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Show HN: You Don't Need WordPress – Create a Blog With Only Google Docs

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Re: Show HN: You Don't Need WordPress – Create a Blog With Only Google Docs

#81

Post by asdf1234tx »

patwalls wrote: post #2

Hey HN, In my opinion, platforms like WordPress can feel bloated or be intimidating to new users. For this reason, I wanted to build a blogging platform on top of Google Docs. I actually run my own blog as a side project, and I use GDocs religiously because of its excellent collaboration and sharing features. When I’m collaborating with dozens of writers, it’s convenient to be able to use a product that everyone is f…

"...I'm collaborating with dozens of writers.."

You may be collaborating with more people than you know. Cause it's, you know, google. I wonder how many third parties get access to your data. Remember, when you aren't paying or pay very little, _you_ are the product.

Re: Show HN: You Don't Need WordPress – Create a Blog With Only Google Docs

#82

Post by 52-6F-62 »

asdf1234tx wrote: post #81
patwalls wrote: post #2

Hey HN, In my opinion, platforms like WordPress can feel bloated or be intimidating to new users. For this reason, I wanted to build a blogging platform on top of Google Docs. I actually run my own blog as a side project, and I use GDocs religiously because of its excellent collaboration and sharing features. When I’m collaborating with dozens of writers, it’s convenient to be able to use a product that everyone is f…

"...I'm collaborating with dozens of writers.." You may be collaborating with more people than you know. Cause it's, you know, google. I wonder how many third parties get access to your data. Remember, when you aren't paying or pay very little, _you_ are the product.

Does Google have any clauses like this with regard to Google Docs contents? I didn't think they did, but maybe I'm naive.

On another note that sentiment always reminds me of Morning Moon by the Tragically Hip (https://youtu.be/o-cI87djK2Y). It's a sentiment that bears a lot of truth, regardless of Google's privacy policy. But I digress...

I'm not making strain

Said, "Someone's paying

When something's too cheap

Somebody's paying something"

You said, "Some one's paying something."

Under a morning moon, yeah

Say those little things that don't make anyone feel better, yeah

Re: Show HN: You Don't Need WordPress – Create a Blog With Only Google Docs

#83

Post by bachmeier »

moolcool wrote: post #55

I don't know why this is attracting so much hate here. It's a novel and useful idea. Sure, you're relying on Docs, but that's an established, mainline Google service which makes them money through their enterprise work stack (so I doubt it'll get Google Reader'd). If you were using Google's cloud, nobody in the comments would know or care. Sometimes HN is just negative for the sake of being negative. I think this is…

> I think this is a great solution for anyone who wants to throw some articles online without having to muck about with frameworks or the minutiae of managing a blog.

Your comment might be right, but this sentence is puzzling. How does this require less minutiae than, say, Medium or tumblr?

Re: Show HN: You Don't Need WordPress – Create a Blog With Only Google Docs

#84

Post by pier25 »

patwalls wrote: post #2

Hey HN, In my opinion, platforms like WordPress can feel bloated or be intimidating to new users. For this reason, I wanted to build a blogging platform on top of Google Docs. I actually run my own blog as a side project, and I use GDocs religiously because of its excellent collaboration and sharing features. When I’m collaborating with dozens of writers, it’s convenient to be able to use a product that everyone is f…

Don't you find it difficult to maintain a consistent format/schema between many authors?

I thought about using Google Docs for a publishing project, but the lack of an enforced schema made me pick a JS rich text editor instead.

Also, how do you deal with images?

Re: Show HN: You Don't Need WordPress – Create a Blog With Only Google Docs

#85

Post by moolcool »

bachmeier wrote: post #83
moolcool wrote: post #55

I don't know why this is attracting so much hate here. It's a novel and useful idea. Sure, you're relying on Docs, but that's an established, mainline Google service which makes them money through their enterprise work stack (so I doubt it'll get Google Reader'd). If you were using Google's cloud, nobody in the comments would know or care. Sometimes HN is just negative for the sake of being negative. I think this is…

> I think this is a great solution for anyone who wants to throw some articles online without having to muck about with frameworks or the minutiae of managing a blog. Your comment might be right, but this sentence is puzzling. How does this require less minutiae than, say, Medium or tumblr?

