Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disclaimer: I work for the big G Exactly. Google needs a way to identify and canonicalize people and organizations. I think they've tried various automated and smart techniques to limited success, and it's much easier to say that if you create a profile so that you tell us what your identity is and what your websites are, then we can attribute your work in searches much better. You don't ever have to use G+ the web s…
Feature request: Open up google search (API access). Create a marketplace around that index, that no one else on the planet has any hope of duplicating.
The Great Google Goat Rodeo
41–50 of 52 posts
Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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'.
I'm convinced he makes what is at the very least an articulated argument for the first (but never specifically attempts the second) - although I'm forced to use capstone statements here. He specifically says:
> There is no unified Google that is “good” or “evil”. There is just an organizational clusterfuck that is unable to decide what it thinks is truly the best way to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”5. Is that by forcing web authors into a social network in order to improve directory results? Is that by dipping a toe into the music business? Is that by abandoning standards like RSS and XMPP/Jabber? I don’t think so.
and
> Google is not “evil”. Google is too big to be evil. At its worst, Google is banal.
Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disclaimer: I work for the big G Exactly. Google needs a way to identify and canonicalize people and organizations. I think they've tried various automated and smart techniques to limited success, and it's much easier to say that if you create a profile so that you tell us what your identity is and what your websites are, then we can attribute your work in searches much better. You don't ever have to use G+ the web s…
> Google needs a way to identify and canonicalize people and organizations No. Wants. Google wants to have a way to identify and canonicalize people and organizations. It is an understood desire. But it is not a need.
Well, if you're going to be that pedantic, every thing Google does not required by law is a want. When talking products the line between needs and wants gets blurry. The inability to consistently link content to authors is a pretty big problem for search and search quality. Solving a big problem in your product usually falls on the "need" side of the spectrum.
Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo
#44So Google is a big diverse company, it is not one thing. People are still making the same mistake about e.g. Microsoft.
Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Feature request: Open up google search (API access). Create a marketplace around that index, that no one else on the planet has any hope of duplicating.
https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview
unbelievably pathetic compared to resources directed at android, youtube, social network du jour, chrome etc.
especially when the mission is supposed to be - organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
what the mission seems to have degenerated to is, enable people to generate shit loads of photos, videos and messages that no one looks at more than a day after it is produced.
Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo
#46Google+ = Single Sign On across Google Products
Plus
Single Access-Control-List/Rolodex/Address Book Across Google Products
Plus
A social stream site that you can decide to use or not.
The first two are absolute needs. Having a separate set of credentials and identity for GMail, Drive, YouTube, Play, Maps, et al is anti-user and highly annoying. (you can still have multiple identities if you wish by creating separate accounts). When I share documents on Drive, or content from Play, or some other function that requires me to curate a list or group of people, why not have this span services as well?
Now, I sympathize a lot with the notion that these things should be open and federated and not siloed to Google or Facebook. But remember, Google tried OpenID/OAuth/WebFinger/ActivityStreams.ms/PuSH, et al early on, and got crushed by Facebook, and to some extent, all of that lost time on OpenSocial and Buzz allowed Facebook to get further entrenched as the Web's identity provider. Facebook connect is now on every site, and IMHO, it's a lot more onerous than G+ profiles when it comes to privacy.
Long long ago, we had a federated vision of stuff like LDAP + ACAP for distributed identity and profile configuration. If only we could get back to the days of IETF collaboration on fundamental features like this.
Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, well then, I totally disagree with you; I think the article was totally incoherent. But I don't downvote just for disagreement on HN.
His comment was not sarcastic and did add some value. The article didn't come off as incoherent to me, the author made a very clear point early in the article ("their products for users [the ones that collect information to inform advertising] are becoming confused, inarticulate, and increasingly malicious"), and he spent the rest of the article backing up the point. I believe that as a googler you have an obligation…
Why do you think I wasn't being objective? Or by "objective" do you actually mean the opposite (i.e. that I always have to be critical of Google, which is precisely as objective as never being critical of Google)?
We are very critical internally, and I have done my share of criticizing (any Googler can verify this). And if it will make you feel better, personally I do agree with the author's point that Google+ is "getting on" everything. But this article, overall, is rambling and internally inconsistent, to the extent that I genuinely wasn't sure if the OP was being sarcastic by calling it "well-written".
Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo
#48Google+ = Single Sign On across Google Products Plus Single Access-Control-List/Rolodex/Address Book Across Google Products Plus A social stream site that you can decide to use or not. The first two are absolute needs. Having a separate set of credentials and identity for GMail, Drive, YouTube, Play, Maps, et al is anti-user and highly annoying. (you can still have multiple identities if you wish by creating separate…
Google already has single sign-on between all Google products... you make it sound like they are just getting around to this with G+. They have always had a single set of credentials and identity for all of the services you call out, including YouTube (which is a little sketchier as they purchased it, with existing accounts, and so there is an account import and attachment process: but once you've done that, you've always been able to use your Google account to sign in to it).
Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo
#49Google+ = Single Sign On across Google Products Plus Single Access-Control-List/Rolodex/Address Book Across Google Products Plus A social stream site that you can decide to use or not. The first two are absolute needs. Having a separate set of credentials and identity for GMail, Drive, YouTube, Play, Maps, et al is anti-user and highly annoying. (you can still have multiple identities if you wish by creating separate…
Google already has single sign-on between all Google products... you make it sound like they are just getting around to this with G+. They have always had a single set of credentials and identity for all of the services you call out, including YouTube (which is a little sketchier as they purchased it, with existing accounts, and so there is an account import and attachment process: but once you've done that, you've a…
They had single sign-on, but they did not have a unified data-model profile as the TOS/privacy policies made sharing data between services iffy.
My point is, part of G+ is simply a rebranding of functionality that existed before, but now people are all upset over having to have a G+ profile, whereas before, they had a Google Profile.
Creating a Google account should imply creating a G+ account, the same way it implies provisioning Gmail, Drive, et al. If you don't like the G+ news feed, don't use it, it's as simple as that, just like if you're a Dropbox user, don't bother using the free GDrive storage.
Re: The Great Google Goat Rodeo
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
His comment was not sarcastic and did add some value. The article didn't come off as incoherent to me, the author made a very clear point early in the article ("their products for users [the ones that collect information to inform advertising] are becoming confused, inarticulate, and increasingly malicious"), and he spent the rest of the article backing up the point. I believe that as a googler you have an obligation…
Why do you think I wasn't being objective? Or by "objective" do you actually mean the opposite (i.e. that I always have to be critical of Google, which is precisely as objective as never being critical of Google)? We are very critical internally, and I have done my share of criticizing (any Googler can verify this). And if it will make you feel better, personally I do agree with the author's point that Google+ is "ge…
>Or by "objective" do you actually mean the opposite
You're being very snarky and assuming the worst in people's comments. Both samspenc and I meant what we said, as most people generally do. Seriously, you've been less civil than you may realize.
What do I mean by objective? You downvoted a comment that is actually pretty standard/common here ("I liked this article because X"). I can only imagine you acted this way because you are biased towards the topic; it's easy to deny you aren't, but you broke downvoting protocol either way. You're contributing to the stereotype of googlers acting badly in threads about google (my comments in this thread have been downvoted, something that virtually never happens to me on hackernews).