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Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

techcrunch.com

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Re: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

#61

Post by brohoolio »

mvgoogler wrote: post #50
zatkin wrote: post #40

>"They already made us abandon our "picasaweb" stuff for Google+ Photos. Killing off Google+ Photos sends the clear message "do not rely on Google for your photo storage needs". Not that shuffling gigabytes of photos around every couple of years isn't fun but, well, it isn't fun." From the TechCrunch comments.

I work on the backend for Google Photos (and Google+ Photos and Picasaweb). Picasaweb, Google+ Photos and Google Photos all store the photos in the same place. There was never any need to "shuffle gigabytes of photos" when moving from picasaweb to G+ Photos and there won't be any needed to move from G+ Photos to Google Photos. I don't see howany of that adds up to "do not rely on Google for your photo storage needs".

Google is amazing but in the same token my grandma and my mom were using Google+ Photos. Imagine trying to explain to non-technical folks in their 60s and 90s what all of this means.

You can bet I'm gonna think twice about recommending any Google product to my family just because of the time sink in doing support.

Re: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

#62

Post by gd2 »

jaytaylor wrote: post #2

I am curious why they aren't automatically migrating all existing user content from "+Photos" to the new "Photos" service? Seems like it would be an easy win.

this is confusing. I'm not seeing any photos that need to be manually transferred, but I don't like the uncertainty.

Re: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

#63

Post by ecspike »

aesthetics1 wrote: post #22
pnathan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually have really enjoyed the UI for G+. I think it's really a technically excellent platform that has totally failed to execute well on the userbase side.

I absolutely agree. If my memory serves me correctly, it was the first Google app to feature "cards" -- which has obviously made its way to almost every other IP that Google owns. The UI is slick, and it felt very fresh when it debuted.

Your memory is correct. Lots of UI features debuted in Google+ first before hitting other Google properties.

Re: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

#64

Post by amlgsmsn »

extc wrote: post #60
tdicola wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can they bring Google Reader back now? I'm still bitter about it being killed to focus on Google+. Now that Google+ is dead in the water it makes the decision to kill Reader even worse.

What's obnoxious is that everyone watching from the outside knew all these forced G+ moves were annoying and not welcome. One of the worst outcomes, imo, is the addition of G+ comments on YouTube videos - you end up with comments like "Check this out" in the video's actual comments section. Those comments are completely useless and destroy any sort of conversation, if it's even possible to have one in YT comments.

>What's obnoxious is that everyone watching from the outside knew all these forced G+ moves were annoying and not welcome

What makes you think it was any different from the inside?

Re: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

#65

Post by estel »

brohoolio wrote: post #61
mvgoogler wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on the backend for Google Photos (and Google+ Photos and Picasaweb). Picasaweb, Google+ Photos and Google Photos all store the photos in the same place. There was never any need to "shuffle gigabytes of photos" when moving from picasaweb to G+ Photos and there won't be any needed to move from G+ Photos to Google Photos. I don't see howany of that adds up to "do not rely on Google for your photo storage needs".

Google is amazing but in the same token my grandma and my mom were using Google+ Photos. Imagine trying to explain to non-technical folks in their 60s and 90s what all of this means. You can bet I'm gonna think twice about recommending any Google product to my family just because of the time sink in doing support.

Doesn't this just mean that you need to click a different button to access the photos? There's a hierarchical change to make Photos a top-level product, and the product itself has had a facelift.

Re: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

#66

Post by chinhodado »

mvgoogler wrote: post #50
zatkin wrote: post #40

>"They already made us abandon our "picasaweb" stuff for Google+ Photos. Killing off Google+ Photos sends the clear message "do not rely on Google for your photo storage needs". Not that shuffling gigabytes of photos around every couple of years isn't fun but, well, it isn't fun." From the TechCrunch comments.

I work on the backend for Google Photos (and Google+ Photos and Picasaweb). Picasaweb, Google+ Photos and Google Photos all store the photos in the same place. There was never any need to "shuffle gigabytes of photos" when moving from picasaweb to G+ Photos and there won't be any needed to move from G+ Photos to Google Photos. I don't see howany of that adds up to "do not rely on Google for your photo storage needs".

Can you comment on why Google Photos is missing so many features from Google+ Photos? Things like date picker, EXIF editor are missing. There's no highlight view, there's no way to make the detail pane of a picture open by default, and it takes a huge number of steps to rotate a picture, which I think is one of the most common editing tasks.

Re: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

#67

Post by tracker1 »

hackaflocka wrote: post #18

Why can't they fold it in with the new Photos service?

That seems to pretty much be what's happening... it's the same photo storage backend, but a new application in front of it... on my phone, the update was relatively seemless.. shrug ... who knows beyond that.

Re: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

#68

Post by tw04 »

tdicola wrote: post #34
jonursenbach wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Reader was in maintenance mode for years, and companies that appeared when it disappeared have gone above and beyond what they offered. See: Feedly.com

Feedly has improved a lot but it still doesn't display feeds as densely as Reader did and I feel a lot slower getting through a lot of feeds. Searching for articles was fantastic on Google Reader, but with Feedly it never works. Maybe I need to pay to enable search? Ultimately search 'just worked' on Google Reader and never works for me on Feedly. If Reader was in maintenance mode then that's even worse to have kille…

Feedly may have improved it's layout since I last tried it (admittedly it's been over a year). But, of all the companies to come up with what I found to be the best replacement: reader.aol.com

I know... I know. But it's served my basic needs for quite a while now.

Re: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

#69

Post by jfoster »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #14

How many photo products has Google had? Have any of them been successful?

Depends on the definition of success, I suppose. For Google I think success is either having a substantial percentage of the world's population using it, or for it to be making a huge amount of money, with that amount being compared to Adwords.

The closest they've come is almost certainly the new Google Photos app, which will probably end up with a decent portion of Android users actively using it.

Re: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down

#70

Post by Sgt_Apone »

tdicola wrote: post #25
aesthetics1 wrote: post #8

I imagine in the coming months (years?) we will see Google transition away from Google+ as a catchall platform, and back to standalone solutions similar to their offerings from the pre-Google+ days. A bit off-topic: I think it's the right move for them. Google+ was (and still is) a pretty cool platform. It has a lot of neat features that existing social networks lack. Facebook just somehow holds on to their userbase…

Can they bring Google Reader back now? I'm still bitter about it being killed to focus on Google+. Now that Google+ is dead in the water it makes the decision to kill Reader even worse.

Digg Reader is an excellent replacement. It's very similar in execution, but you do need to sign up using a Google, Facebook, or Twitter account.
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