Some people went into an absolute state of panic when Google announced in March that it would shut down Reader.
But Digg was quick to jump in and announce that it would try to save the day with an RSS reader of its own.
That's because it turns out Digg had a bit of heads-up on the news, Wired's Mat Honan reports.
Digg CEO Andrew McLaughlin worked at Google from 2004 to 2009. But after he left, McLaughlin unsurprisingly stayed in touch with some of his former colleagues.
After seeing a blog post in the fall of 2012 speculating that Google Reader was shutting down, McLaughlin sent a playful note to a friend at Google, offering to "take it off their hands." His friend simply said that Google couldn't sell the Reader name, user data, or code base, so there was really nothing to buy.
This past February, McLaughlin ran into that same friend at a TED conference. His friend told him, "I'm not telling you anything, but we're not going to keep this thing around forever and maybe you want to have something ready by the end of the year."
But as well all know now, Google shuttered Reader much sooner than that. But the July 1 deadline didn't seem to affect Digg's efforts to create its own RSS reader.
Digg will launch the Digg Reader to the public on June 26.
Be sure to head on over to Wired to read the inside story of how Digg built a Google Reader replacement.
SEE ALSO: Google Explains Why It's Killing Google Reader
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