The plaintiff, Kai Eiselein of Idaho, posted the photo to Flickr back in 2009. You can see it here. It shows a female soccer player with a ball apparently hitting her head. BuzzFeed ran a compilation called “The 30 Funniest Header Faces,” which included the photo in question. The compilation has now become the “The 29 Funniest Header Faces“.

Industry watcher Jeff John Roberts at PaidContent shares the complaint:

As noted in the complaint, “A copyright notice appears on each page where the photograph appears, along with the phrase ‘All rights reserved’. In addition, right clicking on the image brings up a copyright notice.”

“The photograph was registered with the United States Copyright Office on June 25, 2011 as part of a collection of photographs taken by the plaintiff,” it says.

While the complaint says that the plaintiff sent BuzzFeed a takedown notice, and that the photograph then “disappeared from the collection,” it also says that BuzzFeed failed to remove the image from its server, so it was still available via URL. It also asserts that BuzzFeed is responsible for 61 “contributory infringements” because of other sites that picked up the image after seeing it on BuzzFeed. SItes are listed in the complaint.

BuzzFeed has historically claimed fair use on things like this, suggesting that its compilations are transformative.

The complaint makes points to say that BuzzFeed has millions of monthly visitors and “uses this fact to help convince potential advertisers to place ads on the BuzzFeed site in hopes that the ad will get a ‘viral lift’ from the content being shared and reach a wider audience,” that it “actively encourages its users to share content, regardless of whether or not that content is owned by, or licensed to, BuzzFeed,” that the plaintiff is “an award winning photographer,” and that Getty Images had requested the image in question for licensing.

“The plaintiff feels the marketability of the image has been irretrievably damaged by the scope of the infringement and has not agreed to Getty’s request,” it says.

It’s also worth noting that the BuzzFeed compilation does not link to or credit any of the image sources. One has to wonder if a suit would have been pursued had this been the case, or even if BuzzFeed simply removed the image from its server after receiving a takedown request.

Either way, some are skeptical about Eiselein’s case. Roberts, for example, writes, “It’s unlikely that the self-represented photographer ‘contributory infringement’ theory will succeed on a legal basis,” but adds, “If he does, the case would throw a large chill over the sharing culture that has become a fixture of the social web. More likely, the case will just show once again how traditional copyright law — and its frequently abused enforcement tools — is ill-fitted for the digital age.”

Andrew Beaujon at Poynter points to comments from copyright attorney (and Verge managing editor) Nilay Ptel, who said, “the common etiquette of the Internet is not reflected in the law.”

Beaujon adds, “That inconvenience may for once be to BuzzFeed’s advantage.”

It will be interesting to see what comes of this case, as it could have some pretty big ramifications for not only how BuzzFeed operates, but for how many sites on the web do.

This also comes at a time when Google is making publishers think they should probably not be using stock photos if they want to rank in search.

First, Google is launching a new version of DFA, which it is calling DoubleClick Campaign Manager. It’s the biggest upgrade to the core ad server that in the fifteen years that it’s been around. Google says it “completely re-imagines” ad management and the ad serving process. This will be available to all advertisers globally in the coming months.

Second, Google announced that it is taking steps to integrate Wildfire into the DoubleClick platform. Wildfire is a social marketing platform Google acquired last summer (you know, the company Mark Zuckerberg’s sister Arielle works for).

“Today’s digital platforms play a critical role in helping marketers adapt to constantly evolving formats and channels,” says Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising at Google. “Today, social is a good example of that; it has changed the way we communicate, share and interact. And not just with our loved ones — 80% of consumers say social interactions with brands influence their purchase decisions.”

“Now, marketers can address a critical part of the customer journey, and do it alongside search, display, rich media, video and mobile as part of the broader DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform,” he says. “This is just the beginning of how we’re incorporating Wildfire’s technology. There are more exciting things to come in this area.”

Google will also soon introduce Cross-Sell in DoubleClick for Publishers. This will automatically manage joint slaes for YouTube partners. They’re also testing some native advertising features with a few publishes, and will soon expand to more. Google also says it is focused on “unlocking new ways of measurement” with the rollout of Active View in DoubleClick for Publishers, AdSense, and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

Finally, Google will soon release a tool called Google Web Designer, which it says “will empower creative professionals to create cutting-edge advertising as well as engaging web content like sites and applications.” It will be free, and it will be available in the coming months.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has reportedly been considering opening up a new investigation into Google’s display ad business.

