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Google Buzz Buzzing Away

Posted by Soulskill on from the bad-news-for-tens-of-users dept.

MrCrassic writes "It looks like the glory days of Google Buzz have finally come to an end. Google has formally announced the termination of this service to concentrate their efforts on Google+. From the article: 'In a few weeks we'll shut down Google Buzz and the Buzz API, and focus instead on Google+. While people obviously won't be able to create new posts after that, they will be able to view their existing content on their Google Profile, and download it using Google Takeout.' Other products, such as Code Search, the Google Labs website and Jaiku, will also be on the chopping block.

98 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Google wave? by goombah99 · · Score: 2

    I really liked google wave. it made a good lab notebook. But wi

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Google wave? by TechLA · · Score: 1

      And soon Google+ will get the same treatment, as currently even their own employees think it sucks. This is what is so stupid with Google - they put out unfinished products all the time and soon enough cancel them completely. Useless to build stuff upon those.

    2. Re:Google wave? by digitig · · Score: 1

      And that employee only thinks it sucks because the API isn't capable enough to let Zynga put Farmville on it -- which a lot of G+ users think is actually a strength.

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    3. Re:Google wave? by TechLA · · Score: 2

      And without allowing those games Google+ will never succeed as social network. It will be just another niche social network and that isn't exactly what Google wants. They want to make same kind of social network than what Facebook is.

      Besides, he said Facebook offers different things for different people, so it suits everyone. That is a good point.

    4. Re:Google wave? by t2t10 · · Score: 1

      Forget about the lack of APIs, Google+ has major privacy and usability issues.

      I think the fact that a Google employee and geek got confused and accidentally posted a private flame publicly speaks for itself: Google+'s circles and privacy settings are a failure.

    5. Re:Google wave? by Muramas95 · · Score: 1

      Google wave was really bad when you had a large amount of people posting it because It became laggy and unstable. Nice idea but did not work.

    6. Re:Google wave? by dzfoo · · Score: 1

      The era of closed, "finished product" social networking is long over.

      Really, so releasing Google+ in an unfinished state will allow Google to build it up incrementally and this will lead to eventual critical mass in the mainstream, right?

      How's that working out so far?

      Google landed a ton of users, initially. The problem is there's very little to do there. And there's no way for Google to compete alone against the millions of people that are actively making FB more "feature rich" every single day.

      I see. So perhaps Google should have released a more "finished product" with some APIs for 3rd party developers, maybe a richer ecosystem with a couple of apps from close partners.

      The "era of closed, "finished product" social networking" may be long over, but the era of "start with crap, build incrementally, and they will all come to you eventually" may not be here yet.

                -dZ.

      --
      Carol vs. Ghost
      ...Can you save Christmas?
    7. Re:Google wave? by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

      did anybody actually use the BUZZ API and why?

      I just can't see a reason anybody would interface with it... it's like twitter mixed with facebook mixed with email, except each one does it's job much better individually.

  2. Seriously outraged about labs by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

    Half the reason I ever use google, is for esoteric search tools like I can find on labs. Is there anyone who provides these kinds of metadata tools?

    1. Re:Seriously outraged about labs by SydShamino · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I thought labs was one of the coolest things Google could share with us.

      --
      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
    2. Re:Seriously outraged about labs by presidenteloco · · Score: 2

      Yeah. What the hell is up with getting rid of labs?

      Doesn't Google know that they maintain the interest and loyalty of lots of smart thought leaders (who act as Google evangelists, otherwise known as a free sales force) and those people think google labs exemplifies both Google's capacity for way-ahead innovation, and Google's progressive development and customer engagement philosophy.

      This is a DUMB DUMB DUMB edge-losing move!

      ps. labs appears to be gone already.

      --

      Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
  3. And next up... by madprof · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google+ is next for the chop because the company just don't care about it enough, in my view. Not enough momentum to make it work, Facebook is just too big now and it is not going to succeed, I don't think.

    1. Re:And next up... by tripleevenfall · · Score: 1

      I actually like Google+. I think it works pretty well. The problem is that there's no one there. Social media isn't much good if all your friends are on another site. It took years for grandma and aunt gertie to get on facebook, they aren't going to switch to a new site - and damned if I'm going to manage two of the infernal things.

