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This makes me shed a solitary tear for Google Reader :'( And another solitary tear from the other eye for Google Inbox :,(

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
This comment is extremely frustrating. You can't shed multiple "solitary" tears. Even if its one tear per eye. You wouldn't say "I have two solitary eyes" would you?
- sidcool 7y ago
  /r/woosh
- coldtea 7y ago
  >You wouldn't say "I have two solitary eyes" would you? I would.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  >This comment is extremely frustrating If you find that comment "extremely frustrating" you must really hate... well everything really.
toomuchtodo 7y ago
Google's missteps are someone else's opportunity. I use FastMail, NewsBlur, etc, all so I don't have to use Google. Vote with your wallet and choices. Use non-Google tooling whenever possible.
- neilobremski 7y ago
  Yay, FastMail! I've been using them for going on three years with no end in sight. Gmail adds all the "cool" features but us old men appreciate not being told how to reply ...
  - usuallymatt 7y ago
    Another Fastmail user here. Switched just over a year ago and haven't looked back.
ryanmercer 7y ago
>And another solitary tear from the other eye for Google Inbox :,( To be fair, Gmail has been my primary email since early 2009 and I'd never even heard of Inbox until people on Leo Laporte's podcast started whining it was going away.
- NegatioN 7y ago
  How is that being fair? Does you not having heard about it define what is a great product, and what is not? Google Inbox was great. Intuitive, modern, snappy, a testbed for new features, and on the surface it seemed less monetized and ad-ridden than gmail. I switched away from Google's email-clients as soon as Inbox died, also having used Gmail since as soon as I got an invite when it was more closed than today.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    >How is that being fair? Does you not having heard about it define what is a great product, and what is not? It's fair because MANY people had never heard of it. I even heard on those same Leo Laporte podcasts people going "what's inbox", people who report on tech for a living. I imagine, compared to people just using the gmail app or the web interface, it had terrible adoption rates which made it not worth supporting. From all I could gather is it was almost exclusively used by those in tech and then only by a small subset. I imagine reader had a small user base. RSS feeds are a pretty obscure thing and always were. The only hangouts messages I've ever received have been group spam and likely has a relatively small user base. Google Circles was largely spam and garbage content created for SEO in my experience and probably had a very small real user base. Etc etc. If you your user base is a small percentage, or a fraction of your percentage, of your overall user base it's perfectly fair to go "well, let's shelf that".
- k__ 7y ago
  I got some ad on Gmail for Android, back in the days and tried it for a week or so. Couldn't figure out how it was better than the stuff I already used and switched back to the regular Gmail client again.
- 7y ago
teh_klev 7y ago
Google Reader's shutdown was a true act of vandalism. Sure there are a handful alternatives, but Reader despite its somewhat basic UI worked really well. And despite Google's attempts to kill RSS, it hasn't gone away.
- coldpie 7y ago
  Feedly's quite good, and they have a business model that isn't driven by abuse of their users.
  - teh_klev 7y ago
    I have tried it in the past, but it just ain't the same, I wasn't filled with joy and its UI annoyed me. Maybe I'll try again.
    - TMWNN 7y ago
      I am pretty sure that I tried Feedly in the post-"Oh no, Google Reader is going away!" panic everyone else using the service was in at the time, and like you I could not replicate the feel. The Old Reader was the closest alternative I found among the several I tried, but soon afterwards Inoreader appeared with a very, very, very close-to-Google Reader feel, and I've been extremely happy on it ever since. (If only Inoreader would correctly open the comment link and not the original article in the HN RSS feed.)
      - teh_klev 7y ago
        Thanks for the link, but sadly... iOS App - Android App - Windows Phone App Not interested unless there's a plain old HTML over the web thing which Reader did well.
        TMWNN 7y ago
        If you'd watched the demonstration video, by 0:34 in you'd have seen that Inoreader is indeed Web-based. I've never used any phone app for it.
arcticfox 7y ago
I set up my whole company's communication on Google Wave. RIP Slack, FWIW, is actually quite a bit like Wave was. I feel like if Google didn't screw the launch up so badly, and iterated on the product, they could have had Slack about 5 years before it actually existed.
- roland35 7y ago
  I was in high school when Google Wave came out so I had no one to really talk to on it or real reason to use it, but I do remember it seeming pretty cool at the time. Looking back it was ahead of it's time.
- liquidgecka 7y ago
  Oh lord. I knew Google Wave was going to be a disaster from the get go. It was a secret project inside of Google that was not required to follow any of the normal google product design. This meant that it could use whatever database technology it wanted. This lead to some really terrible design decisions that would make sense at a very small startup but not for a large multi-million user product. At the time I was working on the mail delivery infrastructure and they basically reached out to us at the last minute asking about email functionality. That was horrible because its not easily to wedge into a product after the design phase. It annoys me so much because it was such a cool idea but the tech stack was badly implemented from the start. =/
- xeromal 7y ago
  Your post got me to go through my emails to find my Google Wave invitation for a nostalgia rush
k__ 7y ago
I shed some tears for the Google widgets or how it was called. It was pretty nice to have some kind of dashboard when opening the browser. A todo list, a calendar, emails, news, weather. When it went away I tried some alternatives, but they weren't the same :/
- derivagral 7y ago
  I also fondly remember iGoogle! Or google homepage, whatever names it had. Looks like it died for G+[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGoogle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGoogle
ngngngng 7y ago
Now I'm going to be pissed off all day that Google Inbox died. I will never forgive them for that.
markosaric 7y ago
These are the two I miss the most as well. Inbox was such as breath of fresh air compared to the Gmail app when it was first launched. And Reader really for me is the best way to follow news/topics/people I care about without too much noise and distractions. Still use RSS readers to consume a lot of my content even to this day.

