4 ms·

Honestly, I think he was right. Google has a really bad image problem right now where lots of people don't want to get involved with their projects because Goog

by lnanek2 12y ago

Honestly, I think he was right. Google has a really bad image problem right now where lots of people don't want to get involved with their projects because Google will most likely kill the project just like Reader and Glass. See my couple of wasted Google Glass devices that will never see an Android update again. Do you think I'll ever buy a Google Android product after they wasted $3k of mine? Do you think I'll buy any more of their tech device blunders like cars or thermostats or other devices? Likely not. It's well established they'll just drop them soon after release anyway. They are getting the same reputation for software services. There are lots of startups that would have been happy with Reader's usage numbers besides, so they aren't even making decisions everyone would agree are good kills. With my Android apps, any time someone sends me a bug report or a complaint, I refund them immediately and thank them for the feedback. Does this make me the most money? Hell no. But I have a lot of friendly users who email me constantly with improvements and who aren't mad I'm ripping them off or screwing them over. That's worth a lot too. Google is saving money to screw over users with this Google Code decision and it's definitely not one I agree with.

gtaylor 12y ago
> Honestly, I think he was right. Google has a really bad image problem right now where lots of people don't want to get involved with their projects because Google will most likely kill the project just like Reader and Glass. Again, these are two very niche projects. Reader was a niche within a niche. Glass was an experiment that a tiny subset of the population ever even touched first-hand. It never even reached a "1.0". As early adopters and as technologists, it's easy for us to get upset when our favorite pet project gets killed. But in the end, Reader failed to get any kind of traction beyond its niche. Glass ran into a buzzsaw of negative perception, legislation, and media twisting, in addition to technical challenges. The lessons learned from Glass will be applied to present and future efforts.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- pbreit 12y ago
  Killing reader was a bad idea imo. Yes, it was niche but it was social, attracted influencers and measured relevance. Glass is clearly very much alive.
pbreit 12y ago
Killing reader was a terrible idea. That cut my daily google usage in half and was obviously a key social and relevance asset. Glass is still very much alive.
- gtaylor 12y ago
  > Killing reader was a terrible idea. That cut my daily google usage in half and was obviously a key social and relevance asset. It sucks for our niche, but ultimately Google Reader was a product that didn't have any appeal beyond said tiny niche. The original goal was to make RSS more accessible beyond technologists, but it failed to reach any kind of mass appeal. Some of this was more to do with RSS/Atom feeds having some ergonomic issues that weren't solved before the social media frenzy took hold. Failure is when results don't meet expectations, which is what happened to Reader. I don't fault them for closing it, despite it being inconvenient for me to switch. What does a for-profit company have to gain by dumping time and resources into a failure whose window of opportunity has passed? Some goodwill from a tiny, miniscule subset of their userbase?
enneff 12y ago
If you joined Google's Glass Explorer program (twice?!) expecting anything but a beta-level device with a short shelf life then more fool you. I don't think they could have been any more explicit about the goals of their program.
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  I think his point stands though, that Google cannot be trusted to keep services going. This will adversely affect their appeal in many minds, including mine. I have used Google since about 1998 (?) and you'd be amazed how many products have come and gone in that time. Apologies for the rantiness of the post below, it isn't meant aggressively, just more frustration at no apparent direction seen within the Googlesphere. The removal of features that people use with no warning and non-implementation of features immediately after release is really really annoying. It makes their stated goals ("index everything") meaningless/temporary/untrustworthy, and dissuades me from buying services from them. Freeloaders use their products a lot (I do!) but I would think twice about ever ever ever paying for software from them, or for a service because you have no idea when it'll shut shop. Even products they still produce appear to be completely disjointed (see the Play Books app on Android and the complete disparity found with their web interface...) Here's a list of annoyances in products they've released to much fanfare, then apparently just not bothered developing anymore: 1. Google+, yes all of it. And I use it! (where is it going now that Gundotra has left?) 2. Maps: My Maps now isn't integrated into the Android app (they spun it off??), Latitude is gone, Google Local is gone but apparently still there (you can read reviews but hidden and secret GUI controls are now the order of the day for working out how to do anything in Google Maps) 3. Google Drive desktop client: will it ever tell me how far it has got in uploading a massive file? The web client does, the desktop one doesn't. Surely that's an OBVIOUS feature in a filesync utility. Don't ask about their promised Linux version. Couldn't they write it in Go or something? 4. Google Hangouts Android client: the forced update from Talk with the removal of features (is someone actually online? a presence feature seen since MSN Messenger that somehow escapes Google's notice) 5. Google Chrome OS: why is it even here? There was much talk of being stiff competition to Windows and OSX but it's like an Etch-A-Sketch toy operating system. I think TinyCore Linux does more? I'll stop now because it's coming up to lunch time and I'll get indigestion. I am a big fan of Android, but their incessant removal of features within their core apps and then rereleases of similar-but-ever-so-slightly-different apps ever year at I/O is getting wearisome.