      And, there's also the matter of Facebook defending against Google+ by stealing all the best ideas.

    2. Re:And next up... by madprof · · Score: 1

      Where did I say "I don't think it is not going to succeed"?

    3. Re:And next up... by alen · · Score: 1

      not they don't care but it seems google engineers love to build something to version .8 or so and then go on to the next cool thing. instead of spending years building a product through different versions and making it better.

      Google voice search vs Siri is a perfect example. release it, show how cool it is and go on to the next thing.

    4. Re:And next up... by madprof · · Score: 1

      Forget that. I just spotted it. You know what I mean. :)

    5. Re:And next up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What I think hurt Google+ is not being able to have a Google+ account with Google Apps. If I had a presence on Google+ I could potentially have attracted a couple hundred other people to join Google+. Many of those people would have brought many more users too, and it would of snowballed. As many have said Google Apps users are first subscribers, trend setters so to speak, but we were all shut out. We could of, we would of pushed Google's agenda, happily for free.

      We could of created another non-Google Apps account, and many of us did, but we didn't want to tell many people about it, because we didn't want that to become our main online profile, we were saving that for our Google Apps account. So we either didn't come to Google+ at all, or were hush-hush about it waiting for Google+ on our Google Apps account.

      Google blew the chance, they blew it completely, but his one fatal mistake.

    6. Re:And next up... by poofmeisterp · · Score: 2

      All G+ has to do is encourage teens and tweens; mission accomplished at that point.

    7. Re:And next up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Do you think Steve Jobs created the Apple Corp of today? No, me created the culture, but Apple fanboys created the Apple of today, and even defined it in the past as well. Who do you think are Google fanboys? What service do you think Google fanboys use? Google Apps!!! How can you get your fanboys to work for you, if you don't even let them use the product you are pushing?

    8. Re:And next up... by darth+dickinson · · Score: 1

      Yep... Google seems to be infested with what I call "80% Engineers" - they like to work the first 80% of the project, through all the project planning and setting the roadmap, and getting the initial version out the door. Then when it comes to the grind of full implementation, and dealing with the bugs and users, they bail to follow the latest shiny.

    9. Re:And next up... by TechLA · · Score: 1

      And that's exactly the crowd it won't encourage. So far it's pretty much just tech people there. And when I say there's nothing happening there, people just suggest following some famous tech guys. That's not what I or teens and casual people want to do, they want to follow and talk with their friends.

      And that's aside the fact that as a platform Google+ is seriously unfinished and misses great tons of features people expect and need, like events, pages for bands/happenings/random stuff, API access, games and tons of more.

    10. Re:And next up... by poofmeisterp · · Score: 1

      And that's exactly the crowd it won't encourage. So far it's pretty much just tech people there. And when I say there's nothing happening there, people just suggest following some famous tech guys. That's not what I or teens and casual people want to do, they want to follow and talk with their friends.

      I said: "All G+ has to do is..."
      Not: "All G+ does is..."

      ;)

    11. Re:And next up... by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 1

      Facebook brings out the worst in people. Somehow, people of all ages from all walks of life suddenly become spoiled, whiny, over-dramatic teenagers when on Facebook. It will fade on its own, just like AOL (which was also supposedly too big to decline) did. Google+ is still building momentum; don't expect it to become huge overnight. These things take years.

      --
      Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    12. Re:And next up... by at_slashdot · · Score: 1

      It already has 40 million users, even if it doesn't grow more (which is improbable) I doubt Google will cut it.

      --
      "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
    13. Re:And next up... by David+Gerard · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ah. no. It has 40 million signups. They have not given a figure for active users. For comparison, when Facebook says 800M, that's 800M users who use the thing at least slightly. When Twitter says 100M, that's 100M users who use the thing. When Google says 40M, that means 40M accounts created and rotting.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    14. Re:And next up... by madprof · · Score: 1

      Google+ is coming to Google Apps. That is absolutely going to happen. I have this from a friend working at Google. There are very large Apps customers who they want to keep pleased.

