The Great Google Goat Rodeo • Hacker News Board

Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo

#21

Post by lawdawg » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:06 PM UTC

Intermernet wrote: post #18

This is probably an unpopular point of view, but: I actually agree with author (despite his going into a rant in the latter part of the article) about the horribleness of needing a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days (I'm wondering if any clueless fool in their marketing/sales dept. has suggested G+ login for search yet...), but I actually quite like Google+ . It's, IMHO, miles in fr…

It astonishes me that people don't have an issue with this:

> I need a Google account to interact with most of Google's services these days.

but seem to have major issues with this:

> I need a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days.

Why do people have such a hard time accepting that Google+ accounts are a natural progression of Google's account management (and eventually will replace the old, fragmented Google, Youtube, whatever account system)? Sure, it has a companion social networking site, and requires a real name (or what that looks like one), but that requirement could have been applied to regular Google accounts as well and I highly doubt we would still see the amount of complaining we see today about Google+ accounts.

Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo

#22

Post by rasterizer » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

jtbigwoo wrote: post #16

rasterizer wrote: post #6

I'm not quite sure what the author is going on about in that post: 'google is good but they make money so they're not good', 'google makes lots of products, then kills some of them so they're evil', 'google design is not perfect so I don't like them'. It seems like he started from the assumption that Google is evil then he went rambling around that without making a coherent argument. And I think by "rodeo" he meant I…

"Goat rodeo" is slang for a particularly chaotic situation where nobody's in charge and everybody's going in different directions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_rodeo

I see, then no convincing case was made to support that unless if you count the lament about experimentation and their numerous products, and no reasonable connection was made between that and 'evilness'.

Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo

#23

Post by jessaustin » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:13 PM UTC

lawdawg wrote: post #15

iamwil wrote: post #14

Wait. But that's what innovation cycle looks like. You try a bunch of stuff, and most of it fails.

Seriously, name me one successful company that doesn't have a host of failures and cancelled products attached to their name. I much prefer Google launch a ton of products and only focuses on the one's that "stick" because I know they will generally create an incredibly good product once they are fully invested in it (see Android, Chrome, GMail, Docs, Analytics, etc).

Well then I certainly hope that "Plus" will be recognized as a failure sooner rather than later, because as TFA states that crap is getting spread over all the good stuff Google does. When normal people start using other search engines and maps to avoid the Plus hassles, Google should know they are damaging the franchise.

Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo

#24

Post by jessaustin » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:15 PM UTC

fraserharris wrote: post #13

Google doesn't force you to use Google+ as a social network, it forces you to create a profile so it can unify identity across Google accounts.

Who wants this? Are Google so hopeless in strategy that they have to borrow from Facebook?

Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo

#25

Post by lawdawg » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:17 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #23

lawdawg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, name me one successful company that doesn't have a host of failures and cancelled products attached to their name. I much prefer Google launch a ton of products and only focuses on the one's that "stick" because I know they will generally create an incredibly good product once they are fully invested in it (see Android, Chrome, GMail, Docs, Analytics, etc).

Well then I certainly hope that "Plus" will be recognized as a failure sooner rather than later, because as TFA states that crap is getting spread over all the good stuff Google does. When normal people start using other search engines and maps to avoid the Plus hassles, Google should know they are damaging the franchise.

What exactly are these "Plus hassles" you refer to?

Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo

#26

Post by MostAwesomeDude » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:18 PM UTC

lawdawg wrote: post #21

Intermernet wrote: post #18

This is probably an unpopular point of view, but: I actually agree with author (despite his going into a rant in the latter part of the article) about the horribleness of needing a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days (I'm wondering if any clueless fool in their marketing/sales dept. has suggested G+ login for search yet...), but I actually quite like Google+ . It's, IMHO, miles in fr…

It astonishes me that people don't have an issue with this: > I need a Google account to interact with most of Google's services these days. but seem to have major issues with this: > I need a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days. Why do people have such a hard time accepting that Google+ accounts are a natural progression of Google's account management (and eventually will replace th…

Whatever you say, Mr. Lawdawg. What a great last name; I wish I could have one like that.

Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo

#27

Post by corresation » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:18 PM UTC

lawdawg wrote: post #21

Intermernet wrote: post #18

This is probably an unpopular point of view, but: I actually agree with author (despite his going into a rant in the latter part of the article) about the horribleness of needing a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days (I'm wondering if any clueless fool in their marketing/sales dept. has suggested G+ login for search yet...), but I actually quite like Google+ . It's, IMHO, miles in fr…

It astonishes me that people don't have an issue with this: > I need a Google account to interact with most of Google's services these days. but seem to have major issues with this: > I need a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days. Why do people have such a hard time accepting that Google+ accounts are a natural progression of Google's account management (and eventually will replace th…

This is exactly my confusion about this parade of complaints. Google Account --> Google+ Account. Nothing about that says that you ever have to use a single aspect of Google+ the Facebook-competitor, and your empty profile can sit doing nothing. I do not understand the outrage simply that it exists.

Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo

#28

Post by skw » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:25 PM UTC

This article is kinda silly. Yes google owns everything but if they can afford to run a bunch of pilot projects that ultimately fail, what's the problem? These products can be re-imagined in more effective ways. Also allowing different teams to house their projects in various places (google code, github..) is awesome. Yes I agree things are a little bit all over the place, but I would possibly want to work at Google.

Maybe my perspective is skewed, as I don't use many google frameworks or resources to develop with...

Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo

#29

Post by lawdawg » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:25 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #24

fraserharris wrote: post #13

Google doesn't force you to use Google+ as a social network, it forces you to create a profile so it can unify identity across Google accounts.

Who wants this? Are Google so hopeless in strategy that they have to borrow from Facebook?

Do you have a better solution for unifying identity across Google accounts? If your opinion is that separate products should have separate accounts and credentials then we will just have to agree to disagree. I can understand why that would be someone's preference, but I can't understand why someone would bash a company that has the desire to utilize a single profile/account for all of their products.

Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo

#30

Post by rm999 » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:28 PM UTC

fraserharris wrote: post #13

Google doesn't force you to use Google+ as a social network, it forces you to create a profile so it can unify identity across Google accounts.

I clicked a hackernews link yesterday and forgot about the tab for an hour. When I finally got to it I was somewhat shocked to see it was a google+ page that automatically signed me into hangouts, where several tried to chat with me. About half my google plus home screen area is devoted to chat or attempts at convincing me to upload a profile picture or attempts at convincing me to find more friends.

I'm sure if I was a regular user of google+ I'd turn off many of its social features, but by default it's at least as social as facebook. I agree ultimately its "lowest common denominator" purpose is a unifying platform for google, but as a heavy google user who isn't looking for another social network (which describes a lot of people out there) google+ is way too social. It's simply something I want to avoid, yet I feel like I'm forced to interact with it too much.