Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself • Hacker News Board

Re: Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

#41

Post by DigitalTurk » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 3:10 AM UTC

mooreds wrote: post #13

ishansharma wrote: post #9

I fully agree with Om here. In fact, I have found myself avoiding Google services as much as possible now. GMail is the only one I am using regularly and which does not have good alternatives. I also agree that Google is becoming like Microsoft, trying everything. I'm going to stay with companies like Evernote.

And the nice thing about gmail is that, if you had to move off of it, you could (as long as they keep the imap interface around: http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/417/export-gmail-... ). There may be no feature complete alternatives, but there sure are a lot of email readers out there if you had to move off of it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this will soon no longer be true for Google Calendar. They're dropping CalDav.

Re: Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

#42

Post by smokinjoe » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 3:11 AM UTC

jinushaun wrote: post #7

Anyone else remember Google Notebook? Yeah, they killed that too. Pretty much Evernote before Evernote got big. No thanks, Google.

I used Google Notebook extensively and wasn't surprised. It was laden with layout issues and paste with styles bugs. It was great while it lasted, but I personally didn't find it that shocking when it was closed.

There were plenty of other notebooks on the internet that actually had more features that worked better, a lot of them had methods to import from Google Notebook as well. Notebook was fading with Google Docs gaining steam (and I know they both had different feature sets).

They did keep Google Notebook running for a fairly significant time before they finally closed the doors and migrated the data to Drive.

Re: Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

#43

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 3:12 AM UTC

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #16

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ties into Google Now. It's already super convenient for me. Swipe up "Google, note to self, pick up milk". Now I have a TODO. Combine that with what Google already knows (that I leave work at 5 and drive within half a mile of a grocery store), think about the intelligence they could bring to my Todo list. (I know lots of people aren't going to like the privacy implications, my comment isn't meant to apologize or t…

How is Now strategic?

[deleted]

Re: Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

#44

Post by yanw » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 3:12 AM UTC

This is ridiculous. How hard is it to import an OPML file into any of the other feed services that already exist on the web, or those popping up everyday. Do we really need to keep regurgitating this story?! it's been dominating the front page for a week now.

Here are the differences between Reader and Keep: Reader was an abandoned and an unclaimed product, kept on life support. Keep is a feature of Drive, a product which actually is acknowledged to be under someone's management

I hope Evernote will exist as it is now forever and that the author won't have eat his words someday.

Re: Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

#45

Post by marssaxman » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 3:14 AM UTC

fakeer wrote: post #37

dudus wrote: post #12

Google Reader had an easy and clear migration path to export your data. I can't understand why people keep bashing Google for it. Just take your data to somewhere else. If tomorrow Keep goes away they'll do the same.

You realise there were feed services that went kaput because of Reader[1] and one fine day Google decided to give it an injection. Is it really that difficult to see this happening to sth like Evernote or Simplenote? I mean seeing Google's reach it's very much possible. And as Malik has raised the question in his post - what's in it for Google? No one seems to know this. They might just be testing one of their APIs b…

What is "sth"? Services? Software?

Re: Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

#46

Post by duggan » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 3:14 AM UTC

Merits of whether Keep is comparable to Reader aside - I wonder how long we're going to be seeing the "...but Google Reader" refrain from pundits.

The camps of opinion I've seen on how Google should behave:

1) Pundits: Support an increasingly burdensome array of fringe services which cost them more than they gain (in their opinion)

2) HN: Reduce their experimental forays and leave (for now) private/small companies to their niches.

3) Coders: open source the services when shuttering.

1 and 2 would seem anathema to Google - the next Facebook could be hiding in either the organizational lethargy created by the former or the failure to act on the latter.

3 is going to be prohibitively expensive or difficult depending on how the service was built.

I'm just not sure there's anything other than a lot of sound and fury in the future of these discussions, which makes them boring.

Re: Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

#47

Post by imperialdrive » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 3:14 AM UTC

Keep is great - this is music to my ears... since buying a Nexus 4 I couldn't believe there wasn't a built-in app for notes, and I don't feel like paying for such a simple tool (sorry evernote) so I was using Gtasks... now that this is out, I'm happy (for now) still... damn u google for the inability to use BT and WIFI at the SAME TIME on a Nexus!!!!

Re: Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

#48

Post by Shooti » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 3:17 AM UTC

DigitalTurk wrote: post #41

mooreds wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the nice thing about gmail is that, if you had to move off of it, you could (as long as they keep the imap interface around: http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/417/export-gmail-... ). There may be no feature complete alternatives, but there sure are a lot of email readers out there if you had to move off of it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this will soon no longer be true for Google Calendar. They're dropping CalDav.

They're not dropping CalDav, they're just going to start screening its access: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/19gOLSlkTzHi-zub3BkMv7Ot0JML...

Re: Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

#49

Post by ktsmith » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 3:17 AM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #14

They've lost a lot of goodwill with this action.

I'm going to miss reader as much as anyone but it just seems like a buch of spoiled brats with a sense of entitlement whining at this point. Reader was provided as a free service. Google is shutting it down and giving everyone enough time to find an alternate service and access their OPML data via takeout. While some things may be lost forever via their article caching, Google doesn't owe anything to the Reader user base.

Re: Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

#50

Post by Draco6slayer » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 3:17 AM UTC

I don't see how dropping one product == become untrustworthy.

This is like if you went to the supermarket every day to buy milk, flour, sugar, beans, and lettuce. And then the supermarket realises that it is uneconomical for them to provide lettuce, so they drop it, but they do start selling eggs. And you look at those eggs and say 'Yeah, Right. I'm not going to buy those. I remember what happened to the lettuce.'