http://support.google.com/reader/answer/3028851?hl=en
I use it rather heavily since I can seamlessly read on my browser via PC then switch to Fliboard on my iPhone while keeping my read/unread status all I sync and star interesting suff for later.
This really sucks
They are also killing off CALDAV support so if you use other apps to read your google calendar you will be SOL on that soon as well.
Dammit I hate when they do stuff like this...
I STILL miss code search and google wave
My mom is unhappy about iGoogle going away... augh
When Google Labs was shut down you just knew nothing good was going to come of it.
Yeah I'm not too happy. I use greader fairly heavily on my mobile devices.
This'll probably give me an excuse to work on a properly useful mobile app in my spare time.
I wonder if the CalDav thing will affect me? I use Google Calendar for my family calendar, and we all access it from our smartphones. I'm not sure what app our smartphones use internally to read the calendar...
Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 13, 2013, 11:33:00 PM
Dammit I hate when they do stuff like this...
I STILL miss code search and google wave
My mom is unhappy about iGoogle going away... augh
When Google Labs was shut down you just knew nothing good was going to come of it.
Damn you, profit-generating corporation!
Making grumpy users starts to add cost to that profit.
There have been enough changes to GMail and YouTube to push some users away already. Not a large number, but still a number that if unchecked may grow.
Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 14, 2013, 11:18:53 AM
Making grumpy users starts to add cost to that profit.
There have been enough changes to GMail and YouTube to push some users away already. Not a large number, but still a number that if unchecked may grow.
I personally loved all the cool stuff that the genius devs @ Google were able to share with the geekworld via Labs, but it was always a clear "temporary, beta, playground/sandbox" type of thing so the writing was never not on the wall. Sad as these things go by the wayside, sure, but my guess is plenty of those neat ideas got taken to cool places by smart folks who went off and did their own side projects or created startups based on the apps, ideas, or even as a tangential result of that special freedom. But economic times ain't what they used to be, thanks Google for taking as long as you did to kill the non-profit stuff.
They used to allocate a day a week to personal projects, but I guess they haven't done that at Google for a while, hence no labs (?)
Hosting your own replacement might be an option
http://tt-rss.org/redmine/projects/tt-rss/wiki
Sounds like owncloud is working on an rss function as well.
Not a direct link but it should be in the recent items.
http://owncloud.org/news/
http://feedly.com/ has rolled our their cloud service. They also removed the browser plugin requirement from their web version so it is now a proper Google Reader alternative.
Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 14, 2013, 11:27:47 AM
They used to allocate a day a week to personal projects, but I guess they haven't done that at Google for a while, hence no labs (?)
Confirmed gone: The end of 20 percent time at Google (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/08/20-time-perk-google-no-more/68413/).
Post-2011, it definitely seems to be a less creativity-encouraging work environment. That also might explain why they (presumably) helped (allowed?) the release of the comedy film "The Internship*" -- to make it still look like a fun place to work?
* aka "a two-hour Google commercial disguised as a summer comedy" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internship#Reception) (TheOnion: "The Internship' Poised To Be Biggest Comedy Of 2005" (http://www.theonion.com/video/the-internship-poised-to-be-biggest-comedy-of-2005,32682/) (and speaking of 2005, blast from the /. past for ya (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/05/08/14/1320217/youtube----the-flickr-of-video) :o ) )
I think all Tech companies hit some kind of peak where they consistently deliver great products, ideas, etc. I feel like Google is on the down slope now.
OT: Google Talk is gone in favour of "Hangouts". It's like they saw the horrors of Facebook and said "me too" and have been shifting all their offerings into this one horrible little box I want no part of.
How many users were tricked into getting a G+ account just for using YouTube?
Quote from: Mr. Analog on August 23, 2013, 12:15:47 PM
I think all Tech companies hit some kind of peak where they consistently deliver great products, ideas, etc. I feel like Google is on the down slope now.
OT: Google Talk is gone in favour of "Hangouts". It's like they saw the horrors of Facebook and said "me too" and have been shifting all their offerings into this one horrible little box I want no part of.
How many users were tricked into getting a G+ account just for using YouTube?