    15. Re:And next up... by wintercolby · · Score: 1

      Must be your circles are boring, because mine are getting pretty active. It's a different group of people than I know on Facebook, but I'm getting much more interesting content from it. There are practically no dinner plates and nothing about how many sheets of TP that were used that day. People also seem more open to discussion when they don't think the world is seeing and judging what they're saying. Fewer trolls, more well thought out, more like a 6 person conversation than an Internet forum.

      --
      Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
    16. Re:And next up... by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      There was a very good blog post by a google employee featured *here* just yesterday wherein the geek rants about badly google neefs to be a platform. Look for it, good reading.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    17. Re:And next up... by at_slashdot · · Score: 1

      No, it's users, why do you think that is different than how Facebook reports their users?

      --
      "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
    18. Re:And next up... by lennier1 · · Score: 1

      At least Google+ leads to some kickbacks from game companies instead of only costing them money.

    19. Re:And next up... by Snufu · · Score: 2

      These are just prototypes in Google's master plan to synergize Wave, Buzz, and Plus into the ultimate social networking platform:
      Google Wuzzlepus.

    20. Re:And next up... by bberens · · Score: 1

      Google+ needs APIs so that third party developers can make tons of time wasters so people can spend hours on end playing farmville+ or whatever. The only thing that can save Google+ is to make it horrible.

      --
      Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
    21. Re:And next up... by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      Yea, and a friend of mine who does development at google on one of the services/reasons that its not part of apps told me the same thing about buzz, 2 years ago.

      I wouldn't hold your breath waiting.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    22. Re:And next up... by BadBlood · · Score: 2

      Where I come from, the difference between the 80%-ers and the 100%-ers is like comparing amateurs to professionals.

      --


      Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
    23. Re:And next up... by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Or get 2, 3 or 4 accounts to rack up things in Farmville on their main account.

    24. Re:And next up... by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      Uhm, you could not be more wrong.

      Its universally accepted that no where near 800M people use facebook, and its more likely to be somewhere well below 400M actual people have signed up, significantly lower still for people who actually use the site. Their population explosion happened as games started giving bonuses for friends playing and crap.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    25. Re:And next up... by TechLA · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and you can't actually join any pages or groups to find those people. For example I follow my favorite games on Facebook, so I get updates about them and also see some discussions. Good example being Team Fortress 2 and Trackmania. Of course, there's no such in Google+, so it's basically dead to me (and many other people).

    26. Re:And next up... by Bucky24 · · Score: 1

      Hopefully when they do that they include a mechanism to allow people to keep all the horrible out. I really like the idea of circles, and I could see the same thing applied to apps (this app can send me any notification, this app can only send me invites, this app can't talk to me at all).

      Actually for all I know Facebook might have this kind of an interface, I've just never been able to find it.

      --
      All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
    27. Re:And next up... by kiwimate · · Score: 1

      You could replace "Facebook" in that diatribe with "Slashdot", you know...

    28. Re:And next up... by jzuccaro · · Score: 1

      Of those 800M how many do you think are real? Between the fake accounts created to stalk other people, cats and dogs, fake accounts used for games that reward you if you invite other friends, and so on...
      Honest question, I would love to see the real numbers, since most people I know have at least 2 accounts or more.

    29. Re:And next up... by kiwimate · · Score: 1

      FB is starting to look an awful lot like the new MySpace

      How so? Facebook started with a very significant paradigm over MySpace. MySpace allowed people a great deal of flexibility over how they laid out their pages, embedded codes, all kinds of things. That led to it becoming a useless buggy unwieldy mess as teenage girls loaded up their profiles with music, videos, flashing graphics, etc.

      Facebook said "you will use our template". It's consistent, and keeps the audio-visual messes to a minimum.

    30. Re:And next up... by CrashNBrn · · Score: 1

      Yep. Lately, Google reminds me of Network Television: wherein you invest your time and interest in a "new show" only to see it cancelled before the first season has elapsed.
      Like that Google Employee plea/rant the other day emphasized: Google needs to stop doing things half-assedly.

      So will Google+ be around in a year or two if it doesn't dominate it's market? If Google's behaviour with it's other partially successful forays are any indication - then no it wont be. So why should anyone bother investing their time and effort when Google can pull the rug at any time as it sees fit.

