

Google Reader's founder on Google Reader - teaspoon
https://plus.google.com/101851274707291135260/posts/FipoiXvRaa3

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bad_user
From the article, I liked this view:

    
    
        The value of a social network seems to map 
        proportionally to the perceived value of its 
        main object. (Examples: sharing best-of-web links on
        Metafilter or sharing hi-res photos on Flickr or
        sharing video art on Vimeo or sharing statuses on
        Twitter/Facebook or sharing questions on Quora.) 
        If you want a community with stronger ties, 
        provide more definition to your social object.
    

And I think this is exactly the problem Google+ faces. Nobody knows exactly
what it is, unless viewed in the light of Facebook. Basically Google is
starting to behave like Microsoft, slapping the Windows and .NET keywords on
every product.

What I don't like about the new Reader interface is that compared to the old
interface it makes it hard for me to actually read. It uses tons of
whitespace, not enough contrast and for example the fact that the article is
not separated from the left menu with a visible line is freaking annoying. My
eyes move from left to right and then _carriage return_ when reading and the
lack of a visible line makes it hard for my eyes to stop before reaching the
menu, on every single line. And in comparison with the new GMail design,
Reader does not have a "Compact Display Density" option, which makes it seem
like a half-baked attempt to me.

However, it is still my RSS reader because the alternatives suck. Just as
Flickr is still my photo archival and sharing service because the alternatives
suck.

And this brings me to another point: I'm sad that Flickr is stagnating, but on
the other hand I'm glad that it is because a company can fuck up its products
really badly. And I also wish Google wouldn't have touched Reader, or GMail
for that mater. I like Google+, but I don't get why they have to have a
unified design. GMail is GMail, Reader is Reader, Google+ is Google+, Picasa
is Picasa. And sure, make sharing work between them, but pretending that
everything is one big unified product will bring everything down to a common
denominator, taking away value. And OMG, how Google can suck at design.

Also, do note that the next product to receive upgrades will be Picasa. And
I'm pretty sure they'll fuck with this one too. That's because in the context
of sharing on Google+, archiving GBs of your personal photos is no longer an
important use-case.

~~~
gujk
They already broke Picasa sharing with the utterly confusing "plus or email"
choice that makes no sense: you can email share (picasa style) or you can plus
share with an email address (which silently fails if the recipient is an alien
creature who doesn't have a gmail account)

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joebadmo
Why would Google bother redesigning a product they're planning on deprecating?
It seems fairly obvious to me that this simple math is currently in play at
Google: Social is important, G+ is a pan-Google social product, and social
products live or die by network effect, therefore all effort shall be directed
toward driving up the userbase of G+. Hence the black bar. Hence shutting down
Buzz. Hence the + operator in search. And hence the obvious integration of
Reader.

~~~
voidfiles
To drive away the core audience, before they shut down the service. Less noise
that way.

~~~
joebadmo
Are you serious? You're really suggesting that they put resources into
redesiging a product to integrate with a new product in a cynical maneuver to
drive away the current userbase so that when they shut it down later, there
will be less complaining about it?

~~~
voidfiles
I am half serious. I think that the investment in Reader is just investment in
Google+. So, in away they are no longer investing in it. It may not be an
active thought, but they are driving away the core audience.

When there traffic starts to dip, and they decide to cut google reader
completely. There will be no one left who cares. They will think that no one
cared in the first place. They will have forgotten when the destroyed reader
for a large number of people.

~~~
joebadmo
That's a much more reasonable position. But I think it's wrong.

Reader is a natural complement to Plus. It's a huge source of link-sharing,
which is probably why they wanted to integrate it, so all of that link traffic
would populate their new social product.

I think we're at the early stage of Google's now fairly routine product
release cycle: half-baked. They will quickly iterate, taking user feedback
into account, until the product is awesome. I point to Gmail's recent redesign
as evidence.

I also think that publicly subscribable[0] circles have to be coming soon. I
think there's a lot of private sharing that's happening now that doesn't
necessarily need to be. Right now private sharing is conflated with directed
sharing. With public, but directed sharing, though, you can publicly mine the
data, and also use the usage numbers for marketing purposes.

Honestly, I'm still holding out hope that Reader will eventually be a full-
fledged alternative interface for Plus.

[0]: [http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/12261287667/in-defense-of-
the...](http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/12261287667/in-defense-of-the-new-
google-reader)

~~~
buddylw
Reader being a "full-fledged alternative interface for Plus" is really the
only sane decision at this point. One that would excite me. (I already use fb-
rss for reader-Facebook integration.) I hope that's the decision that they
made, but I'm not too optimistic at this point.

I personally think it would have been smarter to integrate google plus with
reader more (even if that involves forking reader) before changing the product
and removing sharing.

Now we are stuck with an unusable product for an indeterminate amount of time.
Due to Google's notoriously poor communication, most won't wait and the
community will move elsewhere.

It seems like a waste to me and I seriously doubt they had the foresight to
predict this level of backlash.

I guess we will have to wait an see.

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mikemoka
"saying “no” to projects doesn’t make you Steve Jobs if you say no to
inspiring things. It’s the discernment that’s meaningful, not the refusal.
Anyone can point their thumb to the ground."

I am sorry I just had to quote this.

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w1ntermute
There have been 3 or 4 links about this, each with its own set of comments.

It would be nice if various submitted links on the same topic could be grouped
together, with a shared comment space. Otherwise, each time a new link of
relevance to a preexisting topic comes up, there's a separate page for it,
with a separate set of comments.

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unfocused
They removed a tiny feature of search in Google Reader that I absolutely
loved. It has nothing to do with Google+, so I don't now why it's gone. Here
it is:

Keyboard search ability: Before, I could just type "Camera" in the search text
box, and then I hit tab and I can type and auto complete "Kijiji" (my RSS
feed). You now have to hit tab, then click the drop down list with your mouse
and scroll down through all your feeds.

If you tried to type 'K', as in the first letter of Kijiji, you actually were
using the keyboard shortcuts of 'j' and 'k' which moves you up and down of the
current items in the loaded feed.

Ugh. Details, details, details! If Google seems to not care about such detail,
who knows what else they are overlooking.

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sudonim
This is a great quote:

"The value of a social network seems to map proportionally to the perceived
value of its main object. (Examples: sharing best-of-web links on Metafilter
or sharing hi-res photos on Flickr or sharing video art on Vimeo or sharing
statuses on Twitter/Facebook or sharing questions on Quora.) If you want a
community with stronger ties, provide more definition to your social object."

Something we've been struggling with is doing something too narrow vs. lacking
definition of a social object. Good insight.

------
voidfiles
I am excited to see all the new feed readers. I think newsblur, or hivemined
are in the best positon right now to absorb the google reader audience.

~~~
udfalkso
I built what Hivemind is aiming to do about 3 years ago and eventually lost
out to GR and shut it down.

But, now I've turned it back on. You might like it. Please send feedback!

<http://feedeachother.com> (still working out a few kinks, so be gentle)

