@Gruber on Google’s trust problem, a correction

John Gruber talking about the Google Reader shutdown on Daring Fireball:

All companies cancel services and abandon apps. The difference with Google Reader is that they’ve canceled something beloved.

I’d correct that to say that Google has canceled a service that was beloved by influential people.

This is a real problem for Google.  In launching Keep this week they’ve received coverage from the usual tech focused outlets.  However, much, if not all, of this coverage has been tainted with negative comments regarding Google’s trustworthiness in the wake of Reader closing.

Google rely on these outlets to be opinion formers.  They are the early adopters who inform the public opinion.  Google’s path to market is still primarily through word of mouth*, and word of mouth begins with these outlets, spreading through the people who read them and then outwards to the big bad world.

The first two steps in that chain are now somewhat hesitant to recommend a new Google service to friends and family because they will almost certainly be Reader users.

Google Reader may only have been used by a (relatively) small number of users, but they are influential people.

* I’ve only seen Google market a handful of services in any way that could be considered mainstream.  GMail, Chrome and the Chromebook.