There are a lot of really stupid and shit products out there on the web all of them floating the Web 2.0 banner as if it was some automatic symbol to the road of success - or at the very least a signal flare to Google and Microsoft that they can come knocking with their checkbooks. Of the one’s that I use and liked - and yes even a cranky old fart can like some of the new services - such as FriendFeed, RSSMeme and ReadBurner I was said to see today that ReadBurner is no more.

I first caught the news via Louis Gray’s post and the official announcement from Alexander Marktl himself on his blog

I’m sorry to announce that ReadBurner is no longer availiable.

The reason is that I just don’t have time to keep the site up and running, because of some freelance projects that I cannot drop out.

In his sign-off notice Alexander is big hearted enough to suggest that people who liked this kind of aggregator service should head over to his once competition RSSMeme. He also leaves it open for anyone that would be interested in buying the domain or technology to contact him.

That aside I personally think the closing of the ReadBurner doors is a bad; and sad, event. Alexander brought what turned out to be an excellent idea to the masses and it proved to be so popular that it infringed on his other contract jobs that were putting a roof over his head. I am really sorry to see ReadBurner closing its doors this way and I know if I had the money and the programming ability I would be contacting Alexander ASAP.

Since that is not the case I truly hope that someone with the means and ability does indeed pick up ReadBurner and keep it moving forward because I believe that with the service closing its door it is the users who are the big losers in this case.

On the other hand I can totally understand Alexander’s reasons for doing this and it also shows that the basic philosophy of the Web 2.0 free economy has some serious flaw when an excellent service as ReadBurner has to close its doors.

Thanks Alexander for everything you put into ReadBurner and I truly wish you the best of success regardless of where you end up next.

Conversation Tags: ReadBurner, Web 2.0, monetization