71–80 of 120 posts
>Today, we’re announcing Helpouts—a new way to get and give help over live video. I'm confused, hasn't this existed for months? Here is an earlier HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6248771
This is the public release.
My initial reaction is "cool, but I won't use it as it'll be shutdown soon enough". I wonder if enough people avoid new Google products due to shutdown fears so it leads to a product ultimately being shutdown due to neglect. A bit of a vicious cycle.
So this is a solution to the "problem" of people looking up how to do something on youtube, now you can ask an expert and get detailed two-way feedback.
The DYI video success will be better the shorter and better the video is, and I'd rather pay-per-video. If I wanted to talk to a human, there are millions nearby in the city. A DYI video can explain in 2-3 minutes what will take a human 60 minutes in a meeting including greetings and other social fluff.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whether it's an acceptable risk for the users of these services is up to them, and many of them are deciding it is not, because these services can be so easily closed Yeah, Reader was closed just eight years after it launched. I didn't even had time to import all my feeds.
Yeah, Reader was closed just eight years after it launched. I didn't even had time to import all my feeds. The issue is how easily these services can be closed, not how long they last, in fact if they last longer it's worse for the users involved if they are suddenly shut down. Now free services for life doesn't seem like such a good deal, because the terms are that they owe you nothing and life may equal 2 months, 1…
I'd be interested to see GitHub experiment with providing their own service like this for the open source projects it hosts.
A project could designate certain contributors as experts and say you're having a problem with that project, you could talk with an expert via GitHub, for a per-minute fee, with an optional minimum of 15 minutes (for example).
I'd guess it'd be more likely to succeed by being right there integrated in GitHub's UI, rather than shoehorning just a link to Google Helpouts or another service into a project's README.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whether it's an acceptable risk for the users of these services is up to them, and many of them are deciding it is not, because these services can be so easily closed Yeah, Reader was closed just eight years after it launched. I didn't even had time to import all my feeds.
Yeah, Reader was closed just eight years after it launched. I didn't even had time to import all my feeds. The issue is how easily these services can be closed, not how long they last, in fact if they last longer it's worse for the users involved if they are suddenly shut down. Now free services for life doesn't seem like such a good deal, because the terms are that they owe you nothing and life may equal 2 months, 1…
Relying on an other business (platform, as a customer, [...]) for more than 25% (33, 50 your call)of your revenue is risky no matter the industry.
Relying a 100% is stupid.
Reader derangement syndrome strikes again. Summarizing the thread, if you're are an early adopter of anything, you run the risk it won't be here in a year. That's what we tolerate in the tech arena, start ups throwing lots of good and dumb ideas at the wall to see what sticks, evolution in action. How many people who built their business on Facebook's F8 platform went belly up due to changes? Google is a company that…
As a couple of good examples: Google Wave was created to give the Rasmussen brothers (creators of Google Maps) something high-profile to do. Then it was launched in a disastrously bad way (closed beta? for a new communication tool meant to replace email?). Then as adoption started to build (but not quick enough to satisfy the political needs of the project), Wave was yanked after just a year.
Google Reader became a cornerstone of the web's infrastructure, a public utility service that cost comparatively little, returned perhaps little other than good will, but ultimately served a purpose for millions of users. But that wasn't enough for Google, so they yanked it.
In both cases, there was no real alternative path offered. Google just made an internal political decision to yank a project, and that's that. The public never even got the option to try and support the project.
Based on the above and other less high-profile examples, I'm not willing to invest my time as an early adopter in a company that has the deep pockets to fund long-shot projects, but doesn't have the balls to follow them through to their exciting conclusions.
Google Wave was a very exciting development with a lot of promise. Google Reader could have been evolved further and become an even more important piece of infrastructure, with all the good will associated with that. Instead, both are now black splotches on Google's reputation, in my view at least.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Said doctor should come to you, as is customary in many countries. Instead, in the US you have to drag your sick self in to see a physician. And pay a boatload for a 5 minute consult; ridiculous.
While I'm by no means a fan of the US health care system, it seems pretty wasteful for high-value doctors to be wasting their precious time travelling to see patients. Perhaps videoconferencing could be a good option for simple cases (viagra, sleeping pills) while a medical pick-up system could be instituted for patients requiring in-person consultations, but lacking mobility or the urgency required for an ambulance.
Here in Uruguay, the lowest rung of doctors (which are the ones you get on call) are paid about U$ 1500/month. And they did at least 7 years of studies (which are tuition-free in Uruguay).
A lot of them are emigrating to Brazil of course.
https://helpouts.google.com/114052868601022948953/ls/a65184a...
Am I the only one that doesn't understand all the google hate? (about discontinuing a few of their products)
Closing down services and increasing the ad prominence in search, turning into the big bureaucratic bully rather than the small snappy startup has come as a nasty shock to a number of people and they then feel betrayed and angry at Google. It is precisely those who trusted them most who are most angry.
The irrational love has now flipped (for many not all) into irrational hate (to use your word).
Those on the sidelines who never trusted Google enough to look after their mail might find both the love and the hatred overblown but many people feel heavily dependent on Google with Android phones, Gmail accounts and using Google Docs heavily. They worry not just about the current situation but what might come next.
[1] "don't be evil"
[2] I seem to recall the IPO prospectus didn't make shareholder returns seem a very high priority.