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Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

wilwheaton.typepad.com

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Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#3
While I appreciate the sentiment and agree with his point of view, his simply telling Google 'go fuck yourself' doesn't really offer an in-depth critique of why these changes or wrong -- it just smacks of the same old 'Everything that's new sucks' sentiment that I can and do find on IRC every day already. Leave the analyses to the real UX folks.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#4
It's perfectly reasonable that Google would try to consolidate their properties. You used to need a YouTube account to do anything, and they own YouTube and don't feel like managing disparate databases about their users. It may be a minor inconvenience because it's a change from what people are used to, but it makes sense logistically and serves their business interests. They ARE a business after all...

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#5
post #3

While I appreciate the sentiment and agree with his point of view, his simply telling Google 'go fuck yourself' doesn't really offer an in-depth critique of why these changes or wrong -- it just smacks of the same old 'Everything that's new sucks' sentiment that I can and do find on IRC every day already. Leave the analyses to the real UX folks.

I don't think it's meant to be an in depth critique, it's his feedback as a user. He doesn't need to be a design expert or UX expert to know that as a user something is annoying. The real UX folks should be listening to users, they don't have to agree or implement everything said, but they should be listening.

The point seems to be don't rob people of functionality they've come to expect just to push sign-ups.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#6
post #3

While I appreciate the sentiment and agree with his point of view, his simply telling Google 'go fuck yourself' doesn't really offer an in-depth critique of why these changes or wrong -- it just smacks of the same old 'Everything that's new sucks' sentiment that I can and do find on IRC every day already. Leave the analyses to the real UX folks.

UX folks? This is an actual end user expressing strong dislike of something and explaining why. That should have much more weight than "UX folks", unless it is a rare piece of dissat in otherwise glowing feedback, though I doubt it. I have a Google+ account but I would not sign in (or up for one) just to rate a video, I would just say "meh" and wander off elsewhere on the internet. I doubt that would be an uncommon reaction and would change the meaning of the up/down votes from "What do most people think of this video" to "What do Google+ users think of this video". Those are two very different metrics.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#7
They're not crippling functionality to force people to g+. Adding a social layer to existing products can potentially make them better if done right (ie: finding content that was upvoted by people whose opinion you care about, vs randoms you don't care about).

If done wrong it can be crippling. But then it's a problem of that specific implementation, and you could make a constructive critic to improve it. Instead, the author is just raging against g+ for no good reason.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#8

They're not crippling functionality to force people to g+. Adding a social layer to existing products can potentially make them better if done right (ie: finding content that was upvoted by people whose opinion you care about, vs randoms you don't care about). If done wrong it can be crippling. But then it's a problem of that specific implementation, and you could make a constructive critic to improve it. Instead, th…

No, the author is right.

The same thing happened when they linked up gmail accounts to YT logins. I just stopped watching videos that required a login, because I didn't want to link my YT account to my gmail account for privacy reasons.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#9

It's perfectly reasonable that Google would try to consolidate their properties. You used to need a YouTube account to do anything, and they own YouTube and don't feel like managing disparate databases about their users. It may be a minor inconvenience because it's a change from what people are used to, but it makes sense logistically and serves their business interests. They ARE a business after all...

YouTube is not Google. Google is not YouTube. They just happen to own it. Google should start remembering that before YouTube gets myspaced.

Which imo is looking increasingly likely.

Vimeo is one competitor which seems to already be growing like crazy for example.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#10
post #3

While I appreciate the sentiment and agree with his point of view, his simply telling Google 'go fuck yourself' doesn't really offer an in-depth critique of why these changes or wrong -- it just smacks of the same old 'Everything that's new sucks' sentiment that I can and do find on IRC every day already. Leave the analyses to the real UX folks.

The main reason he gives is that it increases the barrier to entry for liking a video, which is important for many content creators. (like him) This seems concrete and significant. I don't agree however with his assessment of this changing the funding equation for people getting production funded. As long as the change applies globally, everyone should feel the hit equally and it they should be able to correct for it.
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