the disappearing of reader that worries me. The tendencies of getting our content in closed system is what worries me.
March 20, 2013 at 07:45
Sandra
I personally have never been fond of using G+ and there are lots of feed readers other than Google Reader available to follow blogs (I have used FeedDemon ever since).
So I would not really call it a blogging “crisis” because Google shuts down their reader.
March 20, 2013 at 07:52
Olaf Bathke
it is not only about the shut down of reader. it is about the ideas why reader is shutting down.
March 20, 2013 at 08:09
Sandra
I know…
But I doubt that lots of Google Reader users will join G+ circles now to follow blogs as they are other simple alternatives.
So I just doubt the statement “…Sharing will be the first commandment if you don‘t want to disappear…”
If Bloggers decide to publish more in G+, it is their decision but most probably does not have an impact on reaching the audience that they have had before because it is the decision of the reader/user how to follow your work.
For example me personally, I have always followed your work, always with a feed reader and I would not join yet another G+ circle – duplicate content 😉