      Instead of incorporating Wave and Buzz into Google+, they were axed, along with other Google Lab utilities. These actions, diminish Googles reputation, lessen the little trust I still had for the company and make it readily apparent what Google actually is: An Ad-Network that offers decent search as it's lure.

      I recall the Google Glory days when they demolished AltaVista and Yahoo, Google was awesome. Now... not so much. It's not that hard to see through the veneer these days.

    31. Re:And next up... by Leebert · · Score: 1

      How so? Facebook started with a very significant paradigm over MySpace. MySpace allowed people a great deal of flexibility over how they laid out their pages, embedded codes, all kinds of things.

      Which, in turn, made MySpace look very cluttered and busy. Facebook of that era was clean and minimalistic; these days Facebook is becoming more and more cluttered in appearance (especially after the recent update fiasco and the horrendous ticker).

    32. Re:And next up... by martin-boundary · · Score: 1

      Sounds like a venereal disease. Do you think it will attract the social swinger crowd?

    33. Re:And next up... by dzfoo · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't hold your breath waiting.

      Yeah, but would he hold yours...

      --
      Carol vs. Ghost
      ...Can you save Christmas?
    34. Re:And next up... by dzfoo · · Score: 1

      I disagree. He could be a few orders of magnitude more wrong. He could have said that 40 million users in Google+ is more than 800 million in Facebook. That's some substantial wrong right there.

      There's plenty other ways he could have been even more wronger.

                  -dZ.

      --
      Carol vs. Ghost
      ...Can you save Christmas?
    35. Re:And next up... by gnalle · · Score: 1

      Google+ is dieing. Google trends confirms it.
      http://www.google.com/trends?q=google%2B%2C+google+plus&date=mtd

  4. about time by shentino · · Score: 1

    I'm glad they're finally amputating the foot they shot themselves in.

    I locked it down with the "go private and ban everyone" after their contact list goofup exposed craptons of information.

    No way to find a list of people I'd banned made it impossible to reopen with my trusted friends.

    1. Re:about time by gumbi+west · · Score: 1

      Doesn't really matter who's fault it is, he won't use G+ anymore.

    2. Re:about time by imric · · Score: 1

      Yeah but who will know?

      --
      Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
    3. Re:about time by shentino · · Score: 1

      I don't consider locking my personal information down pronto spazzing out.

      At least Google made such a thing possible.

      If I was naive enough to stay with Facebook I never would have had that luxury period.

  5. I'll miss Buzz!!! by Demoknight · · Score: 1

    I liked the way it integrated with GMail in a non-intrusive way. Just was another "folder" for me to click on at my leisure and post something quick if I wanted. I hope G+ takes up that spot in my "folders"

    Have a good weekend everyone :)

    D

    1. Re:I'll miss Buzz!!! by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      I hope they give us the option of integrating/migrating our Google Buzz posts into Google Plus. That would make me happier bout Buzz going bye-bye.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    2. Re:I'll miss Buzz!!! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Well, Buzz already kinda integrates in G+ - it has its own separate tab in G+ interface where you see Buzz posts as if they were a G+ stream.

      And they said that all existing posts will be kept - you just won't be allowed to post new ones or comment on them.

  6. good riddance by Desler · · Score: 1

    That is until they get bored with google+ and can it too.

  7. glory days of Google Buzz by discord5 · · Score: 1

    glory days of Google Buzz

    What glory days are we speaking of here? Oh, it was intended ironically, my bad.

  8. Aggregation, not creation by PAPPP · · Score: 1

    I'm not surprised, because it is eminently clear that Google wants to concentrate their social features on Plus (in effect, to compete with Facebook by cloning Facebook), but I am still disappointed.
    I genuinely like Buzz; it aggregates activity from a whole range of services that I don't care to deal with (personal blogs, google reader, twitter, tumblr, etc.) for easy reading, instead of being another one of those services (Hi Plus!). It was even better because it used an open standard mechanism for identity management to do what it did.
    Apparently the APIs for re-posting into Plus from external sites are starting to come together, so I guess that is the migration plan, even though it isn't as open or convenient. It would be nice if Google would set up rel=me peering behavior for plus to replace the functionality.