AdSense product manager Matt Goodridge explains on the Inside AdSense blog:

As you may know, your earnings at the end of each month currently reflect the amount you’ve earned less any deductions for invalid activity. This is a step we’ve always taken to ensure advertisers are not charged for such activity. Until now, however, clicks and impressions associated with this activity still appeared in AdSense performance reports. Starting May 1st, we’ll remove those associated clicks and impressions to address this discrepancy and provide you with the most accurate reporting.

So what does this mean for your AdSense account? First and foremost, this change will not impact your earnings in any way. In most cases, removing the invalid activity from your reports means you can expect to see a slight decrease in clicks and impressions, causing a slight increase in CPC (cost-per-click) and RPM (revenue per thousand impressions). The clicks and impressions that we’ll no longer show in reports include activity like accidental clicks, so metrics like your CTR (clickthrough rate) will more accurately reflect your site’s performance. You might also see a more noticeable difference in your AdSense reporting when compared with your own account statistics measured through other tools. Please note that this change won’t affect the way we screen for invalid activity.

Reports for dates from before May 1st will not be affected by the changes.

A couple weeks ago, Google announced changes to the Terms and Conditions for Adsense. More on that here.

Reuters is reporting:

Alberico Fernandes, head of the Portuguese Confederation of Social Communication Media, told Reuters that the global Internet services group’s Iberian and Portuguese units rejected the demand at a first meeting last week but agreed to continue negotiations.

He said Google “showed readiness to collaborate with media groups to help us modernize and make our content more profitable”, something it had agreed to do in France earlier.

Earlier this year, Google announced an initiative to “help stimulate innovation and increase revenues” for French publishers. Google agreed to create a €60 million fund called the DIgital Publishing Innovation Fund to “help support transformative digital publishing initiatives for French readers.” Google said it would also “deepen” its partnership with French publishers to help increase their online revenues using Google’s ad technology.

The announcement followed a similar one Google made in December, when it reached an agreement with publishers in Belgium after six years of litigation, which saw publishers sue Google claiming that it violated their copyrights by displaying snippets in Google News and linking to cached copies of their pages in Google search.

As part of the agreement in Belgium, Google said it would advertise its services on publishers’ media, and publishers would optimize their use of AdWords. Google would also work with Belgian French-language publishers to “help increase publishers’ revenue,” collaborating on ways to make money with Paywalls and subscriptions, and with AdSense and the Ad Exchange. Google would also work with Belgian publishers to implement Google+ social tools and launch YouTube channels.

At the time, Google said it would like to come to similar terms with publishers around the world. Perhaps Portugal is next.

According to Kawasaki, there are three main benefits to self-publishing versus traditional publishing.

“Creative control, shorter time to market, and greater royalty per copy,” he says, noting that these benefits do, however, come with “greater responsibility for the quality of your book.”

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” he adds.

When it comes to marketing and distribution, Kawasaki notes, “First, an author has to realize that whether her publisher does these things or she does them herself, the same things have to happen. Many self-published authors don’t realize this. Then the most powerful method is to use social media such as Google+, Twitter, and Facebook to develop a fan base that you own. This applies to traditionally published authors too.”

In 2011 the publisher of Kawasaki’s book Enchantment couldn’t fill an order for 500 ebook copies, he tells us. For that reason, he self-published his next book, What the Plus! (which we discussed with him here). He says that this experience helped him learn first hand that self-publishing is a “complex, confusing, and idiosyncratic process.”

Though the book was self-published, it’s now available from McGraw Hill.

“I met an editor and one thing led to another, and I pitched her on the idea,” says Kawasaki of how the publisher came to pick up the book. “The book had been out about six months by then. I learned two things from this experience: first, a good publicist can get press that simply social-media contacts cannot. Second, non-fiction books need to be available in both electronic and paper format.”

According to Kawasaki, the ease of self-publishing means that the 99.9% of authors that publishers reject have an alternative. “It also means that the .1 percent of authors who use traditional publishing also have an alternative,” he adds. “If they can bring themselves to view this positively, it means that they can cherry pick books that are successfully self-published and turn them into even bigger sellers. That’s a huge ‘if,’ however.”

