Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers • Hacker News Board

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#71

Post by jkaplowitz » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #39

The use of the word "sunset" as a verb in posts like this is fucking infuriating. Yes, software types know what it means, but this is a consumer product with tens of millions of users, who have no familiarity with that term. It's a weasel word. The way to say this is in plain English. We're closing, shutting down, turning off, discontinuing, or something.

This post is on the technology section of Google's blog and makes many technical comments about APIs and permissions.

It is therefore presumably not the primary consumer-facing announcement of the shutdown.

Hopefully they will use one of the terms you noted, or something similar, for that announcement.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#72

Post by TimTheTinker » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

Google+ was a top-down, scrambling response to Facebook's meteoric rise. I think it ultimately failed because it didn't naturally mesh with or arise from Google's natural strengths.

Google has always had amazing scientists and engineers working for them, but building a new social network requires less math/science and more of a human focus. (Of course, Facebook's data centers and ops are now the 6th wonder of the tech world, but that came later.)

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#73

Post by stedaniels » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #54

evgen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way Facebook would ever implement something like this. The whole point of the Facebook feed tinkering is to force you to wade through a river of shit to find the nuggets you are interested in. The feed algorithm is all about making that river just slightly short of unbearable, because the river is where they stuff all the ads. If they provided you with useful filters it would make the revenue opportunitie…

Erm, Facebook did implement something like this. Shortly after Google+ came out. You can still assign friends to different groups.

Alas, the concept was never fleshed out and is all but buried and featureless.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#74

Post by crunchlibrarian » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

_uhtu wrote: post #6

Google+ had terrible marketing and release, but it had some decent ideas that I wish other networks had carried over. The idea of "circles", where you had a circle for "acquaintances" "friends", "family" would be great on, say, Facebook, as it would allow me to filter down my feed to just the people I really care about but still have a connection to more distance acquaintances. Currently on Facebook the news feed is…

To be fair Google+ just straight up stole the circle idea from that Path social network after failing to buy them.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#75

Post by mindcrime » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #53

mindcrime wrote: post #20

LOL, one more example of why one should never depend on anything from Google. developer adoption Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because they never released a usable write API and were basically just a little less developer-hostile than Twitter? G+ had a lot of potential, had Google chosen to truly embrace Open Standards, federation, and usable API's. As it is, they shot themselves in the foot by creating JAWG (Just Another…

Everyone always says "this always failed because it didn't do X," where X is anything they like. It's clear that it failed. It's less clear that the reason is necessarily any of the ones you gave. Every dominant social network has been a walled garden, and, contrariwise, every attempt to create a major social network based around federation and open standards has, so far, failed. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see o…

Everyone always says "this always failed because it didn't do X," where X is anything they like.

I didn't say "it failed because it didn't do X". They said "... failed to gain developer adoption ....". To that specific point, I contend there is a clear and direct causal link between the decisions they made, and that lack of adoption. Of course I can't prove that in the strictest sense, but it's not hard to see that a lot of (potential) G+ developers kept asking and asking and asking for usable APIs and never got them. Speaking only for myself, as somebody who was initially a G+ fan and might have been inclined to build things on top of G+, I never did so for exactly this reason. Yes,"n=1" and all that, but a lot of other devs were very public with their position on this as well.

Obviously their decision to close it down involved multiple factors, but the lack of developer adoption was specifically called out by Google as one of those factors.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#76

Post by 8ytecoder » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #39

The use of the word "sunset" as a verb in posts like this is fucking infuriating. Yes, software types know what it means, but this is a consumer product with tens of millions of users, who have no familiarity with that term. It's a weasel word. The way to say this is in plain English. We're closing, shutting down, turning off, discontinuing, or something.

That's not true. Sunset years - to mean "a period of decline, especially the last years of a person's life" - is pretty well known. Irrespective of my background that's the first thought that pop into my head.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#77

Post by dep_b » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

They killed it when they decided it would be a good idea to inflate user numbers with YouTube and Gmail users. It's better to have less but active users than a ghost town.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#78

Post by notatoad » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #9

PerryCox wrote: post #4

Good, the only time I end up there is by mistake when trying to do something else.

FTA: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds. Their own stats seem to back this: people arrive by mistake and immediately go somewhere else

even when i don't arrive there by mistake, i typically leave after less than five seconds - people would link to posts on G+ and before reading them i'd have to click through full-screen interstitials introducing me to the "new" G+ redesign. and i just didn't care, so i'd leave.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#79

Post by azhenley » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

TimothyBJacobs wrote: post #29

azhenley wrote: post #25

I recently started getting friend requests on Youtube (I didn't know it had such a feature!). Does this mean they are just shifting the social network features over to other products?

YouTube has had friend requests and private messaging for a long time. At least 2008, maybe earlier.

Even now, I can't figure out how to send someone a friend request. All I see is a Subscribe button when I visit someone's profile.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#80

Post by mindcrime » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #49

mindcrime wrote: post #20

LOL, one more example of why one should never depend on anything from Google. developer adoption Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because they never released a usable write API and were basically just a little less developer-hostile than Twitter? G+ had a lot of potential, had Google chosen to truly embrace Open Standards, federation, and usable API's. As it is, they shot themselves in the foot by creating JAWG (Just Another…

> never depend on anything from Google They're shutting it down precisely because no one was depending on it. How would anyone depend on a social network without any users?

They're shutting it down precisely because no one was depending on it. How would anyone depend on a social network without any users?

It did have users. I have no idea the exact number, and clearly it wasn't as many as Facebook, but it wasn't the ghost town people always made it out to be. Some of the Communities were actually quite active.