  9. Codesearch by Morth · · Score: 5, Informative

    They also announced that they're shutting down codesearch. That's much bigger news as far as I'm concerned. Sad to see a great tool disappear.

    1. Re:Codesearch by MrEricSir · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Which begs the question: will there be a replacement for it? Are there other code search services out there?

      --
      There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    2. Re:Codesearch by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      Google code search was very useful. When you needed it, nothing could beat it. Too bad.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    3. Re:Codesearch by jopsen · · Score: 1

      Which begs the question: will there be a replacement for it? Are there other code search services out there?

      koders.com, I think... I'm not even sure Google Code Search was the first, so I'm sure there's others out there...

  10. Code Search by zlogic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Code Search is the part I'll miss the most. Great for searching code samples (such as using threads in Perl etc) with some context (instead of a one-line snippet) and without junk like Experts-Exchange or unanswered forum posts. I also like the ability to search code inside a library along with third-party projects using this library, great for bugfixing.
    Google is turning into Bing now. Answering common questions with helper scripts (flight info), and forwarding the user to Wikipedia if there is no predefined script. Except that Bing is doing this because their *real* search engine is a joke.

    1. Re:Code Search by Animats · · Score: 1

      Losing Code Search is a loss. Somebody else, like SourceForge, needs to take that on.

      This also raises the question of whether Google Code is a safe place to store open source projects.

    2. Re:Code Search by Kwesadilo · · Score: 1

      Code Search is also the only way I know of to figure out how to use libraries with barely-documented interfaces. Killing Code Search will also effectively kill many useful but hastily developed small tools that people might find useful.

      --
      This space reserved for administrative use.
    3. Re:Code Search by dkf · · Score: 1

      Code Search is the part I'll miss the most.

      Me too. I've found it invaluable for finding what projects were using one of my APIs! You might think you know these sorts of things, but you don't. Really. Searching big code-bases is the only way to really find that sort of thing out. The only reason I've not been using it recently is because Google have tried very hard to hide it.

      Dear Google.

      You know how you have the company ethos being "Don't be evil"? Well, closing down Code Search shows that to be utterly a sham. You're just another evil money-grubbing bunch of scum like Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon or Oracle. You might as well announce a new program of torturing kittens for profit or biting the heads off babies. After all, it won't lessen anyone's opinion of you.

      --
      "Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
  11. Code Search... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That was really useful; infinately more usable than many API documentation efforts. That was until they made it some javascript dependant thing. I tend not to have scripting enabled on machines where I'd doing things like compiling (performance) or checking into repositories (security). They killed code search a long time ago as far as I'm concerned.

    I'm just left wondering how long before Google web search goes the same way...

  12. Buzzing away by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one who thought it'd died a while ago?

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Buzzing away by omnichad · · Score: 1

      On the contrary, I thought Buzz had BECOME the "wall" in Google+. I guess I was wrong. They were virtually the same thing. Now, I guess I need to find a way to have my Twitter posts automatically post to Google+ instead of Buzz.

    2. Re:Buzzing away by coolmadsi · · Score: 1

      Now, I guess I need to find a way to have my Twitter posts automatically post to Google+ instead of Buzz.

      I think I read somewhere there is a Chrome plug-in that does this, I've not used it, however, so don't know how well it works or whether it will do exactly what you want it to do.

    3. Re:Buzzing away by omnichad · · Score: 1

      If it's tied to one computer, it's not what I want to do. I just want, no matter where I am, for my posts to one social network to be there for friends on all of them. But also no matter which device I use.

    4. Re:Buzzing away by coolmadsi · · Score: 1

      If it's tied to one computer, it's not what I want to do. I just want, no matter where I am, for my posts to one social network to be there for friends on all of them. But also no matter which device I use.

      I have seen someone else set up some sort of RSS feed for one of their social networks, which is set to automatically post to another one. I think they post on Google+ and it automatically posts the same thing to Facebook; they don't use twitter as far as I know, so I don't know if it will work there. If I see it pop up again I will see if there is a link to what is being used and post it here.

