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Google can be damn stupid sometimes. They shutdown Google Reader which is used daily by every journalist on the planet. This resulted in a ton of bad press wh

Google can be damn stupid sometimes. They shutdown Google Reader which is used daily by every journalist on the planet. This resulted in a ton of bad press which was completely foreseeable. Now they have some chieftain try to change the conversation into "Tell me what you loved about Reader", under the guise that they will use your comment to help make better products. As if Google has no data on how people use Google Reader. What is funny is how many lemmings are falling into his trap.

scott_s 14y ago
You assume that these actions were coordinated, and that all individuals in Google know about, and act on, a single vision.
- roc 14y ago
  His assumption only requires the group that's replacing Google Reader to have been aware of and involved in the effort to replace Google Reader. Which seems pretty reasonable.
  - javajosh 14y ago
    There is a much simpler explanation: the lead of one project is looking to improve his project however he can. In this case, he sees the ruckus over Reader as a chance to get a bunch of feature requests. It's kind of like a vulture picking over a carcass, but hey, circle of life and all that. It's important to remember that to Google products like Reader are blips on the radar. Every second they spent scheming about Reader cost them millions in Ad Sense revenue; hence, there was no scheming.
    - roc 14y ago
      I would find it difficult to believe that Google+ wouldn't have already been looking into getting news feed subscriptions into their product. An RSS-style solution with discoverability would leap-frog Facebook's News stuff and could even put them into quasi-competition with Twitter. It seems an inevitable sort of feature. So the idea that they were surprised by this and are going to start from zero to build a new bit of G+ seems... a stretch.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - chc 14y ago
        You seem to be disagreeing with a thing nobody said. It is possible that they were already exploring a news feed feature and that they see this as an opportunity to find out what their users want from the feature.
        roc 14y ago
        What I'm disagree with, is the idea that there must be some overarching Google Unimind for this to have been a conscious strategy, and thus that angle is implausible-to-laughable. I assert it's rather more plausible that such plans were under-way and closing Reader was a step to clear the way for a Google+ solution. Because nothing near a unimind would have been required to coordinate it and because the entire migration is more inevitable than not. Is it possible the Google+ team is sincere in wanting to help people and capture feedback? Sure. But that's rather orthogonal to the question of whether this statement and the timing of all this is primarily motivated by PR strategy.
    - pazimzadeh 14y ago
      Or he could just meet with whoever was in charge of Google Reader, down the street.
      - saraid216 14y ago
        You realize this person almost certainly doesn't exist, right?
        pazimzadeh 14y ago
        No, seriously can you elucidate? He could at least meet with someone who had worked on the project.
        ChuckMcM 14y ago
        Once Reader lost favor inside the 'plex people didn't want to work on it because it wouldn't show well on their resume. (you don't get promoted for applying CPR to a dead product and manage to keep it alive in intensive care for another budget cycle). So there were no doubt people who were working on other projects who had previously worked on Reader sometimes fixing bugs, and there was probably a product manager somewhere that had at one time been responsible for it, and kind of still remembered where the files were in the source tree. But as a "product" it could continue to exist in Google with nobody "in charge" of it. Its hard to believe, and even harder to explain to someone who hasn't be on the inside, but there are things that exist as Google "products" or "features" only because nobody turned them off, but there is no one at the wheel any more.
        waterlesscloud 14y ago
        Well, that sounds dysfunctional.
        snaky 14y ago
        OK, you don't get promoted etc. But promotion isn't one and only motivation, right? For two years there wasn't one Google employee who added one feature to Google Reader just for fun? Ouch.
  - scott_s 14y ago
    It assumes that those who are responsible for replacing Reader were part of the decision that it was going away. In large companies, the people who decide such things are often not the same people who engineer them.
saraid216 14y ago
You're totally right. Google should absolutely never, ever ask for input from users.
- stanleydrew 14y ago
  I understand this is sarcasm, but it seems in this case it would have been easier and clearer to express your point directly.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    My point was expressed pretty clearly, I thought, and I did it without calling several hundred people "lemmings" and without calling Yonatan Zunger a liar. I have a nice list of names I'm perfectly willing to call jcampbell1 in response, but I felt sarcasm was more polite. Or is this one of those cases where "lol u suk" is the preferred response?