Those self-publishing books inevitably have to figure out how much they’re going to charge for them. You don’t want to set the price too high, where nobody will buy it, but you also don’t want to short change yourself. How do you know how to price it?

Kawasaki says, “My theory for ebooks is this: $.99 for a novice novelist, and $2.99 for an established but emerging novelist. When you’re proven, then you should go to $9.99. For non-fiction, you should start at $4.99 to ensure that people take your book seriously. Then you should go to $9.99 when you’re proven too.”

Obviously people are reading ebooks more these days thanks to ereaders and tablets. Tablet is Kawasaki’s preferred medium for books, “by far.”

“I’ve bought about 200 Kindle books so far,” he says. “I read five times the books I used to read before because of the convenience of Kindle books.”

Last year, we spoke with fiction writer Joe Lansdale, who told us that paperbacks (the smaller ones, at least) will soon be gone. When we asked Kawasaki for his thoughts on this, he said, “It depends on what he means by ‘soon.’ I’d say this is probably the first genre to go because people read this kind of books in large quantities so the frictionless buying of ebooks is compelling. Also, no one can see the cover of what you’re reading on a tablet, so you don’t have to hide Fabio’s picture. Finally, it seems like this is the genre where novice writers often emerge.”

Lansdale also said ebooks are too easy to copy, which can potentially cut into a writer’s sales.

“My logic on DRM is that it inconveniences legitimate customers and doesn’t hinder crooks, so you shouldn’t worry about it,” says Kawasaki. “I doubt that an author can sue or copy-protect her way to success.”

APE started off as a Kindle ebook, but is now also available in paperback.

Essentially, Meltwater’s service displays content with links and snippets in a similar format to Google News and other search engines and aggregators, which is why this case could have broader industry significance.

Last month, we saw newspapers like The New York Times, Gannet and McClatchy get on board with the AP.

Mike Masnick at TechDirt, who shares the court document, highlights a section where the court says:

“Next, Meltwater argues that the extent of its copying is justified because its purpose is to serve as a search engine. But, Meltwater has failed to show that it takes only that amount of material from AP’s articles that is necessary for it to function as a search engine. Indeed, the evidence is compellingly to the contrary.”

Masnick writes that the court “seems to think it knows how to run a search engine,” adding, “I’m curious. What is ‘the amount necessary to function as a search engine?’ One might reasonably suggest that a search engine would be wise to index everything. Yet the court here seems to be suggesting otherwise. I’m curious how many search engines the judge has built.”

“Basically, Meltwater points out that what it does is no different than a search engine, and the court says (without much basis) that it doesn’t think Meltwater really is a search engine, and thus these defenses don’t apply,” he adds. “But this is extremely troubling for actual search engines, because you can take each of the pieces out and then try to apply them to a basic search engine, and you’ll find that if this ruling stands, it makes being a search engine much more difficult as well.”

Meltwater will of course be appealing the judge’s decision. AFP quotes CEO Jorn Lyseggen as saying, “We’re disappointed by the court’s decision and we strongly disagree with it. We’re considering all of our options, but we look forward to having this decision reviewed by the Court of Appeals, which we are confident will see the case in a different way.”

“Adding the Send to Kindle Button opens a website to millions of Kindle customers who can now enjoy the content on Kindle,” a spokesperson for Amazon tells WebProNews.

“Readers often encounter news articles, blog posts and other content on the web that they want to read but don’t have time to do so immediately,” she adds. “The Send to Kindle Button lets people easily send that content to their Kindle so they can it read later.”

Probably not good news for services like Instapaper.

“Just send once and read everywhere on any Kindle device or free reading app,” the spokesperson says. “No more hunting around for that website or blog that caught your eye – just open your Kindle and all the content you sent is right there. The Send to Kindle Button is also great for readers who want to collect content from the web to use in work projects, school assignments, or hobbies.”

The button can be found on Amazon’s site here. There is also one specifically for WordPress bloggers here.

Users can add Send to Kindle apps to their browsers, desktops and Android apps as well. There is also an option to send by email.

Do you intend to encourage customers and readers to subscribe to your updates by email? Let us know in the comments.

As you probably know, Google has dealt a major blow to RSS by announcing that it will shut down Google Reader this summer. Also, as you probably know, a variety of other services are stepping up to the plate to try to become your next reader. Still, there is some debate about just how much longer RSS will continue to thrive, because when a major Internet force like Google calls it quits, how can we really know what to expect?

