Bloglines Is Dead, Accuses Twitter Of Murdering It

After popularizing online feed readers, it looks as if IAC (owners of Ask.com) are permanently shutting down Bloglines apparently due to lack of interest.

However what’s surprising is that it was not a rival like Google Reader who killed off Bloglines, but rather a Xoogler (aka ex-Googler) whose social network made Bloglines obsolete.

It’s finally happened. Bloglines,the troubled RSS feed reader owned by IAC, will officially be shut down, the company has told TechCrunch exclusively. The site has had a tumultuous history, so it’s unsurprising that IAC has finally put the platform out of its misery. […]

Doug Leeds, President of Ask.com tells us that the reasoning behind closing Bloglines came down to the fact that the market for people who use Bloglines (and RSS readers, he adds) isn’t growing, and is actually shrinking as people shift to realtime news streams such as Twitter to consume content on the web. (via TechCrunch)

IAC plans on shutting down the server on October 1st, although they have yet to release an official announcement to their users (at least the ones who have not yet defected to Google Reader).

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While it’s easy to blame Twitter for the death of their once glorious feed reader, the real killer is not Twitter but Google, whose entrance into the RSS reader market has disrupted the entire industry (as gReader is free of cost and ads).

With Bloglines calling it quits, RSS addicts will probably have very few options available outside of Google and the desktop (although the former will probably capitalize on Bloglines demise once IAC makes a formal announcement).