How can anyone expect serious and fair treatment when half of their post is threatening what he'll do with posts that don't conform to his specification? Trolling everyone in advance is not a good strategy for gathering feedback from community. If he can't face the regrets of the community, he should just keep his mouth shut, have a bit more respect towards others.
Chief Architect of Google+ requests clarification on Google Reader
81–90 of 131 posts
Re: Chief Architect of Google+ requests clarification on Google Reader
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a much simpler explanation: the lead of one project is looking to improve his project however he can. In this case, he sees the ruckus over Reader as a chance to get a bunch of feature requests. It's kind of like a vulture picking over a carcass, but hey, circle of life and all that. It's important to remember that to Google products like Reader are blips on the radar. Every second they spent scheming about…
I would find it difficult to believe that Google+ wouldn't have already been looking into getting news feed subscriptions into their product. An RSS-style solution with discoverability would leap-frog Facebook's News stuff and could even put them into quasi-competition with Twitter. It seems an inevitable sort of feature. So the idea that they were surprised by this and are going to start from zero to build a new bit…
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Re: Chief Architect of Google+ requests clarification on Google Reader
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a much simpler explanation: the lead of one project is looking to improve his project however he can. In this case, he sees the ruckus over Reader as a chance to get a bunch of feature requests. It's kind of like a vulture picking over a carcass, but hey, circle of life and all that. It's important to remember that to Google products like Reader are blips on the radar. Every second they spent scheming about…
I would find it difficult to believe that Google+ wouldn't have already been looking into getting news feed subscriptions into their product. An RSS-style solution with discoverability would leap-frog Facebook's News stuff and could even put them into quasi-competition with Twitter. It seems an inevitable sort of feature. So the idea that they were surprised by this and are going to start from zero to build a new bit…
You seem to be disagreeing with a thing nobody said. It is possible that they were already exploring a news feed feature and that they see this as an opportunity to find out what their users want from the feature.
Re: Chief Architect of Google+ requests clarification on Google Reader
#84If you don't like what is being said, change the conversation. Nice try buddy, I'm not falling into that trap.
You know, there's more than one person who works at Google. There are even multiple departments! So while it might seem that when "Google" says that it's removing Google Reader and then "Google" asks what we thought was good about Google Reader it's someone changing the subject, it isn't really.
Re: Chief Architect of Google+ requests clarification on Google Reader
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it came from an executive or a press release, perhaps I would have assumed that. But it came from an engineer.
"an engineer", Chief Architect, same difference, right?
Where I work, Chief Architects do not make decisions about killing products. That happens higher than them. Their responsibility is engineering the architecture of their product. So, yes, I think it's accurate to refer to a Chief Architect as "an engineer."
Re: Chief Architect of Google+ requests clarification on Google Reader
#86Google can be damn stupid sometimes. They shutdown Google Reader which is used daily by every journalist on the planet. This resulted in a ton of bad press which was completely foreseeable. Now they have some chieftain try to change the conversation into "Tell me what you loved about Reader", under the guise that they will use your comment to help make better products. As if Google has no data on how people use Googl…
> they will use your comment to help make better products.
Ironically, I can't really come up with 'better product' in this specific use case.
"Reader killed RSS" feels just wrong. If anything Reader made RSS thrive, because the data source that get sinked into Reader data is RSS.
Reader is a killer product that shifted the landscape because it fills one single role (RSS aggregator with read+fav status syncing), and does it extremely well, in a fantastically unobtrusive way. I sure as hell don't want another Google product as a remplacement, nor another existing or future product integrate RSS aggregation (and certainly not Plus) as part of it. I don't want a kitchensink or mishmash social/news/aggregator app.
Anyone current or past Google employee who put some work on Reader, here's my personal message to you: thank you, your work is awesome.
Re: Chief Architect of Google+ requests clarification on Google Reader
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
His assumption only requires the group that's replacing Google Reader to have been aware of and involved in the effort to replace Google Reader. Which seems pretty reasonable.
There is a much simpler explanation: the lead of one project is looking to improve his project however he can. In this case, he sees the ruckus over Reader as a chance to get a bunch of feature requests. It's kind of like a vulture picking over a carcass, but hey, circle of life and all that. It's important to remember that to Google products like Reader are blips on the radar. Every second they spent scheming about…
Or he could just meet with whoever was in charge of Google Reader, down the street.
Re: Chief Architect of Google+ requests clarification on Google Reader
#88It's been quite a while since I've used Google Reader since my reliance on RSS in general has decreased over the last couple years. However, for anyone who still uses Reader on a regular basis who might be able to comment on this, I think Yonatan might be missing the point. It seems he's looking to incorporate individual features/aspects of Reader into G+ in order to woo newly disenfranchised users back into the Google ecosystem. The problem is that I think this is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Even if he incorporated a large subset of Reader features into G+, I think at best that would likely only capture the wants of a small fraction of the Reader user base given that both products have inherently different goals. G+ is, depending on how you look at it, either a full-fledged social network or a central identity service connecting various components of the Google ecosystem. Reader is a dedicated, decentralized (in the sense that the feeds themselves come from outside Google) RSS consumer. Both products seemingly have different philosophical approaches to the web (walled-garden vs. generally open) and I'm not sure that can be reconciled so easily.
These musings are off the top of my head though, so I'd love to hear thoughts from any avid Reader users and/or G+ engineers/users who agree/disagree.
Re: Chief Architect of Google+ requests clarification on Google Reader
#89What a great idea!! Getting feedback to incorporate into the next Google product! Whatever it is, I can't wait to start incorporating it into my daily workflow...I know they would never yank it or take it down, right? They are totally dependable!!
Seriously, I was getting close to using G+ once in a while for things...now I will never, and I'll think twice before using any Google product on a regular basis. Dependability matters.
Re: Chief Architect of Google+ requests clarification on Google Reader
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a much simpler explanation: the lead of one project is looking to improve his project however he can. In this case, he sees the ruckus over Reader as a chance to get a bunch of feature requests. It's kind of like a vulture picking over a carcass, but hey, circle of life and all that. It's important to remember that to Google products like Reader are blips on the radar. Every second they spent scheming about…
Or he could just meet with whoever was in charge of Google Reader, down the street.
You realize this person almost certainly doesn't exist, right?