A tool for reading every site you cared about in one place, killed for being used by the wrong number of people. Its closure is the single most-cited death in this dictionary.
I tried to explain Google Reader to my father in 2010. He asked, sincerely, what it was for. I explained. He then explained it, with my explanation attached, to his entire address book. That is how these things actually spread.
Born 2005, dead 2013, 8 yrs in all. The interesting thing about Google Reader is not that it died but that it died completely — no ironic afterlife, no revival, no merch. That is rarer than it sounds.
Logging a live specimen: a village fête programme, 21 July. Google Reader appearing as a menu option. Someone in a meeting proposed this and nobody stopped them.
Half the disagreement in this thread is between people defining Google Reader by what it meant in 2005 and people defining it by what it meant at its peak. Both are right. Neither is the current meaning.
I remember exactly where I was when Google Reader stopped being funny: a work meeting, 2010 or thereabouts, when the most senior person in the room used it correctly. Silence. Then everyone carried on.
Best short gloss I have heard for Google Reader: the thing everyone knew about for about eighteen months and then agreed, without discussing it, not to bring up again.
Logging a live specimen: a church noticeboard, hand-lettered, 8 June. Google Reader in the body text, twice, once misspelt. The second use is the more interesting one.
What does it mean? Write it the way you would say it out loud.
