For the handful of lawyers who are actually engaged on a regular basis in reading or writing stuff that shows up on computer screens, the announcement that Google will be killing its RSS Reader was big news. For those unaware, RSS means “really simple syndication,” and unlike many of Google’s efforts to push its way into the marketplace of other people’s good ideas, its RSS reader was, by any definition, a success.

The purpose of an RSS reader is to subscribe to feeds from blogs you read, have them all show up in the same place whenever something new gets posts, and be able to see what’s new without having to go to 10 or 50 or 100 different blogs to check. It was fast and easy, as the name suggests. Simple to use, and for a guy like me, allows me to see the content on 100 blogs in a snap to decide what I want to spend time reading. Without it, reading other blogs took a long time. With it, I could scan 100 blog posts in seconds. Which do you think worked better?

And Google decided to kill it.

Those who adore the future of technology as the future of everything were stunned. This can’t be happening, because it’s the center of the universe and all life depends on technology.  And BetaMax is how everyone will watch television.  Carolyn Elefant at MyShingle, who is far more optimistic about the benefit of every new-fangled idea than me, took a wider view.

So what can we learn from the demise of Google Reader? First, that blogging (at least conversational blogging rather than blogging for SEO) is on the decline (I know that my buddy Kevin O’Keefe will disagree – but hear me out.  GoogleReader grew out of Google’s launch of Blogger and provided a tool to make it easier for blogs to gain traffic.  Here, my experience is typical; as a long time blogger, I relied heavily on GoogleReader for new stories (particularly when I was pumping out ten to twelve posts a week during my three year stint at Legal Blogwatch.

Yet lately, I’ve noticed that many of the younger people who’ve passed through my office as interns or clerks over the past few years don’t use GoogleReader, relying instead on other services like email alerts or GoogleNews tools to track new events. But then again, many of the younger generation whom I’ve worked with don’t follow blogs much as all, save for the big kahunas like HuffPo or maybe (if they’re lawyers) Above the Law. Indeed, when I recently scolded newbies for not knowing how to blog or set up and track RSS feeds, I didn’t consider the possibility that as a blogger, I’d become passe and needed to be dragged into the 21st Century 3.0 rather than the other way around.

No,  Jay Fleischman responds in the comments.

You’re wrong, Carolyn. Blogging isn’t dead, and reports to that effect are nothing more than the usual garbage hauled out whenever there’s a change to the ecosystem.The reality is that RSS never caught on with the real world; it’s not how actual, live, honest-to-goodness human beings find and read stuff online (notice how I did not say, “how people consume online content”). People either arrange for new articles to reach them by email as they are published or they visit the publication online.  Some use Twitter to get updates from sites they like.But the only ones who use RSS readers are those in the echo chamber of social media. Ask a client if they use an RSS reader and they’ll look at you cross-eyed.When I ask clients if they read blogs, they have no idea what I’m talking about. But if I ask them if they read a particular site that I know to be a blog, they claim that they do.Heck, even many other lawyers don’t know what the heck RSS or blogging is. We do because we’ve been doing it for longer than more grade-schoolers have been alive.The real world calls it,” writing,” or, “articles.” Those articles are posted on, “websites.”

Jay is right, in a way, but reaches the totally wrong conclusion. The blawgosphere was embraced by a relatively small group of people, and it was those people who needed, and used, RSS feeds. Most people, notably including younger people, never became all that involved with blogging. It’s a thing from the early days of the internet, and it has since been subsumed into marketing. Nobody reads marketing crap, and the dead weight of marketers killed the golden goose of blogs.

It’s not that people read blogs, but rely on aggregators (people who create lists of stuff of a particular genre where people can find stories that interest them) rather than RSS fees, or twitter, or direct subscription. These all happen, to some extent, but they reflect disconnected interest and take far too long for anyone who was really interested. These are the means of people who just don’t care too much. These are the reasons RSS was created, because nobody had the time or interest to waste looking for blog posts this way. So I call bullshit.

Years ago, I wrote about how the blawgosphere would eventually stagnate, because nobody had the time to read thousands of blogs.

I hate to be the wet blanket of the blawgosphere (well, not really), but the idea that there can be an ever-expanding universe of blogs strikes me as insane.  I recently figured out how to use RSS feeds to monitor the blawgs that interest me on a regular basis, and it has definitely helped to keep track of new blog posts.  But even so, it’s a bit overwhelming.  And I limit my interests to blogs that offer substantive content.  None of these pretend blogs that are only there to scream “hire me!” make the cut.  And still there’s just too much.

I believe that this type of overpromotion will end up smothering the blogosphere by its own (dead) weight.  Most of these new blogs will bring nothing to the blawgosphere.  They will sporadically post primarily self-hype of no interest to anyone, under the mistaken understanding that everyone who gets a blog gets business from it.  My notion is that too much garbage in the blawgosphere will drive away anyone who comes by for a look, only to find junk, crap and garbage (or what I would call “marketing”).

Has the time come? It’s been coming for some time, actually. I’ve seen it, not that you would know from me as I just continue to post stuff as I’ve done since 2007.  But the herd has thinned considerably, as old-timers got bored and faded away, and new-comers are fewer and thinner. Others have resorted to cheap aggregation to keep their blawgs on life-support, but nobody needs thousands of aggregators. Without content, it’s all crap.

My futurist friends are always angry with me for being so negative and skeptical about every shiny new toy or technology, start-up or new normal.  Live through enough 8 tracks and BetaMaxes and you learn not to fawn over anything new. I’ve certainly enjoyed having this blawg, both for the writing outlet as well as the pleasure of hanging out with other blawgers, commenters and readers.

But my vision isn’t obscured by self-interest. Blogs (and blawgs) are so 2000’s. This doesn’t bother me greatly, as people will read SJ if they want to and I’ll continue to write as long as I want to.  But Google is a business, and there is no purpose in supporting a dying genre.  Blogging has been suffocating under its own weight for a few years now, and anyone who doesn’t depend on social media for their living can see it.

There will be a next new thing, and whether it will stick or be a passing phase has yet to be seen. While a few of us old-timers will continue was once called a blog until everyone has moved on to something else,  It’s really simple. One day SJ will fade away and nobody will notice or care.

But not today.