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Google Now is killer. The 'aha' moment for me was when I was visiting New York City: A few hours after my arrival, it told me that a favorite musician of mine

Google Now is killer. The 'aha' moment for me was when I was visiting New York City: A few hours after my arrival, it told me that a favorite musician of mine was going to perform at a venue close to my location. I would have never known if I didn't have the service. I'm guessing they knew I liked that artist because of my youtube history (my phone doesn't contain any music). That's cool with me. Oh and if they want to show me an ad for his latest album, instead of the latest One Direction single, I'm cool with that too. Lots of cynicism/astroturfing towards Google. Maybe they were simply giving away their share of the pie to other, smaller businesses? It's not like there's a shortage of RSS readers out there; it's kind of a trivial thing to build.

diminish 14y ago
The turnoff switch for Reader is an inflection point for Google towards Microsoftization; where they new product launches will be skeptically seen by hackers, and geeks. I went to my phone, and did a Google spring cleanup yesterday, by deleting all the stuff I didn't use, and thought Google would see a future; That is good for startups, they may attack Google product segments with ease, and we shall all PR for them and enjoy using them.
- nnnnni 14y ago
  No, the de-standardizing of Google Calendar is Microsoftization. 1. Release something that's compatible with another popular thing. 2. Build up a huge following. 3. Remove the compatibility. 4. ??? 5. Profit! It's the same thing that happened with NT and OS/2 compatibility. I'm not sure if Excel can still deal with Lotus files, but Excel got popular because of its Lotus compatibility.
  - charlieok 14y ago
    And in fact, Google did this most specifically to Microsoft. http://www.zdnet.com/google-drops-exchange-activesync-support-for-free-email-accounts-7000008836/ http://www.zdnet.com/google-drops-exchange-activesync-suppor...
- mtgx 14y ago
  And what happens if that start-up dies 3 years from now? Will there be a similar outrage for closing it down and pissing you off because "you got used to it"?

diminish 14y ago

The turnoff switch for Reader is an inflection point for Google towards Microsoftization; where they new product launches will be skeptically seen by hackers, and geeks. I went to my phone, and did a Google spring cleanup yesterday, by deleting all the stuff I didn't use, and thought Google would see a future; That is good for startups, they may attack Google product segments with ease, and we shall all PR for them and enjoy using them.

nnnnni 14y ago
No, the de-standardizing of Google Calendar is Microsoftization. 1. Release something that's compatible with another popular thing. 2. Build up a huge following. 3. Remove the compatibility. 4. ??? 5. Profit! It's the same thing that happened with NT and OS/2 compatibility. I'm not sure if Excel can still deal with Lotus files, but Excel got popular because of its Lotus compatibility.
- charlieok 14y ago
  And in fact, Google did this most specifically to Microsoft. http://www.zdnet.com/google-drops-exchange-activesync-support-for-free-email-accounts-7000008836/ http://www.zdnet.com/google-drops-exchange-activesync-suppor...
mtgx 14y ago
And what happens if that start-up dies 3 years from now? Will there be a similar outrage for closing it down and pissing you off because "you got used to it"?