Bloglines: Killed by the Butler, in the Conservatory, with a Need for Brand Focusing

On November 1st, my longtime favorite RSS reader website,
Bloglines.com, will be kaput. It’s being put down by its corporate
master, Ask.com. You know, that other search engine that no one uses.
The one that used to be Ask Jeeves, with that happy little butler…. Flash back a year ago: my good friend over at Rick’s Cafe Americain
was trying to talk me into trying out Google Reader. I was afraid of the
implications; I didn’t want to give more of my online info and habits
over to that privacy-gobbling West Coast monster. —Mike Rubino, Tranquility Lost