For a while, it looked like Google Reader wasn’t the only piece of the RSS puzzle that Google is killing. The RSS Subscription Chrome extension disappeared for a time, but apparently that was just a mistake, and it’s back up. Still, it’s clear that Google is actively trying to make people use RSS less (and Google+ more), and unfortunately for a lot of users, they’ll probably succeed. That doesn’t mean that many of us die hards won’t continue to use the format for as long as it’s around, but you have to wonder how many will use the Google Reader closure as a stepping stone to a completely alternative means of consuming content. Many casual users will probably take some time to better optimize their experiences on Twitter, Facebook, and other social services, and completely stop relying on RSS. Maybe that’s for the best (some think so). Maybe not. Either way, for a lot of people, it’s not going to be an easy transition.

Some of us are wondering if Google will continue to support RSS for Google Alerts, another important tool for bloggers.

“I have multiple alerts set up to alert me through Google Reader,” writes bradnod on reddit. “I do not want to change it to email because I have enough emails in my inbox already. I was just curious is Google is going to phase this feature out or allow the RSS feed to other feed readers.”

You don’t have to use Google Reader for this feature, but the question remains: will Google continue to support RSS for alerts? The odds seem a little better that they will keep the RSS option, now that the Chrome extension has come back, but we have asked Google about it, and so far, they haven’t responded.

The only other option for Google Alerts, as of right now, is email. Email. The time-honored method of online communication that just won’t die, no matter how many social services come out of the woodwork. Email continues to thrive, and doesn’t appear to be in much danger.

Email, like RSS, doesn’t rely on one company to continue working, which is probably one of the main reasons it has lasted so long. Some think this bodes well for the future of RSS too, and maybe it does, but RSS doesn’t have anywhere close to the user adoption that email has. RSS, while a fundamental part of the web for some of us, just isn’t required for the rest of the web and user identity like email is. Long story short, email has a lot more going for it, and it’s not going anywhere.

Could a significant percentage of Google Reader users turn to email as their alternative of choice?

“I think email alerts have been growing in popularity anyway, since they create a true one to one connection between the blog and reader with a daily use platform that is unlikely to ever go away,” TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden tells WebProNews. “Also, there’s very little competition in the RSS to email space, which is also growing. I’d be surprised if several of the RSS reader platforms don’t jump in to fill the inevitable void of FeedBurner’s RSS to email or at least to meet the growing demand.”

“The popular theory seems to be that people will move on to another RSS reader, and life will go on as usual,” writes Michael Surtees at Mashable. “I’m not that optimistic. RSS is not going to evolve, and I doubt it will get better. It’s basically dead now that Google has decided to stop supporting its Reader.”

“I’m looking for an option that doesn’t rely on RSS but can still tell me when a site has been updated,” he says. “The ideal service would then let me organize those sites into specific lists.”

Is it possible that email could be what he is looking for? Interestingly, he doesn’t mention this at all in his article, and the truth is, I totally get why. Many of us already have tons of email, and don’t want to add to that with all the content that is entering our Google Reader interface (even if that’s possible, which it probably isn’t). Still, email is the RSS alternative that works for virtually all Internet users. The only alternative. Why do you think it’s the only other option for Google Alerts? Not everybody is on Facebook (and certainly not the web’s other social networks), but just about everyone has email. You need email to sign up for the social networks.

It could be cumbersome, particularly if you’ve set up a lot of folders in Google Reader, but could it be possible to migrate to an email-based habit of news consumption? It’s not as if the concept is new or foreign to most. There’s a good chance you’re probably already subscribed to some email newsletters, but expect to see publishers and bloggers more heavily push for newsletter and alert subscribers with Google Reader going away. And don’t be surprised if a lot of blogs that don’t currently have newsletters suddenly start offering them.

Some of the most authoritative voices in social media and content marketing view email as a major piece of the alternative strategy. Chris Brogan had this to say on his blog:

“Turns out Google Reader is going away. As a user, I’m very sad. As a provider of content for you, I have to make sure I’m helping you. So, if you’re getting me via RSS, could I invite you to subscribe to my email newsletter? It really is where I share the best ideas I have.”

