We Need To Talk, Google • Hacker News Board

Re: We Need To Talk, Google

#51

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 5:06 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #49

Google is simply trying to unify their services. YouTube was an acquisition, with it's own login system and social network. They don't want to maintain this separation forever, they want a single signon for everything. Ditto for sharing and contacts. You had separate 'contacts' in Gmail, Latitude, G+, Reader, YouTube, and probably others I'm missing. Users shouldn't be prompted to maintain N different copies of this…

I think the marketing mistake has been using the same brand name for the unified profile/login as the social stream.

Re: We Need To Talk, Google

#52

Post by noir_lord » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 5:09 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #37

noir_lord wrote: post #27

Google used to be the wunderkind, I remember when absolutely everything they touched was gold...and now they seem to have so much stuff that is broken across so many products. Alot of it is just dumb stuff and the rest is stuff that should have been caught. This is the last week.. Google Apps Admin Interface - It's an unnavigable mess, I use it so seldom that it's not familiarity or the lack of that makes me hate the…

Old google made cool things and make their money off ads and search ranking. New google only cares about beating facebook because they came onto the scene and took over the front page of everyones Internet role. I don't even think it has anything to do with bottom lines, either. I can't understand how knowing who spams my G+ page with crap who I friended for an arbitrary reason is more valuable information in how to…

Indeed and I think caching all your search queries is a vastly more effective way to figure out how to advertise you than Google+ but I suspect they must see some value in it else why do it.

Re: We Need To Talk, Google

#53

Post by dougabug » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 5:09 PM UTC

darkchasma wrote: post #46

Felt like extortion? To freely post your video to their free hosting service, which allows you free distribution and marketing of your brand to the entire world. For free. And this felt like extortion?

Google services are free the way the food for the rabbits was free in "Watership Down."

Re: We Need To Talk, Google

#54

Post by fluidcruft » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 5:13 PM UTC

darklajid wrote: post #20

lawdawg wrote: post #10

Get over it people, Google+ is the new account system for all Google products. If you don't like Google having a single account/profile system, or the fact that Google+ profiles include a "social" network product, then you best look for alternatives ASAP.

I try to. The single thing I struggle with? Android. Maybe Firefox OS will be interesting, iOS isn't. And .. right now I can pay for Android apps, but I'm banned from rate them, comment on them. Ignoring all the 'Do you want to be tracked to provide Better Services (tm)" stuff in that ecosystem.

If your phone is supported, you could install CyanogenMod (it works fine without gapps installed). From there you can use f-droid for apps, but possibly Amazon App Store could be a good alternative to the Google Play morass.

Re: We Need To Talk, Google

#55

Post by ianlevesque » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 5:14 PM UTC

And relatedly requiring "Real Names" a la Facebook at the same time. That makes it feel like a regression to a vocal minority of users.

Re: We Need To Talk, Google

#56

Post by stfsbrb » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 5:15 PM UTC

I'm still convinced that Google's insistence on funneling all activity from their services into Google+ accounts (even in cases where it clearly doesn't make sense) is being done solely so that Google can go back to their shareholders and report a large amount of "growth" in their social platform. They don't seem to have any end game or plan beyond merely pumping up the numbers as high as possible. Maybe they are just aiming for the day when they can claim Google+ has more members than Facebook?

Re: We Need To Talk, Google

#57

Post by hkmurakami » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 5:20 PM UTC

AJ007 wrote: post #11

This is a good example of a "forced" or "assisted" conversion. The user really doesn't want to do it, they just want to view the damn YouTube video. Google is employing these same optimization techniques elsewhere. I've noticed very subtle, and consequently expensive, things that have been done with Adwords. There is a simple solution to this, which unfortunately castrates Google's entire platform. Its the same reaso…

A friend of mine who is interning at Google this summer started pushing Google now on me really hard over dinner this week. Your post mirrors the queezy feeling I got from thinking about the prospect of going even deeper into the Google services quagmire. It just doesn't feel quite right.

Re: We Need To Talk, Google

#58

Post by ryanhuff » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 5:23 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #49

Google is simply trying to unify their services. YouTube was an acquisition, with it's own login system and social network. They don't want to maintain this separation forever, they want a single signon for everything. Ditto for sharing and contacts. You had separate 'contacts' in Gmail, Latitude, G+, Reader, YouTube, and probably others I'm missing. Users shouldn't be prompted to maintain N different copies of this…

You would be fooling yourself if you think somebody within Google isn't planning for the day that YouTube commenting is merged with G+ social streams. As they look to leverage social signals to improve search, centralizing the user's social footprint will be an important component, and using one of their more prolific social streams (YouTube) to prop-up G+ will be key.

Re: We Need To Talk, Google

#59

Post by amenod » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 5:26 PM UTC

> And it has nothing to do with any sort of concerns that Google provides the NSA direct access to its servers. > (Google's security engineers can be trusted, I think.)

A bit off-topic, but I'm not sure what you mean here. Yes, they can be trusted - to do their job. Which managers dictate. Which includes whatever NSA dictates. So yes, you can bet NSA has total access to everything it wants at Google, direct and total.

Re: We Need To Talk, Google

#60

Post by amenod » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 5:28 PM UTC

darkchasma wrote: post #46

Felt like extortion? To freely post your video to their free hosting service, which allows you free distribution and marketing of your brand to the entire world. For free. And this felt like extortion?

Yes, "extortion" - give me more data about you if you want to use our so-called "free" services. Extortion in my book too.