by lnanek2 12y ago

gtaylor 12y ago

> Honestly, I think he was right. Google has a really bad image problem right now where lots of people don't want to get involved with their projects because Google will most likely kill the project just like Reader and Glass. Again, these are two very niche projects. Reader was a niche within a niche. Glass was an experiment that a tiny subset of the population ever even touched first-hand. It never even reached a "1.0". As early adopters and as technologists, it's easy for us to get upset when our favorite pet project gets killed. But in the end, Reader failed to get any kind of traction beyond its niche. Glass ran into a buzzsaw of negative perception, legislation, and media twisting, in addition to technical challenges. The lessons learned from Glass will be applied to present and future efforts.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
pbreit 12y ago
Killing reader was a bad idea imo. Yes, it was niche but it was social, attracted influencers and measured relevance. Glass is clearly very much alive.

pbreit 12y ago

Killing reader was a terrible idea. That cut my daily google usage in half and was obviously a key social and relevance asset. Glass is still very much alive.

gtaylor 12y ago
> Killing reader was a terrible idea. That cut my daily google usage in half and was obviously a key social and relevance asset. It sucks for our niche, but ultimately Google Reader was a product that didn't have any appeal beyond said tiny niche. The original goal was to make RSS more accessible beyond technologists, but it failed to reach any kind of mass appeal. Some of this was more to do with RSS/Atom feeds having some ergonomic issues that weren't solved before the social media frenzy took hold. Failure is when results don't meet expectations, which is what happened to Reader. I don't fault them for closing it, despite it being inconvenient for me to switch. What does a for-profit company have to gain by dumping time and resources into a failure whose window of opportunity has passed? Some goodwill from a tiny, miniscule subset of their userbase?

enneff 12y ago

If you joined Google's Glass Explorer program (twice?!) expecting anything but a beta-level device with a short shelf life then more fool you. I don't think they could have been any more explicit about the goals of their program.

72deluxe 12y ago
I think his point stands though, that Google cannot be trusted to keep services going. This will adversely affect their appeal in many minds, including mine. I have used Google since about 1998 (?) and you'd be amazed how many products have come and gone in that time. Apologies for the rantiness of the post below, it isn't meant aggressively, just more frustration at no apparent direction seen within the Googlesphere. The removal of features that people use with no warning and non-implementation of features immediately after release is really really annoying. It makes their stated goals ("index everything") meaningless/temporary/untrustworthy, and dissuades me from buying services from them. Freeloaders use their products a lot (I do!) but I would think twice about ever ever ever paying for software from them, or for a service because you have no idea when it'll shut shop. Even products they still produce appear to be completely disjointed (see the Play Books app on Android and the complete disparity found with their web interface...) Here's a list of annoyances in products they've released to much fanfare, then apparently just not bothered developing anymore: 1. Google+, yes all of it. And I use it! (where is it going now that Gundotra has left?) 2. Maps: My Maps now isn't integrated into the Android app (they spun it off??), Latitude is gone, Google Local is gone but apparently still there (you can read reviews but hidden and secret GUI controls are now the order of the day for working out how to do anything in Google Maps) 3. Google Drive desktop client: will it ever tell me how far it has got in uploading a massive file? The web client does, the desktop one doesn't. Surely that's an OBVIOUS feature in a filesync utility. Don't ask about their promised Linux version. Couldn't they write it in Go or something? 4. Google Hangouts Android client: the forced update from Talk with the removal of features (is someone actually online? a presence feature seen since MSN Messenger that somehow escapes Google's notice) 5. Google Chrome OS: why is it even here? There was much talk of being stiff competition to Windows and OSX but it's like an Etch-A-Sketch toy operating system. I think TinyCore Linux does more? I'll stop now because it's coming up to lunch time and I'll get indigestion. I am a big fan of Android, but their incessant removal of features within their core apps and then rereleases of similar-but-ever-so-slightly-different apps ever year at I/O is getting wearisome.