dannyr 14y ago
Google never get feedback from users. They don't even beta test when they build products.
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  > They don't even beta test when they build products. Uh... Gmail pretty much started the "launch your web app as a beta" craze.
  - dannyr 14y ago
    Dude, do I need to put a sarcasm tag?
    - guizzy 14y ago
      On the internet? Yes, always.
      - dannyr 14y ago
        I'd like to believe that people here on Hacker News are smarter than that.
        dannyr 14y ago
        Man, lots of downvotes. I guess it's bad to expect anything good from HN users.
dechols 14y ago
I wanted to reply, but then it asked me to sign up for Google+. Then it hit me: That's exactly it. Google+ is Google's way of controlling an entire ecosystem of replies to topics. That's exactly the problem with Google+. Google Reader was great because it gave you a window into the internet. A window that you could shape however you wanted.
- lancewiggs 14y ago
  Yes. I scanned the first hundred or comments on the post and none said that the experience on Reader (and Twitter) is owned by the reader, while the experience Google + (and Facebook) are owned by Google (and Facebook). I do not want to share my reading activity with everyone. I just want to sit here on the corner and read. So why make it "social"?
lloeki 14y ago
> they will use your comment to help make better products. Ironically, I can't really come up with 'better product' in this specific use case. "Reader killed RSS" feels just wrong. If anything Reader made RSS thrive, because the data source that get sinked into Reader data is RSS. Reader is a killer product that shifted the landscape because it fills one single role (RSS aggregator with read+fav status syncing), and does it extremely well, in a fantastically unobtrusive way. I sure as hell don't want another Google product as a remplacement, nor another existing or future product integrate RSS aggregation (and certainly not Plus) as part of it. I don't want a kitchensink or mishmash social/news/aggregator app. Anyone current or past Google employee who put some work on Reader, here's my personal message to you: thank you, your work is awesome.
- jcampbell1 14y ago
  I agree. I find most of Google products awesome, and thank the engineers for their work. I also think Google is smart to try to get out in front of the negative press. I think this attempt is solid approach to redirect people's passion in a positive direction. The only mistake I see, is that nobody spoke up and said, "Reader doesn't have many users, but the users are bloggers and journalists, so we better shut this thing down with an extreme amount of empathy." In the interest of being constructive, I think they should have: 1) Done a phased shutdown by disabling adding new feeds. 2) Published the API 3) Offer to work with alternative providers to make migration easy.
VikingCoder 14y ago
"under the guise"? Pretend for one yoctosecond that you work at Google, disagree with the decision to shut down Reader, and are in a position to try to make the product you're working on help fill the void. That people like you assume it's malice, or some conspiracy or evil plot, just saddens me. Full disclosure: I have empathy, and own GOOG stock.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  Pretend for one yoctosecond that you work at Google, disagree with the decision to shut down Reader, and are in a position to try to make the product you're working on help fill the void. So, Google would allow another team to create a clone of what they shut down after all these years? Their excuse was that they need to focus on fewer products
  - VikingCoder 14y ago
    Yeah, they could. For one, Reader could be built on a very different set of APIs that makes it inherently difficult to maintain. That's speculation, but it's certainly the kind of thing that has happened at every large company I've ever worked at.
- jcampbell1 14y ago
  It is possible that Mr Zunger woke up this morning and thought , "This is a great oppourtunity to get a bunch of vague and unsubstantiated feedback on a product that is being shutdown. I'd like to spend half my day moderating comments". It could also be that he wanted to redirect some of the passion for google reader in a positive direction. Make Google a bit more empathetic and friendly. It could be some combination of the two. I don't see malice here. I think Mr. Zunger made a smart move. Now if he actually thought he was going to learn something he didn't already know from those comments, that would sadden me. He is smart enough to realize that comments like those have a huge power-user sample bias and are mostly useless. My lemmings comment was way out of bounds.
  - VikingCoder 14y ago

scott_s 14y ago

You assume that these actions were coordinated, and that all individuals in Google know about, and act on, a single vision.