Copyblogger’s Brian Clark tweeted this after Google’s announcement:

Copyblogger’s Jerod Morris elaborates in a post on the site, “What you need to do is — by being awesome — sell your readers on why now is the best time to subscribe to your email list. Not for you, for them. And it’s precisely because of Google’s decision to drop Reader. All Google Reader users are feeling an immense lack of control right now. I know this, because I am (was) a user of Google Reader.”

Clark responds in the comments to a skeptical reader, “You can’t coerce anyone to do anything. But you can ‘invite’ them into your email channel. What would make it worth their while? What additional incentive would make them allow your content into their inbox while others are excluded?”

That’s truly something to think about. Now might be a good time to step up to the plate and give readers a little something extra in return for becoming part of your mailing list.

Morris adds, “And the idea here is not to coerce customer behavior. It’s to offer solutions to the problem and let people choose the one that works best for them. A lot of people will like the security and certainty of email, especially right now, but they may not consider it an alternative if not reminded that it is.”

In the same comment thread, Copyblogger’s Sonia Simone chimes in, “Opponents of email are vocal (and I hear you, I get too much email too), but bloggers who provide the opportunity to subscribe via both methods report that their email subscribers are consistently much more responsive. RSS is a great tool for many, but you want to make sure you’re providing both options.”

Bloggers have already been encouraging users to sign up for email newsletters since Google’s announcement, and not just Brogan. There are plenty of examples out there. Graham Cluley from Sophos writes, “Our stats tell us that many of our readers choose to follow Naked Security’s RSS feed via Google Reader. Of course, there are alternatives to Google Reader which you may want to try out – but if you want to ensure that you never miss a story from Naked Security, can we suggest that you sign-up for Naked Security’s daily newsletter? Our free daily email newsletter gives you access to all the stories we’ve written in the past 24 hours, and ensures that you never miss a thing.”

That’s just one of a many possible email formats – the one-a-day. Expect to see more options from more bloggers and publishers.

One major advantage of gaining more email subscribers is that you’re not relying on any one company to continue to support them. Email is universal. It’s going to be interesting to see how RSS gets along without an Internet giant like Google supporting it. Some feel there is plenty to be optimistic about – not just the resurgence in interest in the medium and the sudden rush for superior products from companies offering alternative feed readers, but the fact that one company isn’t dominating the landscape any longer. This is certainly one way to look at it.

Either way, I don’t think anyone would recommend that bloggers and publishers stop offering RSS feeds anytime soon. That doesn’t mean you can’t give readers a better email option or at least give them the option to consumer your content that way if they so choose.

By the way, email open rates were up year-over-year in Q4. For that matter, recent research shows consumers are growing more accepting of email marketing.

Is email a viable alternative to RSS for your needs? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Image: Chris Brogan’s blog

Should Google kill Google Reader? Will you miss it? Let us know what you think or if you care in the comments.

So here I am back to work. Immediately, I’ve already been using Google Reader like all day. The truth is, I was already using it every day while I wasn’t working as well. That’s because it’s one of the things on the Internet that I use the most. So, you can imagine, I’m not incredibly happy about the news. I mean, I don’t agree with Hitler on many things, but I think he has this one spot on.

A little over a month ago, Google Reader users were experiencing some usability issues with the product, and Google didn’t seem to care much about fixing it quickly. Little did we know at the time that this was a foreshadowing of what was to come.

On Wednesday, Google broke the news to the world. They did so in one of their regular “spring cleaning” announcements. By now, I’m used to these announcements. Usually, they’re about products that I’ve used little or not at all. Occasionally, they included something I used but could live without (like Picnik). Never before have the announcements involved something that I relied upon on a day to day basis.

This is all Google had to say about it in the announcement:

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

Was it only 2005? I can hardly remember living without Google Reader.

There was a separate post on the Google Reader blog. This was the first post to the blog since October 2011, which announced some Google+ integration. Perhaps that should have been taken as another clue. On the blog, Google software engineer Alan Green wrote:

We have just announced on the Official Google Blog that we will soon retire Google Reader (the actual date is July 1, 2013). We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We’re sad too.

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.

Usage is declining. I guess that’s not entirely unexpected, given the rise of social media. For the average person, I can see where it wouldn’t be incredibly hard to get by without Google Reader, even if they are accustomed to using it on a regular basis. For people who write for the web, however (which is still a pretty large number of people), there really isn’t another tool out there that does the job as well as Google Reader. At least not yet. Others see the situation as it is, and are working on alternatives, and or promoting their existing alternatives.

