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Expunging Google

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Re: Expunging Google

#41

Post by alexeston »

Just like everybody else said, Google is not moving against the open web. Rather the opposite. The only thing I agree with is the part where Google tries to get everybody to use Google only, which makes sense considering Google can be compared to a small empire. I mean, has anyone seen the office buildings that Google has?

As for Chrome, I think Webkit (or now Blink) is where web happens fastest. All new web experiments are done with -webkit, not -moz-, and you gotta go where the majority goes. In this case anyway. I haven't used gmail for a long time tho', because I didn't like that the content of my emails get used for ads - so I set up my own email server for personal usage. Other then that, maps, search .. it does what I need it to do so whether it tracks me or whatever is just the cost of the service.

Re: Expunging Google

#42

Post by cromwellian »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #32
cromwellian wrote: post #6

"It's because I think that Google is now working against the potential of the open web" That's a pretty bold claim and an epic overreaction, especially given that Google currently derives 97% of its revenue from the Web, and if it goes away, it would be very problematic for Google.

The Web is a small subset of the Internet. There are many other protocols to enable the sharing of data between individuals and platforms, and it looks like Google wishes to deprecate at least some of those in favour of its own end-to-end solution. I think that killing off Reader in favour of G+ is the start of acceleration in that direction. I hope I'm wrong.

First of all, the quote, from you, specifically says "open Web" not "open Internet"

Secondly, Reader was not killed because of G+. If FriendFeed is finally killed off, will you say it was because Facebook needed the resources and engineers on a competing product? Consumers have moved on to desire the kinds of features that are inherent in services like Facebook, and RSS simply isn't suited to solving the problem of federated social networking. There is no open standard for this, remember, Google tried it with PubHubSubHub/WebFinger/OpenID/OAuth/ActivityStreams but it didn't work.

I favor federated feeds as well (see my essay http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-web.htm...), but honestly, for me personally, RSS was a HUGE step back from what I had on USENET in the 80s with RN/TRN. Someone must create a new, open federated social networking platform, but honestly, you can't put the cart before the horse. Google tried that several times and failed.

First, you've got to built a super successful platform consumers love, then you can standardize it. The history of doing it the other way is littered with failure. Remember OpenSocial?

I don't think Google has lost sight of the Open Web, I think it just realized that you must focus on the end user design issues first if you want to be successful. Ignore this at your peril, look at the way consumers flock to native apps on mobile. They care about experiences, not implementation. If the "open web" specs don't do the job, then you need to create a product first that consumers show they want, and then work backwards to figure out how to fix the specs.

Re: Expunging Google

#43

Post by jmesserly »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #36
felipelalli wrote: post #30

exagerado.

Nah, farsighted :) Seriously, you just wait. If you're a user on a commercial system you didn't pay for (Google, Facebook, etc.) then you're not a customer, you're cattle. Your value is directly proportional to how much the company running the system knows about you. I don't like where Facebook is going, and I think Google is following in their footsteps, albeit helped along by an excellent reputation for quality and…

> Maybe I'm just being a curmudgeon, but I think Google is playing the same 'embrace and extend' card as Microsoft did back in the day, just for slightly different reasons.

I see this meme a lot, but I don't get it how the analogy is supposed to work.

There is actual evidence that Microsoft in the 90's was trying to sabotage standard protocols and open source software, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents.

The key part of "embrace, extend, and extinguish" strategy was extending the standard in proprietary ways, thus making it incompatible and no longer implementable via open source software, thus killing it.

I don't get how any of this applies to any web company, where nearly the entire business is based on the web and the standards that back it. It's no wonder that many of these companies contribute back to the web standards and open source software. Sure, these contributions are in the company's interests--but that's the whole point. We reached a time when it's in interests of many big (and small) corporations to contribute to open source and standards (including Microsoft!).

Some people see efforts to improve standards or contribute new ones as somehow bad, "embrace and extend". When actually it's the opposite: investing in the commons to promote its welfare.

Obligatory disclaimer: speaking for myself here, not any employer past or present.

