Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like I better get started on my Stadia clone ;)
"netflix for games" is an incredible value proposition if you have the capital to act on it.
So Apple Arcade?
RIP Google Reader
231–240 of 424 posts
Re: RIP Google Reader
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was the network effect or community? I thought it was just an RSS reader. Were there forums or commenting on posts or something? I don't remember anything at all like that.
Yes you could follow friends who could republish from their feeds onto a feed you could subscribe to and eventually it supported comments on those items which would allow discussion within their community. Discoverability and community which hasn't been replicated with the scattered userbase after it was killed.
Wow that sounds awesome.
Re: RIP Google Reader
#233Whatever was said at the time, I’m convinced Google Reader was collateral damage from the Bay of Pigs Google Plus effort. It had social features (which I honestly never used) and anything social had to be G+. Still, I honestly don’t understand why this is the hill people want to die on, what they feel most betrayed about. Like I haven’t seen some people this upset since Firefly was canceled.
The social features were incredible.
Roughly fifty friends and I shared articles and had long comment threads.
Think of it as a private reddit where there's no barrier to joining a conversation with people you know.
Re: RIP Google Reader
#234Something I find really interesting about the closure of Google Reader is that it affected a relatively tiny proportion of people - the vast majority of humans have never heard of RSS and would have no idea what the product was even for. But... those ten million users are incredibly influential. Today they are in positions where they make cloud computing purchasing decisions on behalf of huge organizations. And they…
This sounds more like a fantasy based on questionable ideas of karma or natural justice than an actual business consideration for Google.
Reader wasn't the breaking point for my company, but there's a clear trend in Google products
- They will break your API contracts, and break them often.
- They will likely be end-of-lifed, usually 2 to 5 years after implementation (perfect timing for the devs at your company that did the original implementation to have mostly moved on to a different company, so lots of domain knowledge loss right before a major product shift)
- They often look shiny but run like absolute fucking dogshit. I don't know if you've loaded GCP console (or hell, even just gmail)_recently, but prepare to spend 30+ seconds waiting for the initial pageload to finish.
----
I have influence on which products we purchase and use. We do not use Google for anything in production (with the exception of our Android app, for fairly obvious reasons).
Again, reader didn't break the camel's back, but it sure added some weight.
Re: RIP Google Reader
#235So basically, one can begin slapping together a competitor as soon as Google rolls out a service—because the service is likely to go the way of the Reader in a few years.
That might be true, but the risk is always that Google can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
Re: RIP Google Reader
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
In retrospect Reader's death marked a turning point in how Google was perceived. There were grumblings before that but Google was still the darling of the web. As you say, Google+ was consuming Google at that time. So when they killed Reader it was not just killing a beloved service. It also acted like a lightning rod for the discontent that had started to swell. A lot of people would never again view Google through…
It's that, but it's also a symbol for how the Web has changed. Google bulldozing Reader in order to clear ground for a (intended) social media behemoth reflects how all sorts of smaller online communities and spaces have been razed or faded away as everything continues to consolidate onto the social media giants.
Some people are trying to build a community here: https://neocities.org/
Re: RIP Google Reader
#237Whatever was said at the time, I’m convinced Google Reader was collateral damage from the Bay of Pigs Google Plus effort. It had social features (which I honestly never used) and anything social had to be G+. Still, I honestly don’t understand why this is the hill people want to die on, what they feel most betrayed about. Like I haven’t seen some people this upset since Firefly was canceled.
I liked Google+ disappointing that it did not catch on
Re: RIP Google Reader
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, Google's launch validates a market, creates enthusiasm, and once they shut it down you can be there to catch the users.
This is the VC cycle in a nutshell: venture capital does some PoC, business/tech R&D, and when it fails (usually does!) the lessons are still available to others. It's no different even if the (defunct) startup has a patent: IP law doesn't really matter when the IP doesn't have any money behind it.
Vine lives in a glass jar on the mantlepiece.
Re: RIP Google Reader
#239Whatever was said at the time, I’m convinced Google Reader was collateral damage from the Bay of Pigs Google Plus effort. It had social features (which I honestly never used) and anything social had to be G+. Still, I honestly don’t understand why this is the hill people want to die on, what they feel most betrayed about. Like I haven’t seen some people this upset since Firefly was canceled.
Quite simply, Google Reader is antiethical to an Internet brokered by a central conglomerate. It made total sense for Google to kill it. They wanted the shitshow we have now; however on the heels of Gmail they thought they could take over every other market (social, news, announcements, etc.) too. The irony is that killing Google Reader caused enough customer fallout that none of these other products ever made it. However they wouldnt have made it if Google hadn't killed Reader.
In retrospect Google should have doubled down to monetize Reader. I'm pretty damn sure we'd be consming far less of our news directly from Facebook and Reddit had they done so.
Re: RIP Google Reader
#240So basically, one can begin slapping together a competitor as soon as Google rolls out a service—because the service is likely to go the way of the Reader in a few years.
I think that is a reasonable take, it my more accurately say to both founders and investors that time / money invested in doing something Google is already doing is not a "bad bet"[1] [1] Caveat search engines? Who knows when that house of cards will finally collapse.
[1] only "knuckleheads" would take that one on ;) Come join the new club in town https://knuckleheads.club/ - your immense knowledge and experience can help the cause a lot.