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How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

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Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#351

Post by mistermann »

hedora wrote: post #335
mistermann wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google just can't do UI's, I can't think of a UI put out by google that I don't dislike, if not completely hate. It's almost like there's someone super senior in the company who forces bad decisions on designers. The crowning achievement of absurdity is probably the YouTube app, it's not as bad as Skype, but given time they may get there.

Their initial search UI was great, though they ruined that too. I switched away years ago, and am increasingly baffled whenever I accidentally run a google search.

Switched to what though?

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#352

Post by joshuamorton »

lkrubner wrote: post #282

When I talk to the 20 tech people who I respect most, what I notice is that everyone respects Google less now than 5 years ago. Is it a successful branding strategy that generates so much dislike? I'm especially curious because Google is famous for basing its decisions on "data". I have no idea how things work in Google, but I can say that every company I've worked at that supposedly valued "data" in meetings actuall…

What data are you basing the statement that Google's brand is in decline on?

Granted I'm by no means saying Google's messaging strategy is optimal, but it's not totally bonkers.

And the adage "you aren't the user" seems apt here. This applies both to the statement that Google's messaging tools are in decline, and to the statement that Google's brand is.

HN has been decrying google for years now, but he isn't your average consumer. Much as my extended family can all use allo and duo with ease, but I doubt my grandparents know what irc is.

I kind of think that it's difficult if not impossible to appeal to the broader set of people whole also appealing to the hn crowd. And, well, we're a lot smaller.

To loop back to your post, thats part of why data is so important. If you don't base your decisions, at least in part, on data, you end up designing a tool that's useful for you and not for your users. That's not to say that emotion has no place, but I think you're being disingenuous towards data here.

(Note:I work at Google, if that matters)

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#353

Post by gwenzek »

dmix wrote: post #303
cornholio wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then we have XMPP which doesn't support things like video or voice calling The Jingle extension is about a decade old and it's what Google based its support on. They even played ball for a while and released a good quality open libjingle, then decided that fighting spam from the other open XMPP networks is not worth their time and killed the whole openness concept - despite being an orders of magnitude simpler…

> I think now the only escape from the walled gardens is regulatory pressure forcing interconnect of the larger players Sounds good on paper, sure, but ultimately it will end up being a predictable bureaucratic mess, causing more harm than good: a) The mandatory 'open' standard that gets produced will end up being designed by committees of management teams from 6-7 major companies, each with their own list of feature…

You mean like what happened to the web ? I'm a bit tired that every time someone suggests a new regulation/standard on HN, someone feel smandated to explain why regulations are bad and why neo liberalism is awesome.

Could we assume that we all understand the downside of regulations ? but that we still suggest some when the market fall into a bad optimum (bad for the consumer). If you don't agree that the market is stuck in a bad place, fine you can argue that.

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#354

Post by gwenzek »

amedvednikov wrote: post #240
signal11 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you didn't use Jabber, the #1 reason I recommended Google Talk was that it was very, very lightweight at a time when MSN Messenger and friends were adding stickers and other teenager/young-adult friendly* features. Today, ironically your choices for relatively straightforward messaging on the PC/Mac are: iMessage (Mac only), Skype for Business (the consumer client is too distracting for words), Whatsapp Web,…

I'm working on a lightweight native client for all major messengers: https://eul.im It's only 90 KB (!) Right now there's an old barely usable alpha out, but a new release is coming up next week.

Sounds too good to be true! I'll check that.

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#355

Post by wyclif »

LamaOfRuin wrote: post #295
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I still need to keep the SIM card active or I could never switch phones (or reinstall the phone OS) without losing my Signal identity. I cannot ever let go of the phone number I used to activate Signal. In practice, that means I need to keep paying for a phone tariff I may no longer want.

True. I was assuming most people have at least one phone number they want to keep long term (even if it's not always active with their cell). Note though that signal will also work fine with non-traditional services that provide free or much cheaper phone numbers like google voice (US), skype, or twilio. It is true though that you do need to maintain a phone number. That is one of the trade-offs they made to allow it…

Signal will work with Google Voice, but as far as I can tell you still need a smartphone to use it. Without that, you can't even set up an account because you need to scan an OCR code first.

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#356

Post by wyclif »

Shoothe wrote: post #324
rident wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure there were other and earlier offenders, but that doesn't mean Google had to follow suit. They could have contributed something open and federated - an upgrade to XMPP. Branding would have been easy and the darling of the web would have held that image a little longer. But they didn't, the closing and interconnecting of Google's product ecosystem was the beginning of a trend which is now seen across most of their…

Sadly that's also my thoughts about Google. When previously they were open and leading the innovation now they are just blindly copying competition in hope of somehow making it big. Twitter? Google Buzz... Didn't work. Facebook? Google+... Didn't work. Whatsapp? Allo... Didn't work.

Google+... Didn't work.

Actually, I just went over there and Google+ looks like it's working just fine. Many parts of it are thriving and there seems to be a lot of activity in communities. Google+ is niche. Just because it doesn't have the ubiquitous adoption level of Facebook doesn't mean it failed.

I really hate this attitude in our circles that unless an app devours everything else and becomes a unicorn, it's a total failure.

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#357

Post by wyclif »

superasn wrote: post #36
bronson wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google+. Do you not realize the value of Google+??

I just realized that Google+ isn't dead yet. Guess someone at Google is still hopeful about its future? P.S. Also the amount of shit Google+ has fucked wrt to Google services in amazing. It also killed the "+" sign in Google's search results too.

Google+ is very far from being "dead", it's quite lively, though niche compared to Facebook.

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#358

Post by vxNsr »

ossguy wrote: post #271
smt88 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a cynical joke, but for those people who don't use Voice, it's sadly what's really happening. I want to get off Google products for many reasons, but the main reason is becoming that I can't trust them to listen to users.

For people that use Google Voice, that's often the hardest Google service to leave. You can get similar features with https://jmp.chat/ - it supports text and picture messaging (and voicemail transcription) and you can port in your Google Voice number to make the transition seamless for your contacts.

Thanks. Am I correct in assuming this is your project?

How long have you been working on it? What's the exit strategy look like? How big is the team currently?

I noticed that your blog hasn't updated in over two years, while I recognize that making blog posts is time-consuming, when it comes to software that just gives the feeling that the author has abandoned the project. Maybe consider linking to an area you still frequent?

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#359

Post by option_greek »

darklajid wrote: post #237
commandar wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Microsoft has one included with Outlook whose name escapes me. Mircrosoft's current stab at this is called Teams. I think it actually has potential: it's pretty much a clone of Slack, except that MS is willing to declare it compliant with, e.g., HIPAA.

I found it horrible, clients are Electron monsters (but still bo Linux version..) that they shove in your face whenever you try to use the web version. So far I can stick with Lync/Skype for Business at my day job, which is bad too but.. slimmer, and does the job. Most of the time.

I'm positive that they run the whole damn thing in a VM and electron together :). Its the very epitome of slow.

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#360

Post by TheSmiddy »

rjbwork wrote: post #302
verylittlemeat wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Discord is starting to really starting to dominate. More and more often these days you'll find at the bottom of a community info page a discord rather than an IRC channel. Even big pirating communities are making the switch.

How does that work? I'm a regular in the C# Discord community and one of the rules we enforce and have to enforce regularly is no illegal or shifty activity (pirating, cracking, hacking, aimbots, cheating, etc.) because the discord admins don't take kindly to that sort of thing.

Well there's obviously far too much conversation for the admins to actually snoop in on what everybody is saying so unless anybody in the group reports it then it would just fly under the radar.
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