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago

This comment is extremely frustrating. You can't shed multiple "solitary" tears. Even if its one tear per eye. You wouldn't say "I have two solitary eyes" would you?

sidcool 7y ago
/r/woosh
coldtea 7y ago
>You wouldn't say "I have two solitary eyes" would you? I would.
EpicEng 7y ago
>This comment is extremely frustrating If you find that comment "extremely frustrating" you must really hate... well everything really.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

Google's missteps are someone else's opportunity. I use FastMail, NewsBlur, etc, all so I don't have to use Google. Vote with your wallet and choices. Use non-Google tooling whenever possible.

neilobremski 7y ago
Yay, FastMail! I've been using them for going on three years with no end in sight. Gmail adds all the "cool" features but us old men appreciate not being told how to reply ...
- usuallymatt 7y ago
  Another Fastmail user here. Switched just over a year ago and haven't looked back.

ryanmercer 7y ago

>And another solitary tear from the other eye for Google Inbox :,( To be fair, Gmail has been my primary email since early 2009 and I'd never even heard of Inbox until people on Leo Laporte's podcast started whining it was going away.

NegatioN 7y ago
How is that being fair? Does you not having heard about it define what is a great product, and what is not? Google Inbox was great. Intuitive, modern, snappy, a testbed for new features, and on the surface it seemed less monetized and ad-ridden than gmail. I switched away from Google's email-clients as soon as Inbox died, also having used Gmail since as soon as I got an invite when it was more closed than today.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  >How is that being fair? Does you not having heard about it define what is a great product, and what is not? It's fair because MANY people had never heard of it. I even heard on those same Leo Laporte podcasts people going "what's inbox", people who report on tech for a living. I imagine, compared to people just using the gmail app or the web interface, it had terrible adoption rates which made it not worth supporting. From all I could gather is it was almost exclusively used by those in tech and then only by a small subset. I imagine reader had a small user base. RSS feeds are a pretty obscure thing and always were. The only hangouts messages I've ever received have been group spam and likely has a relatively small user base. Google Circles was largely spam and garbage content created for SEO in my experience and probably had a very small real user base. Etc etc. If you your user base is a small percentage, or a fraction of your percentage, of your overall user base it's perfectly fair to go "well, let's shelf that".
k__ 7y ago
I got some ad on Gmail for Android, back in the days and tried it for a week or so. Couldn't figure out how it was better than the stuff I already used and switched back to the regular Gmail client again.
7y ago

teh_klev 7y ago

Google Reader's shutdown was a true act of vandalism. Sure there are a handful alternatives, but Reader despite its somewhat basic UI worked really well. And despite Google's attempts to kill RSS, it hasn't gone away.

coldpie 7y ago
Feedly's quite good, and they have a business model that isn't driven by abuse of their users.
- teh_klev 7y ago
  I have tried it in the past, but it just ain't the same, I wasn't filled with joy and its UI annoyed me. Maybe I'll try again.
  - TMWNN 7y ago
    I am pretty sure that I tried Feedly in the post-"Oh no, Google Reader is going away!" panic everyone else using the service was in at the time, and like you I could not replicate the feel. The Old Reader was the closest alternative I found among the several I tried, but soon afterwards Inoreader appeared with a very, very, very close-to-Google Reader feel, and I've been extremely happy on it ever since. (If only Inoreader would correctly open the comment link and not the original article in the HN RSS feed.)
    - teh_klev 7y ago
      Thanks for the link, but sadly... iOS App - Android App - Windows Phone App Not interested unless there's a plain old HTML over the web thing which Reader did well.
      - TMWNN 7y ago
        If you'd watched the demonstration video, by 0:34 in you'd have seen that Inoreader is indeed Web-based. I've never used any phone app for it.

arcticfox 7y ago

I set up my whole company's communication on Google Wave. RIP Slack, FWIW, is actually quite a bit like Wave was. I feel like if Google didn't screw the launch up so badly, and iterated on the product, they could have had Slack about 5 years before it actually existed.

roland35 7y ago
I was in high school when Google Wave came out so I had no one to really talk to on it or real reason to use it, but I do remember it seeming pretty cool at the time. Looking back it was ahead of it's time.
liquidgecka 7y ago
Oh lord. I knew Google Wave was going to be a disaster from the get go. It was a secret project inside of Google that was not required to follow any of the normal google product design. This meant that it could use whatever database technology it wanted. This lead to some really terrible design decisions that would make sense at a very small startup but not for a large multi-million user product. At the time I was working on the mail delivery infrastructure and they basically reached out to us at the last minute asking about email functionality. That was horrible because its not easily to wedge into a product after the design phase. It annoys me so much because it was such a cool idea but the tech stack was badly implemented from the start. =/
xeromal 7y ago
Your post got me to go through my emails to find my Google Wave invitation for a nostalgia rush

k__ 7y ago

I shed some tears for the Google widgets or how it was called. It was pretty nice to have some kind of dashboard when opening the browser. A todo list, a calendar, emails, news, weather. When it went away I tried some alternatives, but they weren't the same :/

derivagral 7y ago
I also fondly remember iGoogle! Or google homepage, whatever names it had. Looks like it died for G+[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGoogle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGoogle

ngngngng 7y ago

Now I'm going to be pissed off all day that Google Inbox died. I will never forgive them for that.

markosaric 7y ago

These are the two I miss the most as well. Inbox was such as breath of fresh air compared to the Gmail app when it was first launched. And Reader really for me is the best way to follow news/topics/people I care about without too much noise and distractions. Still use RSS readers to consume a lot of my content even to this day.