
Google Shuts Down Schemer - Kiro
https://www.schemer.com/
======
blake8086
Seems like gwern predicted this:
[http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns#predictions](http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns#predictions)

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
I only skimmed it (which is more than I like doing with gwern articles) but:

The base-rate predictor got 65% right by definition, the logistic managed to
score 68% correct (bootstrap20 95% CI: 66-72%), and the random forest
similarly got 68% (67-78%).

which doesn't really sound all that great.

~~~
obituary_latte
What's wrong with gwern articles?

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
I really dislike his (textual) voice, among other things.

~~~
drharris
I find it refreshing. In an age where everyone on the internet is trying to
"tell a story" it's nice to just have some plain facts and information
presented in plain old text once in awhile. Seriously, how many "why our
startup failed/succeeded/grew/shrank/lobotomized" articles do we need? It's
nice to have people doing actual analysis with numbers once in awhile.

------
Theodores
Never heard of it. To me this is not comparable to the tragic slaying of the
RSS Reader. We will live.

~~~
cbhl
Is this just an acqui-hire?

~~~
jmaha
It was a Slide project I believe. Slide was shuttered a few years ago, along
with some gift/pet apps, but Schemer came out the tail end of it and survived
for a little bit. It was never promoted or associated with Google much, so
there's really no sense in keeping it around.

------
Corvus
Glad to see it go. I signed up a while ago and soon deleted the app; 99% of
the "schemes" it sent me were pure advertising. E.g. "Eat at this restaurant",
"Go to this casino", "Donate money to this charity", "Book a trip with this
travel agency for 10% off!".

------
JD557
Never heard of it, although it seems like a nice project.

Is there any alternative out there? I would like to try it out.

~~~
sahaskatta
[http://upout.com](http://upout.com)

------
martindale
Great chance to check out Offline! I use it pretty regularly for things here
in the Triangle: [https://www.get-offline.com/](https://www.get-offline.com/)

~~~
RankingMember
Requires a facebook account? C'mon fellas.

~~~
AbraKdabra
I can't imagine what was going on the devs head when they decided this would
be a good idea.

~~~
eropple
Perhaps that basically everyone has a Facebook account and that catering to
people who don't or who make a big deal about using it to connect within a
social environment are probably not a worthwhile target market?

Or maybe they're tragically out of touch.

(I'll go with the first one.)

~~~
shalalala
I would go with tragically out of touch, but then again maybe I'm sane.

------
nobodyshere
As of lately, Google has only been good at shutting down things.

~~~
qntmfred
That and making money.

------
VLM
A traffic graph would be interesting. It was incredibly popular fad about a
year ago for about a week, then crickets.

------
spyhole
another "Google's Schemer" has been set up! The time has come for Schemer
users to save their data to [http://www.huing.com](http://www.huing.com)

