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Will Google Kill my Blog on December 6th?

calculatedriskblog.com

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Re: Will Google Kill my Blog on December 6th?

#63
Given that I haven't been pummelled with email about how Blogger is going to become "Google + compliant" I'm guessing that the answer is "No, they won't kill your blog." And they won't charge your credit card. And next spring they will announce that Blogger is being shut down and you can move your Blog over to your own Google+ page! And then you will get to decide what you want to do next.

But that is just a theory, my experience of late is that when Google stops talking about a service, and responses stop coming back, the reason is that the service is on the list to be killed off and anyone inside Google that was working on it, already knows that, and have already transferred to some other project.

Re: Will Google Kill my Blog on December 6th?

#65
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the right answer. I managed an Adwords campaign that had a spend in the mid to high six figures a year, and we had standing meetings with support every week. I don't like the fact this this is how it works, but I understand the reality.

What do you mean by "standing meetings"?

Likely it means scheduled.

Re: Will Google Kill my Blog on December 6th?

#66
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about, I saw "The Internship." Google has enough phone support to tell grandmothers how to fix GMail problems. Likely a manager will be cut over this, just like the snooty guy who led the other team in the movie. /s

> I saw "The Internship." Me too, as such, you have my sympathies.

Snark all you like, but I think it's perfectly reasonable (if not required) to hold Google to the standards they paid Vince Vaughan to portray them having.

Re: Will Google Kill my Blog on December 6th?

#67
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they're responsive after negative stories draw peoples' attention. So if you can hit the top of HN or you're Jeff Jarvis (see dell hell) you'll get ok customer service. If not, google wants you to gfad.

Jeff's Verizon stories have also been classics. I won't say I haven't been a thorn in Google's side (large or small I'm not entirely sure). But I've managed to develop some level of a relationship with some folks on the inside. I'm largely in the process of extricating myself from their services, but I had seen multiple positive responses. I can only imagine it's similarly frustrating on the inside. Remember: they're…

they're trying to address the needs of hundreds of millions (or more) users with a pretty finite staff.

A problem of their own devising. I don't have any sympathy for them, they've intentionally built up their image of a company of geniuses who hire the best of the best, and they have made it a primary corporate goal to acquire those hundreds of millions of users.

I speculate that the reason they have effectively zero customer support is that to employ and train that number of people would require them to appear obviously as a clone of Walmart, GE, or AT&T (et al), which is necessary to become in order to deal with that kind of headcount.

Re: Will Google Kill my Blog on December 6th?

#69
post #50

I work at GoDaddy and recently our CEO read an email from a customer who had been encouraged by a son to use Google services for his small business, but when he couldn't figure out some issue with support ("they talked way over my head"), he called GoDaddy and found someone that worked to get his account setup. Google probably, appropriately, calculates the cost of providing good customer support to hundreds of milli…

You know you're support is awful when GoDaddy makes you look bad.

I've had some good experiences with GoDaddy support recently, including one case where a client's site had a custom php-mailer whose messages seemed to be disappearing into a black hole somewhere, and the front line support tech (not even tier 2) read the PHP code in question, determined it was fine, checked the mail queue, and verified there was a problem on their end.

"Surprised" doesn't quite capture my response to that.

I'm still not a fan of GoDaddy the company, GoDaddy the infrastructure, or GoDaddy the horrifyingly bad control panel "interface", but GoDaddy support could teach Google a lot.

Re: Will Google Kill my Blog on December 6th?

#70
post #41
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Picasa Web was put out to pasture a long time ago, in favor of G+ Photos.

Picasa is now overrun with Chinese spammers using the "send to a friend"-type feature. I mark every incoming Picasa share message as spam and Gmail still lets them all through...

Create a filter to send Picasa mail to a folder you then proceed to ignore.
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