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Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

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Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#141
post #139

My guess is Google setup these APIs to help train their learning algorithms. Now that they are trained there's no reason to keep up the service anymore. Maybe the key is to stay away from APIs that do work and don't contribute to revenue?

For e.g. the translate API, how could they train their algorithms? There is no feedback associated with it (that I know of).

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#143
post #141
post #139

My guess is Google setup these APIs to help train their learning algorithms. Now that they are trained there's no reason to keep up the service anymore. Maybe the key is to stay away from APIs that do work and don't contribute to revenue?

For e.g. the translate API, how could they train their algorithms? There is no feedback associated with it (that I know of).

Static analysis of lots of human translators' output. Given the input and output of a strange human filter, they're trying to approximate the filter using machine learning. When their algorithm's output approximates the best translations, they're done.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did a little shy of ten years ago with VB6. People did indeed go batshit, but the government did not get involved.

Except that they provided a replacement and a migration path.

And you could keep on using VB6. I wouldn't be surprised if there still aren't thousands of business critical apps that still aren't using it.

Web Services are different in that when they're no longer supported, you can't use them.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Tweetdeck anyone? And Zynga (FB is its lifeblood) Exceptions are not the rule.

But huge, glaring exceptions can disprove a 'rule'. Risky? sure. Insane? These examples strongly indicate otherwise.

All start ups are risky, no? I don't know that adding more risk to an already risky venture doesn't classify as insane?

I probably agree with you though. Starting up is all about finding the right set of services to match the right set of needs...by any means possible.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#146
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upgrading to Python 3 is simply not an option for me at this time as I am depending on libraries that still require me to be using Python 2: Python 2->3 is an "all or nothing" endeavor due to the horrendously incompatible way they have handled this transition. I mean: the fact that five years /have/ passed and Python 3 is still a silly pipe dream for almost all users of Python should tell you something about how poor…

> the fact that five years /have/ passed and Python 3 is still a silly pipe dream for almost all users of Python should tell you something about how poorly this was done. So far, it has been just how it was meant to be. It was never the goal for Python 3 to be the default Python version by year 2011.

What matters is whether or not the new version is a realistic option for new projects. It is not. That can't be the goal and if it is, the goal is crap.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#147
post #47

Question: Can anyone recommend another Translation API? The problem is that the translation work that Google does is the best out there that I've seen, and I'm not even sure if there's a decent alternative to be found.

Full disclosure: I currently work with the company detailed below (myGengo). Depending on your needs, you could consider human based translation, which is generally more accurate than machine-based translation. Over at myGengo ( http://mygengo.com/ ) we offer an API to help people get translations done by an actual translator, as opposed to a machine (think Mechanical Turk, but focused on translation). Feel free to c…

thank you!

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did a little shy of ten years ago with VB6. People did indeed go batshit, but the government did not get involved.

Except that they provided a replacement and a migration path.

That was not a replacement but a completely different product with superficial simalarities and the same name. The path was not a migration path but a runaway path.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#149
Far more likely than 'abuse' (they could have just charged afterall) is probably Google's realization that they have an uncontested lead in machine translation - and there is a lot of money to be made here.. They recently won a contract with the European patent office to machine translate patents for them...

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#150
post #11

It's really too bad. The Translate API was super, super fun to play with. I made myself a cute little interface to translate JavaScript or CSV arrays into multiple languages simultaneously. I envisioned being able to build fully self-translating web applications. And there's no other company providing this type of technology in this fashion. If there's any startup working in this area, here's your chance.

Agreed. This is a great opportunity for a startup to swoop in, clone the Google API so the only change necessary is authentication tokens and URI, and get everyone to switch to their (paid) platform.

It's hard for a startup to "swoop in", because Google uses statistical analysis in it's translation software if I understand correctly various articles about this topic. This means that they have thousands of correctly translated documents from which the software learns. And (so they say) it gets better and better with time, because they feed it more and more documents in various languages. I'm sure I've overly simplified the Google's implementation and there's a lot more to it, but I'm trying to make a point :)

In short, it takes considerable amount of resources to make it work on a Google translate level.

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