Thousands Of Users Beg Google Not To Shut Down Their Source Of News

Google's decision to shut down its RSS aggregator, Reader, has prompted thousands of people to sign online petitions seeking to save the service.

Reader allows people to quickly scan through news from a variety of content sources. But Google plans to shutter the service on July 1 due to a decline in usage.

One petition on Change.org, titled "Google: Keep Google Reader Running," already has more than 30,000 supporters.

"I've been Google Reader for YEARS," Hillsborough, N.C. resident Patrick Knight writes in support of the petition. "I literally have thousands of starred items. 'Social Newsreading' cannot COMPARE to the simplicity of RSS. Please, keep Reader around. The community, while smaller, is still very active."

There's a handful of other petitions that have attracted tons of supporters.

The "Google Inc: Please do not shut down Google Reader" petition has attracted nearly 3,000 supporters.

"Many of us use Google Reader on a daily basis to keep track of our favorite blogs, archive tweets, keep updated on specific craigslist searches, and for many other uses," Tim Wilson, the petition's creator, writes. "Its simplicity is its strength,"

People have also taken to Twitter to express their dismay with the hashtag #savegooglereader.