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> He's pointing out that their stated justification doesn't make a lot of sense. Google says they're shutting down Reader to put more focus on a smaller number

by laureny 13y ago

> He's pointing out that their stated justification doesn't make a lot of sense. Google says they're shutting down Reader to put more focus on a smaller number of products, but they're just as scattered as ever You can't criticize Google for shutting down Reader and then accuse them of being scattered in the same sentence. By shutting down Reader, they are limiting their scattering, and Reader is not the only product they are shutting down. > Pointing out that their words don't match their actions here is a perfectly reasonable thing to do here. Very true, that's why I'm pointing out that your words are inconsistent :)

mikeash 13y ago
Huh? Of course I can accuse them of being scattered when they shut down Reader, if they still have a ton of other projects without any particular coherent goal, which is absolutely the case. They want to shut it down, fine, I don't really care. But the result is not "focus".
- TheCraiggers 13y ago
  Regardless of how many products they have, they still have one less after shutting down Reader. I'd say the argument still stands.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Regardless of how many products they have, they still have one less after shutting down Reader. I'd say the argument still stands. Not if, in the same period they "closed the Reader to in order to focus", they started more than one products, all around the map. If I tell you: "I stopped going to the gym in order to focus on my painting more. Oh, and I also started bowling, belly-dancing, snooker, and etching classes -- and I'm leaving next week for snorkeling in Thailand" then I'd argue that me stopping 1 thing does not not in the least mean I'm more focused now.
    - TheCraiggers 13y ago
      That is fallacious. You're assuming they weren't going to start those other products anyway.
      - mikeash 13y ago
        Google said "fewer products". Doesn't matter whether or not they were going to start those products anyway, what they're saying is incorrect.
        chronic25 13y ago
        Posing to make this comment deeper
      - coldtea 13y ago
        Nothing fallacious about it. The argument is they did it to "focus better". You can not do something with the pretext of better focus and then do several other things that break that focus -- whether you were planning to do them anyway is irrelevant. To put it in some (arbitrary but isomorphic to the argument) numbers, increasing your focus by 5 points and decreasing it by 20 still leaves you with a decrease of 15. Yes, it's better than decreasing it by 25, but that's not the point -- it's a minor pedantic correction. A decrease of 15 is hardly "focusing".
  - DennisP 13y ago
    Only if your measurement is the number of products. If you were to represent each product as a point in a multidimensional space of features, and measure according to how well they were clustered, then the existence of Reader would improve the clustering of Google's products, helping to counter the existence of products like self-driving cars.
coldtea 13y ago
>You can't criticize Google for shutting down Reader and then accuse them of being scattered in the same sentence. By shutting down Reader, they are limiting their scattering, and Reader is not the only product they are shutting down. No, you very much can. Since, you know, they are shutting down a product in their main area of expertise, only to pursue BS non-products all around the map.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  I don't think Google want to remain "experts" in the complex field of RSS aggregation anymore. It was probably a fun side project for a group of engineers, was written, then got sidetracked, then became not interesting to work on anymore, then was shutdown to focus on other more interesting tasks. Just like what their statement above says...
  - beatgammit 13y ago
    I think you're missing the point. Check out Google's mission statement: > Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful How is Google Reader less fitting than, say, self-driving cars or balloon Internet? An RSS reader is quite literally a way to organize the world's information, perhaps the most relevant of the product offerings. It's not about what is "more interesting", but "more relevant". They're closing down relevant products for interesting ones, which is not good...
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > How is Google Reader less fitting than, say, self-driving cars or balloon Internet? An RSS reader is quite literally a way to organize the world's information, perhaps the most relevant of the product offerings. Balloon internet is pretty high on the "universally accessible" front, I'd say. With regard to Reader, Google has a different way of organizing and providing access to RSS, atom, and similar information, PubSubHubbub (PuSH) -- both the protocol and Google's own PuSH hub -- which they are continuing to support and move forward with. While this is infrastructure rather than end-user technology, it, at least arguably, has potentially much greater impact in terms of organizing information and making it accessible, and is much more the kind of thing Google is especially well-positioned to do, whereas end-user UI consuming feeds isn't something that really needs Google to do it.
robotjosh 13y ago
Google Reader did nothing to contribute to "scatter" since it was closely related to gmail in function and interface.
rz2k 13y ago
Would Google be more, or less, scattered if it shut down search and Gmail? Anyway, I thought this was some discussion about how Google may or may not be making a decision that will later in hindsight turn out to been bad for Google, followed by a tangent about whether anyone is allowed to make qualitative statements about any decision made by Google. The tangent seemed sufficiently uninteresting before it descended further into an argument of semantics.

by laureny 13y ago

mikeash 13y ago

Huh? Of course I can accuse them of being scattered when they shut down Reader, if they still have a ton of other projects without any particular coherent goal, which is absolutely the case. They want to shut it down, fine, I don't really care. But the result is not "focus".