  13. Google is loosing all credibility. by Going_Digital · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apart from their core search Google are beginning to loose face, far to many projects started and thrown out. Who is going to invest time and effort using a google service when there is a good chance that it is going to be pulled? Unlike software installed on a computer you are forced to migrate when google decides to shut things down. It's not as though you can just carry on using the service until it no longer meets your needs. Not just a google problem but a wider problem for the whole software as a service concept.

    1. Re:Google is loosing all credibility. by bberens · · Score: 1

      Not for nothing, but Youtube and Gmail are pretty successful. Google isn't doing too shabby to have 3 huge products, two of which are industry leaders.. not sure where Gmail stands on market share.. Docs is gaining market share in small business (hear all the people complaining that + isn't available for the docs pro customers?), and as they improve the apis and scripting capabilities of docs I'm sure it will continue to grow.. currently they've picked the low hanging fruit. But yes, Google keeps sucking it up on the social side because they don't "get it." And no, I don't "get it" either wrt the social networking side.

      --
      Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
    2. Re:Google is loosing all credibility. by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 1

      Would you like your money back? I would suggest that if you really, really like all that functionality, go pay Google to have it stick around. If you don't... well, you can always roll the same thing yourself.

      Sheesh, yung uns. So used to getting stuff for free they forgot we used to pay for these same services.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    3. Re:Google is loosing all credibility. by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Ha, it's your generation that pays for stuff that has ads in it too (cable TV)! Though it's the newer generation that pays for satellite radio instead of listening to ad-supported free radio...

    4. Re:Google is loosing all credibility. by Blymie · · Score: 1

      No, it isn't free. Google has a for-profit motive in you using these services. Google makes money off of information you sign away, when you sign up to these services.

      I suppose you think that a piece of fruit was free, if I demanded you give me a fish for it? No cash exchanged != free.

      Outside of the whole free/not free argument, is the concept of longevity. Linux distros are "more free" than Google services, but I certainly wouldn't use one that would disappear without security updates on a regular basis. Likewise, Google throwing out lots of 'cool' services, and then canceling them without *years* of notice, means I simply am unable to trust Google with my time, my energy, and in fact, my trust.

      So, where does that leave Google? It leaves Google with fewer and fewer people using their services (which they *do* make money from, when you use it).

      How is that good for Google? How is that good for the end users?

      It isn't, for either...

      Google really, really, really needs to get over this adolescent stage, and move on to some form of stability.

    5. Re:Google is loosing all credibility. by dzfoo · · Score: 1

      The point of acquiring YouTube was to turn it into the center for video access on the Internet, and monetize it by channeling all video content through it.

      It ended up being a center for LOLCATZ and personal videos, a platform that movie studios and TV networks will not touch with a 10-foot pole. It is still not making much money for them so I really do not see it as a "successful" product.

      Gmail, on the other hand, provides endless amount of seed data for their mining processes, so that one is substantially successful. Funding the continuous development of Gmail may be seen as the cost of doing business which feeds into their core competency. YouTube, not so much.

                  -dZ.

      --
      Carol vs. Ghost
      ...Can you save Christmas?
  14. Re:Oh by SleazyRidr · · Score: 1

    What a Buzzkill!

    --
    Is 1563649 a prime number?
  15. Risks of the Cloud by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Today's announcement that Google is shutting down several services highlights one of the risks of the "Cloud". Your service provider can decide to shut down, and you have no control over it. My approach, rather, is to keep the primary copy of my data locally. I use the Cloud for backup, and when I want to share data with other people, or myself when I am mobile. Depending on the Cloud for something critical is very risky unless you have a written contract with your provider to keep the service going.

    1. Re:Risks of the Cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Your data is not being lost. You can export it, see the OP. Google is pretty insistent that you should be able to liberate your own data from it's services.

      However, it is true that there is no guarantee of serving it up for ever. But maintaining your own webserver has its downsides as well - maintaining software, paying bills, dealing with a co-lo that goes out of business, name service providers who re-sell your name.

    2. Re:Risks of the Cloud by thebian · · Score: 1

      When I got into trouble with Google while trying to sign up for Google +, I lost all the blog and all the mail. Poof. Just like that. No appeal, no explanation, not even an email to write to for the company to ignore.

