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Takeout was implemented by the Data Liberation Front, an independent 20%-time collaboration between engineers in Google, accompanied by whimsical videos[0]. Tak

Takeout was implemented by the Data Liberation Front, an independent 20%-time collaboration between engineers in Google, accompanied by whimsical videos[0]. Takeout was never anywhere close to comprehensive, and the DLF didn't last[1]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP4NI5o-WUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP4NI5o-WUw [1] https://www.twitter.com/dataliberation https://www.twitter.com/dataliberation

bwillard 9y ago
It turns out reports of the Data Liberation Front demise have been greatly exaggerated. We are still very actively improving Google Takeout[0] as well as developing other products[1]. The thing that didn't last was running a quasi-official Twitter account, perhaps without official blessing. Its true that the Data Liberation Front did start as a group of 20%ers, but like the much less successful GMail, we got turned in a real team and now we have reorgs and TPS and everything. [0] Check out the new My Activity service as an example of some of the new data we have added: https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/custom/my_activity https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/custom/my_activi... [1] https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/12/09/google-unveils-graduation-for-g-suite.aspx https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/12/09/google-unveils-gr...
- lucideer 9y ago
  > The thing that didn't last was running a quasi-official Twitter account, perhaps without official blessing. Running a quasi-official blog without blessing didn't last either [0]. Glad to hear the team got turned into a permanent one internally, but the lack of a public info on its existence doesn't fill me with confidence that this is something Google wants or prioritises at a management level. The gp was talking about companies' engineers writing "user-friendly data-portability features. Across all product lines". Is that the case with Takeout at Google, or is it just a job given to one relatively small team of self-starters working on a project that was never spearheaded by management? [0] http://dataliberation.blogspot.com/ http://dataliberation.blogspot.com/

bwillard 9y ago

It turns out reports of the Data Liberation Front demise have been greatly exaggerated. We are still very actively improving Google Takeout[0] as well as developing other products[1]. The thing that didn't last was running a quasi-official Twitter account, perhaps without official blessing. Its true that the Data Liberation Front did start as a group of 20%ers, but like the much less successful GMail, we got turned in a real team and now we have reorgs and TPS and everything. [0] Check out the new My Activity service as an example of some of the new data we have added: https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/custom/my_activity https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/custom/my_activi... [1] https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/12/09/google-unveils-graduation-for-g-suite.aspx https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/12/09/google-unveils-gr...

lucideer 9y ago
> The thing that didn't last was running a quasi-official Twitter account, perhaps without official blessing. Running a quasi-official blog without blessing didn't last either [0]. Glad to hear the team got turned into a permanent one internally, but the lack of a public info on its existence doesn't fill me with confidence that this is something Google wants or prioritises at a management level. The gp was talking about companies' engineers writing "user-friendly data-portability features. Across all product lines". Is that the case with Takeout at Google, or is it just a job given to one relatively small team of self-starters working on a project that was never spearheaded by management? [0] http://dataliberation.blogspot.com/ http://dataliberation.blogspot.com/