roc 14y ago
His assumption only requires the group that's replacing Google Reader to have been aware of and involved in the effort to replace Google Reader. Which seems pretty reasonable.
- javajosh 14y ago
  There is a much simpler explanation: the lead of one project is looking to improve his project however he can. In this case, he sees the ruckus over Reader as a chance to get a bunch of feature requests. It's kind of like a vulture picking over a carcass, but hey, circle of life and all that. It's important to remember that to Google products like Reader are blips on the radar. Every second they spent scheming about Reader cost them millions in Ad Sense revenue; hence, there was no scheming.
  - roc 14y ago
    I would find it difficult to believe that Google+ wouldn't have already been looking into getting news feed subscriptions into their product. An RSS-style solution with discoverability would leap-frog Facebook's News stuff and could even put them into quasi-competition with Twitter. It seems an inevitable sort of feature. So the idea that they were surprised by this and are going to start from zero to build a new bit of G+ seems... a stretch.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - chc 14y ago
      You seem to be disagreeing with a thing nobody said. It is possible that they were already exploring a news feed feature and that they see this as an opportunity to find out what their users want from the feature.
      - roc 14y ago
        What I'm disagree with, is the idea that there must be some overarching Google Unimind for this to have been a conscious strategy, and thus that angle is implausible-to-laughable. I assert it's rather more plausible that such plans were under-way and closing Reader was a step to clear the way for a Google+ solution. Because nothing near a unimind would have been required to coordinate it and because the entire migration is more inevitable than not. Is it possible the Google+ team is sincere in wanting to help people and capture feedback? Sure. But that's rather orthogonal to the question of whether this statement and the timing of all this is primarily motivated by PR strategy.
  - pazimzadeh 14y ago
    Or he could just meet with whoever was in charge of Google Reader, down the street.
    - saraid216 14y ago
      You realize this person almost certainly doesn't exist, right?
      - pazimzadeh 14y ago
        No, seriously can you elucidate? He could at least meet with someone who had worked on the project.
        ChuckMcM 14y ago
        Once Reader lost favor inside the 'plex people didn't want to work on it because it wouldn't show well on their resume. (you don't get promoted for applying CPR to a dead product and manage to keep it alive in intensive care for another budget cycle). So there were no doubt people who were working on other projects who had previously worked on Reader sometimes fixing bugs, and there was probably a product manager somewhere that had at one time been responsible for it, and kind of still remembered where the files were in the source tree. But as a "product" it could continue to exist in Google with nobody "in charge" of it. Its hard to believe, and even harder to explain to someone who hasn't be on the inside, but there are things that exist as Google "products" or "features" only because nobody turned them off, but there is no one at the wheel any more.
        waterlesscloud 14y ago
        Well, that sounds dysfunctional.
        snaky 14y ago
        OK, you don't get promoted etc. But promotion isn't one and only motivation, right? For two years there wasn't one Google employee who added one feature to Google Reader just for fun? Ouch.
- scott_s 14y ago
  It assumes that those who are responsible for replacing Reader were part of the decision that it was going away. In large companies, the people who decide such things are often not the same people who engineer them.

saraid216 14y ago

You're totally right. Google should absolutely never, ever ask for input from users.

stanleydrew 14y ago
I understand this is sarcasm, but it seems in this case it would have been easier and clearer to express your point directly.
- saraid216 14y ago
  My point was expressed pretty clearly, I thought, and I did it without calling several hundred people "lemmings" and without calling Yonatan Zunger a liar. I have a nice list of names I'm perfectly willing to call jcampbell1 in response, but I felt sarcasm was more polite. Or is this one of those cases where "lol u suk" is the preferred response?