There are petitions pushing for the saving of Reader. This one at Change.org has over 100,000 supporters. There are others at Change.org and elsewhere. This one at KeepGoogleReader.com has over 31,000 itself.

The Twitterverse (one of many possible places Google will be pushing users with the killing of Reader) is full of complaints. Twitter, by the way, probably has a lot more to gain from this move than Google+, and many believe that Google’s move is really about Google+. It’s no secret that Google has been pushing to get people using its social network to consume and share content, and clearly, this is where Google’s efforts on this front are focused.

This week, former Google Reader product manager Brian Shih spoke about Google’s move on Quora. Here’s a snippet of what he had to say about it:

It turns out they decided to kill it anyway in 2010, even though most of the engineers opted against joining G+. Ironically, I think the reason Google always wanted to pull the Reader team off to build these other social products was that the Reader team actually understood social (and tried a lot of experiments over the years that informed the larger social features at the company)[1]. Reader’s social features also evolved very organically in response to users, instead of being designed top-down like some of Google’s other efforts[2].

I suspect that it survived for some time after being put into maintenance because they believed it could still be a useful source of content into G+. Reader users were always voracious consumers of content, and many of them filtered and shared a great deal of it.

But after switching the sharing features over to G+ (the so called “share-pocalypse”) along with the redesigned UI, my guess is that usage just started to fall – particularly around sharing. I know that my sharing basically stopped completely once the redesign happened [3]. Though Google did ultimately fix a lot of the UI issues, the sharing (and therefore content going into G+) would never recover.

So with dwindling usefulness to G+, (likely) dwindling or flattening usage due to being in maintenance, and Google’s big drive to focus in the last couple of years, what choice was there but to kill the product?

So, if you want to get your data out of Reader from Google Takeout, you can do so here. You have until July 1. In the meantime, us Google Reader die hards will have to hope Google takes note of these petitions and reconsiders (which is probably unlikely, if we’re being honest), and/or start exploring the alternatives. Lots of people have already compiled lists, including tools like: Feedly, Netvibes, The Old Reader, Bloglovin’, NewsBlur, FlipBoard, Pulse (which LinkedIn is apparently buying), Zite. Oh yeah, and then there’s Google Currents (at least for now), and of course, there’s not even a web version.

Nothing I’ve used so far has been able to match Google Reader in functionality entirely, for my personal purposes. Some are better than others, and I won’t promote any one tool here, mostly because I’ve not settled on one myself. You can be sure that we’ll see more players enter the market in the time leading up to July 1, so the best alternative might not even exist yet. One intriguing possibility is an offering for Digg, who has already come out and said it’s working on one that will mimic Google Reader. That sounds promising. I’d love to see an identical clone, even if it has Digg’s logo instead of Google. This could be Digg’s ticket back to Internet relevance.

Some services, which relied heavily upon Google Reader are just shutting down – namely FeedDemon. Founder Nick Bradbury wrote about the end of the service in a blog post, which he says was hard for him to write. He says:

FeedDemon relies on Google Reader for synchronization, and there’s no decent alternative (and even if there were, it’s doubtful I’d have time to integrate with it, at least not without trading time away from my family – which I won’t do).

That was the nail in the coffin for me. I hate to say goodbye to FeedDemon after a decade of working on it, but it’s time to say goodbye. When Google Reader shuts down on July 1, FeedDemon will also disappear.

Some see the whole thing as a good opportunity for Google rivals like Microsoft and Yahoo to step up to the plate, and fill a void that Google is leaving behind.

Some (including Hitler) have wondered what has happened to Google’s old stance about the open web – something that Google Reader and RSS both cater to. Google has historically been all about this, but doing away with Reader and pushing toward Google+ doesn’t seem to be a move in the same direction. That may or may not make sense from a corporate standpoint, but it’s certainly worth noting. As TechEye points out, Google’s move should make Internet censorship-heavy Iran happy, as many Iranians apparently use reader to get around some of the censorship.

What About Your Web Traffic?

Okay, I think the point has been made about how much this whole thing sucks for users. But there is another side of the coin, for which the outlook isn’t all that rosy either. As RSS feeds are still the primary way a lot of people get their news, that means Google’s move away from Reader has the potential to impact traffic to the sites to which users are subscribed.

