6 ms·

It's that, but it's also a symbol for how the Web has changed. Google bulldozing Reader in order to clear ground for a (intended) social media behemoth reflects

It's that, but it's also a symbol for how the Web has changed. Google bulldozing Reader in order to clear ground for a (intended) social media behemoth reflects how all sorts of smaller online communities and spaces have been razed or faded away as everything continues to consolidate onto the social media giants.

atmosx 6y ago
... so everything consolidated in G+?
- macintux 6y ago
  Certainly that was Google's intention. Thank goodness they failed.
  - pantalaimon 6y ago
    But they didn't even try very hard. G+ didn't event have a way to create events. Google Calendar was on every Android device, it would have been so seamless if you could have create a birthday party or attend a rave in the park and it would be right in your calendar. But no, you could only post stories and pictures. That made for a rather bare-bones social network.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
      First iteration was rather nice, clean interface without many distractions. However, then they got all cardy with that material design, and it all was very confusing
      - waheoo 6y ago
        I swear material design was the result of one too many post-it note sessions.
    - Godel_unicode 6y ago
      This is a great illustration of the problem G+ had; events in g+ were amazing but nobody (apparently) knew. Setting them up was easy, inviting people was easy, privacy for events made sense from the UI, etc. If you set things up correctly, everyone who was invited would have a shared photo album that they would be able to share pictures to with one click. I have a friend who had an amazing wedding photo album created this way; to this day they swear that if it had been marketed better g+ events would have put wedding photographers out of business...
      - pantalaimon 6y ago
        Maybe they added it later? When it launched there was no such feature, I think they added events after a year or so, but by then all the hype had already died down.
      - olliej 6y ago
        Did people have to have G+ accounts to receive invites? I know Facebook requires it, but if they just used standard calendaring events (maybe with an info link to g+?) that would seem a winner
    - eythian 6y ago
      G+ had events, I used to use them all the time. And then they removed them from communities, which was a large portion of how people (in my circles at least) used them. So that made it a lot less useful.
- llarsson 6y ago
  I still remember being swept away by Google Wave. Such a cool idea at the time, I thought. That was such a good idea compared to Google Plus. Your content, your comments, just aggregated. They could have pulled it off, too, I am sure. They just didn't want to.
  - cheschire 6y ago
    Maybe I'm just remembering poorly, but Wave seemed super buggy and laggy to me at the time.
    - edoceo 6y ago
      It was crappy but it's intention was good.
    - kybernetikos 6y ago
      We used it for architectural discussions and exploring ideas. I'd be hard pressed to think of something that was better for that.
      - skinkestek 6y ago
        For some reason I never saw it working. Does anyone have a link to a video of it actually being in use?
        henhouse 6y ago
        https://youtu.be/eKUAqNGVwX0 https://youtu.be/eKUAqNGVwX0
    - eythian 6y ago
      It wasn't the fastest, but I think that now browser (and CPU) tech has moved on since then, it'd probably be a lot smoother. I remember using it once to coordinate specs on a small contract job and it worked pretty well for that.
  - atmosx 6y ago
CA0DA 6y ago
Some people are trying to build a community here: https://neocities.org/ https://neocities.org/
- Apofis 6y ago
  I can't believe that website is still around. I just got teleported to the 90's.
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    Neocities isn't that old. Perhaps you're thinking of Geocities, the '90s vintage website that inspired it?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Apofis 6y ago
      I realized later that it's Geocities v2; essentially. Still a fun thought that sort of service is still a thing. I think Medium.com is probably the best offspring that I can think of.
  - skinkestek 6y ago
    Sign up is free and easy. Those who want and for whom $5 is pocket change is encouraged to make a paid account to support it. (Happy supporter, otherwise unaffiliated.)
TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
And it's not just the web. It's everything. Every company in our capitalist utopia just keeps growing and growing. Microsoft is the perfect example. They've bought companies from the start, and never stopped. I still hate that they were allowed to buy GitHub. They will eventually make it supplant their stupid MSDN "devops" thing in their offerings. But if not Microsoft, it just would have been Oracle or Amazon or someone else, and the problem is all the same. Now it's just another -- vital -- service, where I'm not the customer, and I can't ever fully trust it. And, yes, you can argue that this didn't materially change with the Microsoft buyout, but I trusted former management's objectives for the site to run more closely to my interests than Microsoft's.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2021/03/23/microsoft-discord-purchase-10-billion-analysis/ https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2021/03/23/microsoft-discord...
- cacarr 6y ago
  Not that many people who use Linux are clamoring for it, but it's interesting that GitHub does not provide an official desktop app for Linux -- even though it's a frickin Electron all. And that's totally GitHub's doing. Meanwhile, at the parent company, Microsoft offets VS Code for Linux. And it's nice.
  - markogresak 6y ago
    You can get it on linux: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/github-desktop-bin/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/github-desktop-bin/ (mentioned in the official docs) or https://github.com/shiftkey/desktop https://github.com/shiftkey/desktop. What I dislike about Linux in general is how often the mentality for an app is “you’re using Linux, just find the repository and figure out how to get the release to your system or build it yourself”.
  - DocTomoe 6y ago
    Why would I need an "official desktop app" for anything, if I got a perfectly good git, and with git being perfectly integrated in modern IDEs (should I need a more GUI approach?)