dannyr 14y ago

Google never get feedback from users. They don't even beta test when they build products.

ceejayoz 14y ago
> They don't even beta test when they build products. Uh... Gmail pretty much started the "launch your web app as a beta" craze.
- dannyr 14y ago
  Dude, do I need to put a sarcasm tag?
  - guizzy 14y ago
    On the internet? Yes, always.
    - dannyr 14y ago
      I'd like to believe that people here on Hacker News are smarter than that.
      - dannyr 14y ago
        Man, lots of downvotes. I guess it's bad to expect anything good from HN users.

dechols 14y ago

I wanted to reply, but then it asked me to sign up for Google+. Then it hit me: That's exactly it. Google+ is Google's way of controlling an entire ecosystem of replies to topics. That's exactly the problem with Google+. Google Reader was great because it gave you a window into the internet. A window that you could shape however you wanted.

lancewiggs 14y ago
Yes. I scanned the first hundred or comments on the post and none said that the experience on Reader (and Twitter) is owned by the reader, while the experience Google + (and Facebook) are owned by Google (and Facebook). I do not want to share my reading activity with everyone. I just want to sit here on the corner and read. So why make it "social"?

lloeki 14y ago

> they will use your comment to help make better products. Ironically, I can't really come up with 'better product' in this specific use case. "Reader killed RSS" feels just wrong. If anything Reader made RSS thrive, because the data source that get sinked into Reader data is RSS. Reader is a killer product that shifted the landscape because it fills one single role (RSS aggregator with read+fav status syncing), and does it extremely well, in a fantastically unobtrusive way. I sure as hell don't want another Google product as a remplacement, nor another existing or future product integrate RSS aggregation (and certainly not Plus) as part of it. I don't want a kitchensink or mishmash social/news/aggregator app. Anyone current or past Google employee who put some work on Reader, here's my personal message to you: thank you, your work is awesome.

jcampbell1 14y ago
I agree. I find most of Google products awesome, and thank the engineers for their work. I also think Google is smart to try to get out in front of the negative press. I think this attempt is solid approach to redirect people's passion in a positive direction. The only mistake I see, is that nobody spoke up and said, "Reader doesn't have many users, but the users are bloggers and journalists, so we better shut this thing down with an extreme amount of empathy." In the interest of being constructive, I think they should have: 1) Done a phased shutdown by disabling adding new feeds. 2) Published the API 3) Offer to work with alternative providers to make migration easy.

VikingCoder 14y ago

"under the guise"? Pretend for one yoctosecond that you work at Google, disagree with the decision to shut down Reader, and are in a position to try to make the product you're working on help fill the void. That people like you assume it's malice, or some conspiracy or evil plot, just saddens me. Full disclosure: I have empathy, and own GOOG stock.

OGinparadise 14y ago
Pretend for one yoctosecond that you work at Google, disagree with the decision to shut down Reader, and are in a position to try to make the product you're working on help fill the void. So, Google would allow another team to create a clone of what they shut down after all these years? Their excuse was that they need to focus on fewer products
- VikingCoder 14y ago
  Yeah, they could. For one, Reader could be built on a very different set of APIs that makes it inherently difficult to maintain. That's speculation, but it's certainly the kind of thing that has happened at every large company I've ever worked at.
jcampbell1 14y ago
It is possible that Mr Zunger woke up this morning and thought , "This is a great oppourtunity to get a bunch of vague and unsubstantiated feedback on a product that is being shutdown. I'd like to spend half my day moderating comments". It could also be that he wanted to redirect some of the passion for google reader in a positive direction. Make Google a bit more empathetic and friendly. It could be some combination of the two. I don't see malice here. I think Mr. Zunger made a smart move. Now if he actually thought he was going to learn something he didn't already know from those comments, that would sadden me. He is smart enough to realize that comments like those have a huge power-user sample bias and are mostly useless. My lemmings comment was way out of bounds.
- VikingCoder 14y ago