Hard core Google Reader users have racked up numerous feeds over the years. You have to wonder how many of the users, regardless of what alternative they transition to, will take all of their feed subscriptions with them. How many sites will lose subscribers over the whole thing. Some users will no doubt elect to just use social media instead of RSS. Will these people bother to subscribe to the Twitter, Facebook or Google+ feeds for all of the sites they were subscribed to? And even if they do, will these sites be pushing out every article to these channels the way they do through RSS?

That brings up another interesting point. Will this move clutter up social media feeds, and lead to a lot more content being pushed from publications through social media channels? A site that only pushed a few articles per day to its Facebook followers may find itself posting every article. Then, of course, there’s another layer to that issue: how many Facebook users are looking at all of the posts from the pages they follow?

Luckily, Facebook is in the process of rolling out changes that at least let users see all of the posts from the pages they follow if they choose to do so. Before, they were filtering that, so there was no guarantee all of a page’s followers even had the opportunity to see a post. Even still, the Facebook functionality is hardly an RSS clone.

According to BuzzFeed, Google Reader is a much larger source of web traffic than Google+ to the network of sites it tracked. Here’s what their chart looks like:

Death Of RSS?

The question of whether or not RSS is dead or dying has been around for years. Naturally, it has resurfaced in light of Google’s news. Is it dead? Clearly not, given the amount of outcry we’re seeing over the death of Google Reader, and the rush for alternatives from other companies. There is demand. It may not be a huge percentage of Internet users, but those that demand it are serious about it and loyal to the format. It’s become as fundamental to the web experience as search and email for some of us. It’s not dead.

Is it dying? That’s not as easy of a question to answer. I want to say no, but Google turning its back on it is not a good sign. Part of me wonders, as I’m exploring alternative means for consuming RSS feeds, if it’s just a lost cause, and I should really be exploring different strategies for news consumption altogether (and don’t get me wrong, RSS is not my only news consumption habit). I don’t think I’m willing to accept the demise of RSS just yet though. If we all do that, then we truly are killing it. To my knowledge, there really isn’t a means of consuming news that is as comprehensive as RSS anyway – at least not one that meets my needs.

Obviously I’ve made no attempt to hide how I feel about Google Reader’s demise, but there are some out there who think it might actually be a good thing. Some journalists have already abandoned RSS. Tech blogger Robert Scoble, once a faithful user, wrote about why he stopped using Google Reader all the way back in 2009. He had some valid points about flaws with Reader back then that still hold true today, but I don’t think many of us would say that Reader is flawless. Sure, there are things that Google could have improved upon, and you can’t rely solely on Reader if you don’t want to miss anything. For many of us, however, it’s just a major piece of the puzzle.

All of this aside, by shutting down Reader, Google is driving people out of its universe, by driving them to alternatives. I find this move baffling, as in many cases, it will no doubt drive users to Google’s competitors. Considering all of the moves Google has made to keep users on Google properties, keeping Google Reader around seems like a no-brainer. Some of us spend a whole lot of time on that Google property. Possibly even more than any other Google property.

While Google Reader may live to July 1, the app is already gone from the Google Play store.

Is Google wise to kill off Reader? Will you miss it? What will you use instead? Is this the beginning of the end of RSS? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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A representative from the organization posted in a Google Webmaster Help forum (as noticed by Search Engine Roundtable):

My URL is: www.bbc.co.uk

I am a representative of the BBC site and on Saturday we got a ‘notice of detected unnatural links’.

Given the BBC site is so huge, with so many independently run sub sections, with literally thousands or agents and authors, can you give us a little clue as to where we might look for these ‘unnatural links’.

Later in the thread, he adds:

Yeah the problem is that the site is so big, and has so many agents, that something stupid might have been done, but without being given a clue to what or where, it is kind of hard to track the culprits down and ‘advise them to be a better web citizen’. I have certainly been involved previously is stopping people before they do something ‘unwise’ in relation to the site.

Of course, I’m not saying someone connected with the site has done something naughty, just that it is a possibility.

He says he sent a reconsideration request, and explained the situation to Google.

At SMX West, earlier this week, Google’s Matt Cutts made a point of saying that big brands are penalized often. Of course, we recently saw UK flower site Interflora get penalized, though that didn’t last long.