TheCraiggers 13y ago
Regardless of how many products they have, they still have one less after shutting down Reader. I'd say the argument still stands.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Regardless of how many products they have, they still have one less after shutting down Reader. I'd say the argument still stands. Not if, in the same period they "closed the Reader to in order to focus", they started more than one products, all around the map. If I tell you: "I stopped going to the gym in order to focus on my painting more. Oh, and I also started bowling, belly-dancing, snooker, and etching classes -- and I'm leaving next week for snorkeling in Thailand" then I'd argue that me stopping 1 thing does not not in the least mean I'm more focused now.
  - TheCraiggers 13y ago
    That is fallacious. You're assuming they weren't going to start those other products anyway.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      Google said "fewer products". Doesn't matter whether or not they were going to start those products anyway, what they're saying is incorrect.
      - chronic25 13y ago
        Posing to make this comment deeper
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Nothing fallacious about it. The argument is they did it to "focus better". You can not do something with the pretext of better focus and then do several other things that break that focus -- whether you were planning to do them anyway is irrelevant. To put it in some (arbitrary but isomorphic to the argument) numbers, increasing your focus by 5 points and decreasing it by 20 still leaves you with a decrease of 15. Yes, it's better than decreasing it by 25, but that's not the point -- it's a minor pedantic correction. A decrease of 15 is hardly "focusing".
- DennisP 13y ago
  Only if your measurement is the number of products. If you were to represent each product as a point in a multidimensional space of features, and measure according to how well they were clustered, then the existence of Reader would improve the clustering of Google's products, helping to counter the existence of products like self-driving cars.

coldtea 13y ago

>You can't criticize Google for shutting down Reader and then accuse them of being scattered in the same sentence. By shutting down Reader, they are limiting their scattering, and Reader is not the only product they are shutting down. No, you very much can. Since, you know, they are shutting down a product in their main area of expertise, only to pursue BS non-products all around the map.

res0nat0r 13y ago
I don't think Google want to remain "experts" in the complex field of RSS aggregation anymore. It was probably a fun side project for a group of engineers, was written, then got sidetracked, then became not interesting to work on anymore, then was shutdown to focus on other more interesting tasks. Just like what their statement above says...
- beatgammit 13y ago
  I think you're missing the point. Check out Google's mission statement: > Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful How is Google Reader less fitting than, say, self-driving cars or balloon Internet? An RSS reader is quite literally a way to organize the world's information, perhaps the most relevant of the product offerings. It's not about what is "more interesting", but "more relevant". They're closing down relevant products for interesting ones, which is not good...
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > How is Google Reader less fitting than, say, self-driving cars or balloon Internet? An RSS reader is quite literally a way to organize the world's information, perhaps the most relevant of the product offerings. Balloon internet is pretty high on the "universally accessible" front, I'd say. With regard to Reader, Google has a different way of organizing and providing access to RSS, atom, and similar information, PubSubHubbub (PuSH) -- both the protocol and Google's own PuSH hub -- which they are continuing to support and move forward with. While this is infrastructure rather than end-user technology, it, at least arguably, has potentially much greater impact in terms of organizing information and making it accessible, and is much more the kind of thing Google is especially well-positioned to do, whereas end-user UI consuming feeds isn't something that really needs Google to do it.

robotjosh 13y ago

Google Reader did nothing to contribute to "scatter" since it was closely related to gmail in function and interface.

rz2k 13y ago

Would Google be more, or less, scattered if it shut down search and Gmail? Anyway, I thought this was some discussion about how Google may or may not be making a decision that will later in hindsight turn out to been bad for Google, followed by a tangent about whether anyone is allowed to make qualitative statements about any decision made by Google. The tangent seemed sufficiently uninteresting before it descended further into an argument of semantics.