????山景城谷歌公司的人們一定知道，最大聲的哀嚎將來自媒體——來自我們這幫為損失痛哭的新聞狂人。過去的五年中，谷歌定制的RSS閱讀器的新聞搜尋速度驚人，無人能及。

????而如今，從7月1日起，它將不復存在。

????我花一分鐘用Reader收集的信息量就能充實我一天的生活，這一點至今仍然讓我覺得不可思議。最了不起的是，它提供的內容都是我自己挑選的。正如我喜歡在Twitter上“發現”信息一樣，我熱愛打理自己的花園，在院子里放滿我喜歡的內容。所以我的心情就跟Reddit網站上致力于改變這個決定的人們一樣，也可以用Twitter的標簽#拯救Google Reader、或者網上流行的惡搞視頻《元首的憤怒》來形容（古老的人物因為這個古老的閱讀平臺而蘇醒），還像Change.org上的請愿書一樣：谷歌怎么可以一邊說著“不作惡”，一邊砍掉一個如此深受用戶喜愛的產品呢？

????谷歌的解釋簡明扼要：“有兩個簡單的原因：其一，Google Reader的使用量已減少；其二，作為一家公司，我們正在將所有的精力投入到更少的產品上。我們認為，這樣的專注度能夠創造更好的用戶體驗。”

????這兩點毫無疑問是真的，或者至少大約是真的。用戶使用率可能確實降低了，但Reader的用戶群是一幫網絡達人：我們是網蟲啊！

????與谷歌看重的社交媒體業務Google+相比，Reader帶來了更多的網站流量。這很丟人，我這么說并不是因為我會非常懷念Google Reader，而是因為它確實是一個很出色的小型社交網絡。注意小型這個詞。盡管谷歌在2010年推出Google+時砍掉了大多數優秀的分享功能，Reader仍然是搜索新聞、同時通過Twitter、Facebook甚至郵件傳播這些消息的最佳途徑之一。

????羅伯?費什曼全面分析了Reader這項服務，還總結了它在社交網絡中扮演的角色：“Facebook在保持平衡上做得很好，但是它過于偏向社交了。它的網絡就像起伏不定的多頭水仙，緊緊環繞著自身。Reader則以內容為支點，破土而出，同時擴展到所有部分。”

????此言不虛。

????Reader是一個平臺，幫助那些特定的信息狂人收集信息，同時和其他狂人分享信息。然而就因為沒有足夠多的網蟲來凸顯Reader的價值，谷歌就把它關了。好吧。谷歌是一家巨型公司，它當然知道什么是更好的生財之道。

????我覺得，這個變化凸顯了社交網絡一個更大的問題。那些巨頭（谷歌、Facebook）似乎不滿足于提供小型的精彩雜耍——他們想要成為獨霸天下的平臺，成為能長出多頭水仙的軀干。

????但是當我們包容萬物時，為什么只能有一個社交網絡，一個平臺呢？（財富中文網）

????譯者：嚴匡正

????They must have known in Mountain View that the biggest howl would come from the press—all us news junkies, crying over our loss. For five years going there has been nothing better than Google's stripped-down RSS reader for plowing through story after story with astonishing speed.

????And now, come July 1st, it will be no more.

????The amount of information I gather on Reader in one-minute spurts, sprinkled throughout my day, still feels incredible. And best of all: the feeds are my own selection. As much as I love "discovering" content on Twitter, I adored tending my own garden, filling platform with feeds specific to my tastes. So my sentiments match those the Reddit thread dedicated to the shutdown, or the Twitter hashtag #savegooglereader, or the Hitler video (an old meme resuscitated for an old platform), or the Change.org petition: How can Google say 'don't be evil' and then kill off a product so beloved?

????Google's explanation is terse: "There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we're pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience."

????Both points are no doubt true. Or true-ish. Usage may have declined in sheer number of users, but Readers are a powerful bunch: We are nerds!

????Reader drives more traffic to websites than Google+, the social-media project Google seems focused on. This is a shame, and I'm not just saying that because I will miss Google Reader terribly, but because Reader was a brilliant little social network. Emphasis on little. Even though Google took away most of the neat sharing functions in 2010, when it rolled out Google+, it still was one of the best ways to find stories and pass them on: on Twitter, Facebook, or even email.

????In a comprehensive look at the service, Rob Fishman summed it Reader's role in the social web thusly: "Facebook may well achieve an equilibrium, but it is social to a fault; the network, like a heaving, many-headed Narcissus, rallies mostly around itself. Reader pivoted on the fulcrum of content, unearthed and spread in equal parts."

????That's it exactly.

????Reader was a space for a very specific type of information junkie to gather and share other bits of information with other junkies/nerds. So Google is shutting Reader down because there weren't enough nerds to make it worthwhile. Fine. Google is a massive company and no doubt sees better ways to make money.

????To my mind this speaks to a larger problem on the social web. The titans (Google, Facebook) don't seem content building smaller, more precious sideshows—they want to be the platform, the body to the many-headed Narcissus.

????But why does there have to be just one social network, one platform, when we contain multitudes?