Re: Expunging Google

#44

Post by joahua »

incanus77 wrote: post #27
joahua wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty incomplete for parts of the world, and certain applications require accuracy (or at least completeness). The answer, of course, is to contribute, but when your core business isn't mapping that's hard to propose as a viable fix. Parts of the world in my case ~= Sydney, which has a decent number of geeks per capita to contribute. OSM is wonderful, but has a way to go before it's a viable solution for everyo…

Check out MapBox and http://ideditor.com .

iDeditor is great! Leagues ahead of other OSM interfaces I've seen :) Did MapBox have anything to do with it? Polished! Love the walkthrough!

I've just recently discovered (and love) TileMill.

Re: Expunging Google

#46

Post by duncan_bayne »

cromwellian wrote: post #42
duncan_bayne wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Web is a small subset of the Internet. There are many other protocols to enable the sharing of data between individuals and platforms, and it looks like Google wishes to deprecate at least some of those in favour of its own end-to-end solution. I think that killing off Reader in favour of G+ is the start of acceleration in that direction. I hope I'm wrong.

First of all, the quote, from you, specifically says "open Web" not "open Internet" Secondly, Reader was not killed because of G+. If FriendFeed is finally killed off, will you say it was because Facebook needed the resources and engineers on a competing product? Consumers have moved on to desire the kinds of features that are inherent in services like Facebook, and RSS simply isn't suited to solving the problem of f…

You're right; I've corrected that.

You're also correct that RSS doesn't solve the problem of federated social networking. It was never intended to.

W.r.t. developing protocols for federated social networking: Google isn't interested; it would harm their bottom line if users on their systems could easily share content outside those systems. Hence why Google+ doesn't even offer an RSS feed.

Do you really, hand-on-heart, think that Google would support a federated social media protocol on Google+ should such a thing come into being? Do you think they're planning to build such a protocol?

Re: Expunging Google

#47

Post by cageface »

I understand why people are reluctant to trust a single corporation with so much control over their personal information, particularly when, as they say, the user is as much the product as the customer. I'm generally a big defender of Google but even I am disquieted by their maneuvering around Google+.

However, I also doubt it's possible to build services as sophisticated as GMail on direct payments from users. I strongly suspect that very few people would be willing to pay what it would cost to build and run a service like GMail without ads.

Re: Expunging Google

#48

Post by duncan_bayne »

ebbv wrote: post #35

This is not conscious consumerism. This is a childish temper tantrum. Chrome has better developer tools. If your job is being a web dev and you purposely make your job harder because you're mad at Google for shutting down Reader, you're not being rational.

I'll still happily use Chromium for web development, as and where necessary. Just not signed in to Google for sync, etc. etc.

I do wonder though ... would you have described the formation of the FSF as a childish temper tantrum? I remember the days when to use Linux as a development OS was painful ... it worked out well in the end though :)

Re: Expunging Google

#49

Post by [deleted] »

alexeston wrote: post #41

Just like everybody else said, Google is not moving against the open web. Rather the opposite. The only thing I agree with is the part where Google tries to get everybody to use Google only, which makes sense considering Google can be compared to a small empire. I mean, has anyone seen the office buildings that Google has? As for Chrome, I think Webkit (or now Blink) is where web happens fastest. All new web experime…

[deleted]

Re: Expunging Google

#50

Post by duncan_bayne »

jmesserly wrote: post #43
duncan_bayne wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, farsighted :) Seriously, you just wait. If you're a user on a commercial system you didn't pay for (Google, Facebook, etc.) then you're not a customer, you're cattle. Your value is directly proportional to how much the company running the system knows about you. I don't like where Facebook is going, and I think Google is following in their footsteps, albeit helped along by an excellent reputation for quality and…

> Maybe I'm just being a curmudgeon, but I think Google is playing the same 'embrace and extend' card as Microsoft did back in the day, just for slightly different reasons. I see this meme a lot, but I don't get it how the analogy is supposed to work. There is actual evidence that Microsoft in the 90's was trying to sabotage standard protocols and open source software, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Docu…

... except where it isn't in their interests, which is why Google is trying to kill off RSS with a multi-pronged strategy (ignore RSS in Chromium, kill off RSS reader, don't offer an RSS feed in G+).

If your platform is free-as-in-beer, you have to monetise your users to advertisers. You do this by learning more about them by keeping them within your ecosystem, not by allowing them access to your platform through open protocols.

I see it as a fundamental conflict between users of a system (you and me) and the customers (advertisers). Google has made it clear which side of that equation they care about. See e.g. their support of DRM in HTML.

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