They usually shut down services based on the lack of users, but we definitely knew that wasn’t the problem. The real problem, in fact, was the change in how people read and consume news throughout the day.

 

Speaking with Wired, Google’s senior director of news and social products Richard Gringras says that “as a culture we have moved into a realm where the consumption of news is a near-constant process,” where people are using their smartphones and tablets to read “bits and bites” of news all throughout the day, rather than sitting down and going through a slew of news, like reading a newspaper.