Google Kills Currents, Sends Users To Google Play Newsstand

Google continues to shift its users of various news consumption products to different ones. Google famously killed Google Reader last year in a bold and controversial move (that many would probably st...
Google Kills Currents, Sends Users To Google Play Newsstand
Written by Chris Crum
  • Google continues to shift its users of various news consumption products to different ones. Google famously killed Google Reader last year in a bold and controversial move (that many would probably still question) that sent users to various other RSS readers not owned by Google.

    Now another Google news reader is dead.

    Google announced Google Play Newsstand in November as “one place for all your news”. It includes newspaper subscriptions, magazines, blogs and news sites.

    At the end of the announcement, Google mentioned that Google Currents users could upgrade to Newsstand by downloading the app. Now, Google has reportedly pushed out an update to Currents that simply sends users to Google Play Newsstand, effectively rendering Currents a thing of the past on Android.

    Google launched Currents in 2011 as an apparent Flipboard competitor, but rarely offered anything in the way of exciting new features. Now, it’s simply led to a more branded news reading experience for Google, which makes a great deal of sense. A lot more sense than killing Google Reader.

    At least now we know what Google’s real motivation was in killing Google Reader: to push people to Google Play.

    Currents is still available on iOS, but Google has said a Newsstand app for the platform, which will replace it, is also on the way.

    Image via Google

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