7 ms·

Let's take a moment of silence in solidarity with all the engineers who will now have to make their company's blog support this.

freediver 6y ago
And let's take a moment of silence in solidarity for all engineers who worked on this when this gets scraped.
- bigdict 6y ago
  Or a moment of noise in solidarity with the engineers who got promoted for shipping the shiny new thing.
  - tsjq 6y ago
    Bang !!
- nullsense 6y ago
  And let's also take a moment of silence for everyone who invested time and energy into creating stories only for Google to just not be bothered anymore and switch it off.
  - dmje 6y ago
    Maybe a moment of silence for people who read and write long form content and like to immerse rather than skim... ~ sigh ~
    - frozenlettuce 6y ago
      But having to turn pages is better to serve ads, as you need more effort to dodge them
    - swiley 6y ago
      Maybe also one for blind and vision impaired people, this looks like just a sequence of videos.
      - jeffrallen 6y ago
        If we changed these moments of silence into shots of tequila, we'd really get this party started!
  - TameAntelope 6y ago
    It reads like you can host your own stories, but since it’s in a “story” format I’m having trouble following the details...
- johnatwork 6y ago
  "It's been an incredible journey, and we would like to thank all those who have shared it with us."
- jorgesborges 6y ago
  I have the unfortunate inkling that this is here to stay. In hindsight it seems obvious that Google Search will implement the most successful and ubiquitous features of social media. I don't like it, but the pressure this will create for companies to compete in this space will be huge.
  - fluidcruft 6y ago
    But does Google Search have an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of CommonLisp yet?
    - 3np 6y ago
      no but there is dart
    - hyperdimension 6y ago
      Well, GMail does read email, fulfilling jwz's law, so there's only one more law to go. Maybe something like emacs, but AMP-based, and we'll have the worst of two worlds!
- halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
  I wonder if Google’s turnover is such that when this does inevitably get shuttered, those who worked on it are still at Google.
  - joshstrange 6y ago
    If stories posted here on HN are to be believed, and I overall do believe them, then they are probably mostly still at google, they are just onto a new project. Google seems to prioritize and reward project completion (aka "shipping") more than long-term project successfulness. Also it's more advantageous to do whatever it takes to get a leg up and get promoted than it is to care about the long-term viability of a project. So to answer your question, probably still at google, just not associated with the "stories" team anymore. It's a game of hot potato where you don't want to be stuck on a team not shipping/innovating since those are the same teams that get spun down (though to be fair it sounds like they just get absorbed onto the "google blob" instead of being let go most of the time). It's sad that people that are the most passionate are the ones who suffer the most (suffer in terms of not getting funds/time/etc to expand a product they care deeply for and for their troubles get shifted to some other team when Google loses interest in their "baby").
    - throwaway3699 6y ago
      This definitely rings true in my experience, but I have to wonder what a better system would be for Google. Their leadership just isn't top down which means rewards have to hit some kind of decentralised target, launches being the most impactful.
- odiroot 6y ago
  But they can be happy for their manager, who'd get promoted for pushing this out. Maybe they all will even get some bonus!
rchaud 6y ago
They released a Wordpress plugin a few months ago[0], so this is designed more for content teams and marketers that would prefer to focus on producing stories rather than dealing with developers' objections. Google Tag Manager has the same raison d'etre. [0]: https://wordpress.org/plugins/web-stories/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/web-stories/
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
That's what engineers do?

freediver 6y ago

And let's take a moment of silence in solidarity for all engineers who worked on this when this gets scraped.

bigdict 6y ago
Or a moment of noise in solidarity with the engineers who got promoted for shipping the shiny new thing.
- tsjq 6y ago
  Bang !!
nullsense 6y ago
And let's also take a moment of silence for everyone who invested time and energy into creating stories only for Google to just not be bothered anymore and switch it off.
- dmje 6y ago
  Maybe a moment of silence for people who read and write long form content and like to immerse rather than skim... ~ sigh ~
  - frozenlettuce 6y ago
    But having to turn pages is better to serve ads, as you need more effort to dodge them
  - swiley 6y ago
    Maybe also one for blind and vision impaired people, this looks like just a sequence of videos.
    - jeffrallen 6y ago
      If we changed these moments of silence into shots of tequila, we'd really get this party started!
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  It reads like you can host your own stories, but since it’s in a “story” format I’m having trouble following the details...
johnatwork 6y ago
"It's been an incredible journey, and we would like to thank all those who have shared it with us."
jorgesborges 6y ago
I have the unfortunate inkling that this is here to stay. In hindsight it seems obvious that Google Search will implement the most successful and ubiquitous features of social media. I don't like it, but the pressure this will create for companies to compete in this space will be huge.
- fluidcruft 6y ago
  But does Google Search have an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of CommonLisp yet?
  - 3np 6y ago
    no but there is dart
  - hyperdimension 6y ago
    Well, GMail does read email, fulfilling jwz's law, so there's only one more law to go. Maybe something like emacs, but AMP-based, and we'll have the worst of two worlds!
halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
I wonder if Google’s turnover is such that when this does inevitably get shuttered, those who worked on it are still at Google.
- joshstrange 6y ago
  If stories posted here on HN are to be believed, and I overall do believe them, then they are probably mostly still at google, they are just onto a new project. Google seems to prioritize and reward project completion (aka "shipping") more than long-term project successfulness. Also it's more advantageous to do whatever it takes to get a leg up and get promoted than it is to care about the long-term viability of a project. So to answer your question, probably still at google, just not associated with the "stories" team anymore. It's a game of hot potato where you don't want to be stuck on a team not shipping/innovating since those are the same teams that get spun down (though to be fair it sounds like they just get absorbed onto the "google blob" instead of being let go most of the time). It's sad that people that are the most passionate are the ones who suffer the most (suffer in terms of not getting funds/time/etc to expand a product they care deeply for and for their troubles get shifted to some other team when Google loses interest in their "baby").
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    This definitely rings true in my experience, but I have to wonder what a better system would be for Google. Their leadership just isn't top down which means rewards have to hit some kind of decentralised target, launches being the most impactful.
odiroot 6y ago
But they can be happy for their manager, who'd get promoted for pushing this out. Maybe they all will even get some bonus!

rchaud 6y ago

They released a Wordpress plugin a few months ago[0], so this is designed more for content teams and marketers that would prefer to focus on producing stories rather than dealing with developers' objections. Google Tag Manager has the same raison d'etre. [0]: https://wordpress.org/plugins/web-stories/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/web-stories/

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

That's what engineers do?