atmosx 6y ago

... so everything consolidated in G+?

macintux 6y ago
Certainly that was Google's intention. Thank goodness they failed.
- pantalaimon 6y ago
  But they didn't even try very hard. G+ didn't event have a way to create events. Google Calendar was on every Android device, it would have been so seamless if you could have create a birthday party or attend a rave in the park and it would be right in your calendar. But no, you could only post stories and pictures. That made for a rather bare-bones social network.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    First iteration was rather nice, clean interface without many distractions. However, then they got all cardy with that material design, and it all was very confusing
    - waheoo 6y ago
      I swear material design was the result of one too many post-it note sessions.
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    This is a great illustration of the problem G+ had; events in g+ were amazing but nobody (apparently) knew. Setting them up was easy, inviting people was easy, privacy for events made sense from the UI, etc. If you set things up correctly, everyone who was invited would have a shared photo album that they would be able to share pictures to with one click. I have a friend who had an amazing wedding photo album created this way; to this day they swear that if it had been marketed better g+ events would have put wedding photographers out of business...
    - pantalaimon 6y ago
      Maybe they added it later? When it launched there was no such feature, I think they added events after a year or so, but by then all the hype had already died down.
    - olliej 6y ago
      Did people have to have G+ accounts to receive invites? I know Facebook requires it, but if they just used standard calendaring events (maybe with an info link to g+?) that would seem a winner
  - eythian 6y ago
    G+ had events, I used to use them all the time. And then they removed them from communities, which was a large portion of how people (in my circles at least) used them. So that made it a lot less useful.
llarsson 6y ago
I still remember being swept away by Google Wave. Such a cool idea at the time, I thought. That was such a good idea compared to Google Plus. Your content, your comments, just aggregated. They could have pulled it off, too, I am sure. They just didn't want to.
- cheschire 6y ago
  Maybe I'm just remembering poorly, but Wave seemed super buggy and laggy to me at the time.
  - edoceo 6y ago
    It was crappy but it's intention was good.
  - kybernetikos 6y ago
    We used it for architectural discussions and exploring ideas. I'd be hard pressed to think of something that was better for that.
    - skinkestek 6y ago
      For some reason I never saw it working. Does anyone have a link to a video of it actually being in use?
      - henhouse 6y ago
        https://youtu.be/eKUAqNGVwX0 https://youtu.be/eKUAqNGVwX0
  - eythian 6y ago
    It wasn't the fastest, but I think that now browser (and CPU) tech has moved on since then, it'd probably be a lot smoother. I remember using it once to coordinate specs on a small contract job and it worked pretty well for that.
- atmosx 6y ago

CA0DA 6y ago

Some people are trying to build a community here: https://neocities.org/ https://neocities.org/

Apofis 6y ago
I can't believe that website is still around. I just got teleported to the 90's.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  Neocities isn't that old. Perhaps you're thinking of Geocities, the '90s vintage website that inspired it?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Apofis 6y ago
    I realized later that it's Geocities v2; essentially. Still a fun thought that sort of service is still a thing. I think Medium.com is probably the best offspring that I can think of.
- skinkestek 6y ago
  Sign up is free and easy. Those who want and for whom $5 is pocket change is encouraged to make a paid account to support it. (Happy supporter, otherwise unaffiliated.)

TheRealDunkirk 6y ago

And it's not just the web. It's everything. Every company in our capitalist utopia just keeps growing and growing. Microsoft is the perfect example. They've bought companies from the start, and never stopped. I still hate that they were allowed to buy GitHub. They will eventually make it supplant their stupid MSDN "devops" thing in their offerings. But if not Microsoft, it just would have been Oracle or Amazon or someone else, and the problem is all the same. Now it's just another -- vital -- service, where I'm not the customer, and I can't ever fully trust it. And, yes, you can argue that this didn't materially change with the Microsoft buyout, but I trusted former management's objectives for the site to run more closely to my interests than Microsoft's.

pessimizer 6y ago
https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2021/03/23/microsoft-discord-purchase-10-billion-analysis/ https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2021/03/23/microsoft-discord...
cacarr 6y ago
Not that many people who use Linux are clamoring for it, but it's interesting that GitHub does not provide an official desktop app for Linux -- even though it's a frickin Electron all. And that's totally GitHub's doing. Meanwhile, at the parent company, Microsoft offets VS Code for Linux. And it's nice.
- markogresak 6y ago
  You can get it on linux: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/github-desktop-bin/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/github-desktop-bin/ (mentioned in the official docs) or https://github.com/shiftkey/desktop https://github.com/shiftkey/desktop. What I dislike about Linux in general is how often the mentality for an app is “you’re using Linux, just find the repository and figure out how to get the release to your system or build it yourself”.
- DocTomoe 6y ago
  Why would I need an "official desktop app" for anything, if I got a perfectly good git, and with git being perfectly integrated in modern IDEs (should I need a more GUI approach?)