You might find this interesting but other than Gmail, Google is working hard to try and attract Enterprise customers to Google APPS, over Office 360, Google Drive over Dropbox and SkyDrive, Google Talk over Skype / Lync.
I wonder how that is going to shape their products going forward. Their enterprise sales team bugs me from time to time.
Quote from: Mr. Analog on August 23, 2013, 12:15:47 PM
It's like they saw [what some popular offering is doing and is successful right now] and said "me too" and have been shifting all their offerings into this...
You'd think Microsoft's recent "we gotta focus on being a device-and-services company" facepalmery would be a cautionary tale for Google... How did ^ that ^ business model work out for them?
Quote from: Darren Dirt on August 23, 2013, 12:48:50 PM
Quote from: Mr. Analog on August 23, 2013, 12:15:47 PM
It's like they saw [what some popular offering is doing and is successful right now] and said "me too" and have been shifting all their offerings into this...
You'd think Microsoft's recent "we gotta focus on being a device-and-services company" facepalmery would be a cautionary tale for Google... How did ^ that ^ business model work out for them?
Strategically they seem to just want to dominate out of the gate, which I think is a mistake. It worked for the XBox but I think that was more luck than planning and from what I understand the ROI still hasn't been very good (they floated a lot of the hardware development costs for years, maybe they still are IDK).
The worst thing is that their mobile device offerings aren't bad, they aren't great though either and then they tried to shoehorn a unified interface into all their products including their latest flagship OS? Crazy.
Then its revealed that they added an NSA backdoor to Skype, pulled the plug on MSN Messenger... then other privacy concerns all bubble up at the same time they're trying to launch more devices that track you better and can't be turned off?
All this together shakes a lot of consumer trust, trust they now have to work really hard to get back.
Quote from: Lazybones on August 23, 2013, 12:39:30 PM
Quote from: Mr. Analog on August 23, 2013, 12:15:47 PM
I think all Tech companies hit some kind of peak where they consistently deliver great products, ideas, etc. I feel like Google is on the down slope now.
OT: Google Talk is gone in favour of "Hangouts". It's like they saw the horrors of Facebook and said "me too" and have been shifting all their offerings into this one horrible little box I want no part of.
How many users were tricked into getting a G+ account just for using YouTube?
You might find this interesting but other than Gmail, Google is working hard to try and attract Enterprise customers to Google APPS, over Office 360, Google Drive over Dropbox and SkyDrive, Google Talk over Skype / Lync.
I wonder how that is going to shape their products going forward. Their enterprise sales team bugs me from time to time.
That is interesting, oddly Google seems to have wanted "in" the enterprise for some time (Google Docs was supposed to be the foot in the door)
To me it all seems counter-intuitive, they're trying to get into markets that aren't easy to penetrate and they are gravitating away from things that made them successful.
cray-zee
Google Wallet will soon be dead (2015)
What? You've never heard of the alternative PayPal before? Apparently neither had anyone else. Bwah bwuh
https://support.google.com/wallet/business/answer/6107573
Quote from: Mr. Analog on November 14, 2014, 11:19:50 AM
Google Wallet will soon be dead (2015)
What? You've never heard of the alternative PayPal before? Apparently neither had anyone else. Bwah bwuh
https://support.google.com/wallet/business/answer/6107573
TG;DU
Spoiler
Too Google; Didn't Use
Spoiler
TG means "too different-working from another product that already does the job perfectly fine thank you very much, plus those OTHER GUYS won't just arbitrarily remove the product from the marketplace when they're bored with it..."
#YeahImCycnical
PS: for the lulz...
Quote
What are alternative payment solutions I can use?
Because we feel that Google Wallet merchants know their buyers best, we encourage you to research payment processing solutions to best fit the needs of your buyers.
I guess PayPal didn't pay the Google folks enough to get name-dropped here?
The complete lack of advertising / media coverage killed it, heck the only reason I knew about it was I looked into the API when it first launched.
BUT it was barely visible as an option on the Play store and that could have been THE place where people would see it, start using it.
Just like G+ but with less users
:-)