(As good as) No login (if you're logged into Google)

Docs UI -- Editing documents in a proper word processor is better than most blogging platforms

This lets you make a blog of existing docs

It's not a drop-in replacement for everything, but it's novel and makes sense as an option for a lot of people

Re: Show HN: You Don't Need WordPress – Create a Blog With Only Google Docs

#87

Post by _0nac »

asdf1234tx wrote: post #81
patwalls wrote: post #2

Hey HN, In my opinion, platforms like WordPress can feel bloated or be intimidating to new users. For this reason, I wanted to build a blogging platform on top of Google Docs. I actually run my own blog as a side project, and I use GDocs religiously because of its excellent collaboration and sharing features. When I’m collaborating with dozens of writers, it’s convenient to be able to use a product that everyone is f…

"...I'm collaborating with dozens of writers.." You may be collaborating with more people than you know. Cause it's, you know, google. I wonder how many third parties get access to your data. Remember, when you aren't paying or pay very little, _you_ are the product.

The data that G Suite organizations and users put into our systems is theirs, and we do not scan it for advertisements nor sell it to third parties [...] Google does not collect, scan or use data in G Suite Core Services [including Google Docs] for advertising purposes.

https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-white...

Disclaimer: I work at Google Cloud, but not G Suite/Docs.

Re: Show HN: You Don't Need WordPress – Create a Blog With Only Google Docs

#88

Post by askmike »

l_t wrote: post #32
patwalls wrote: post #2

Hey HN, In my opinion, platforms like WordPress can feel bloated or be intimidating to new users. For this reason, I wanted to build a blogging platform on top of Google Docs. I actually run my own blog as a side project, and I use GDocs religiously because of its excellent collaboration and sharing features. When I’m collaborating with dozens of writers, it’s convenient to be able to use a product that everyone is f…

It seems like YDNW is like a CMS that uses Google Drive as the "backend"/admin UI. Personally, I see the benefits to using GDrive as the backend, but instead of having to host a server, I would rather be able to run a static site generator that exports my GDrive folder into some HTML that I can push to a free/cheap hosting provider. Is that something you've considered? Static site generation would also obviate the co…

I do agree that static site generators are preferable for many reasons. But I think that people who want to deal with statically generated files (all technical people) rather write their content in markdown anyway. I don't think there is enough overlap in the two audiences.

Re: Show HN: You Don't Need WordPress – Create a Blog With Only Google Docs

#89

Post by brokenmachine »

arikrak wrote: post #75

This looks like a great idea since Docs is both a good editor and a good way to collaborate. However I don't want to give access to my whole Drive to an unknown product, it would be good if it could just get access to one directory or the like.

Is it necessary to give them access to the whole google drive for this to work?

If so, this is a non-starter for me.

Re: Show HN: You Don't Need WordPress – Create a Blog With Only Google Docs

#90

Post by vezycash »

hjek wrote: post #24
patwalls wrote: post #2

Hey HN, In my opinion, platforms like WordPress can feel bloated or be intimidating to new users. For this reason, I wanted to build a blogging platform on top of Google Docs. I actually run my own blog as a side project, and I use GDocs religiously because of its excellent collaboration and sharing features. When I’m collaborating with dozens of writers, it’s convenient to be able to use a product that everyone is f…

I agree think there's plenty of room for new ideas for collaborative blogging, but I do think relying on centralised proprietary SaaSS is very problematic. Google can just take down your blog any day if they feel like it. With Wordpress I can host my own. I wonder if it would be possible to use something like Etherpad as backend instead?

>Google can just take down your blog any day if they feel like it. That's just the best case scenario. They could close your email, locking you out of gmail, youtube, and any other service tied to the registered email.

And then since Google has been tracking related emails, they'll close those too.

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