      I could have gotten the account, and the data, back, but I would have had to acquiesce to Google's notion of privacy as my fee for the service. I didn't.

      I didn't care about the mail -- it was most blog mail and some other junk. And I was careful about the blog. I tried to remember to export it every so often, and as it turns out only lost one post that was up less than an hour.

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      Unbiased Eye

  16. Dark Side of Cloud Apps by monkeythug · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google, champion of the browser-based app, is inadvertently showing us the dark side of the 'cloud' concept.

    When a installed app is discontinued by the provider you still get to use the last version for as long as you want.

    When a cloud app gets discontinued, it's just gone.

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  17. And nothing of value was lost by arielCo · · Score: 1

    (This time)

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    This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
    1. Re:And nothing of value was lost by oreiasecaman · · Score: 1

      sorry but I disagree... I kinda liked Buzz, as many friends of mine shared things there... that made my daily job less boring (when my boss wasn't looking!)

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  18. why not just merge them by WhiteDragon · · Score: 1

    Instead of dropping one, merge them. Blogger and Blogspot for example.

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  19. You are screwing it up. by unity100 · · Score: 1

    No developer will get on your ship if you just keep shutting down services. I wont develop for a service that may soon shut down in future.

    get your shit straight.

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    Read radical news here
  20. The Problem with Google by Angrywhiteshoes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is that their indefinitely long beta runs and half-assed tools have kinda driven me away from them. The best tools they have are things that they have acquired after already doing well. The only original things I've ever seen them do well are gmail and search engine. Almost everything else seems really janky and thrown together to try to steal some of a market that they're trying to jump into several years too late. I understand the attempt to integrate it into a single sign-on, but I'm just tired of a ton of crappy tools that can't really be used well.

    1. Re:The Problem with Google by Angrywhiteshoes · · Score: 1

      lol, damn those Googles!

    2. Re:The Problem with Google by devent · · Score: 1

      Google becoming the new Microsoft?

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    3. Re:The Problem with Google by niktemadur · · Score: 1

      Gmail stems from an earlier google aquisition, FYI. That only leaves the search engine. Lulz

      Not quite. From Wikipedia:
      Gmail was a project started by Google developer Paul Buchheit several years before it was announced to the public. Initially the software was available only internally as an email client for Google employees. The project was known by the code name Caribou, a reference to a Dilbert comic strip about Project Caribou.

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    4. Re:The Problem with Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Google actually provides tons of software and services that are popularly used but I guess no one really thinks about them because they've become so basic to our technical ecosystem. Chrome and Android are pretty awesome. They have forced their competitors to take their games up a notch. Without Android, we'd probably still be on a fragmented infrastructure with iOS, BlackberryOS, Windows Phone, Symbian, etc. At least Android caused some consolidation of OS and killed off shitty operating systems like BlackberryOS.

      As far as services, I like Picasa and Maps. (I won't count GChat and Calendar because that's a "part" of Gmail but don't underestimate how important and useful these tools are compared to Yahoo or Hotmail.) Google News is the first website I visit in the morning as well. I use Google Voice a lot but thats not really homegrown because they acquired a lot of technology from Grand Central. For a webmaster, Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools are pretty freaking important. No one else provides the functionality of Analytics for free.

      Google Scholar is an extension of Google Search, fine, but I loves it. No one else has a tool available for free. I mean, you can even search Google Patents.

      So that's like seven really important Google products that I use all the time, and which I'm sure many others do as well.

  21. Goodbye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    and good riddance.

  22. Re:dear google by BitZtream · · Score: 1

    'open the code' is pretty stupid here. The data is what MAKES buzz, not the code. The code is nothing impressive and has been done 9 times over, 15 years ago. Anyone could recreate buzz with trivial effort

    The data is easy to export from your Google profile as an XML file with everything in there easy to parse.

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    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  23. buzz? by Leandera · · Score: 1

    buzz? Must've missed that one

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  24. Why not wrap the interface with G+? by Puzzles · · Score: 1

    I'm just throwing this out there: I don't know anything about either API's; but, why not keep the Buzz interface and allow all existing Buzz enabled clients/sites to keep "Buzzing" and just pipe the posts to G+?

    I was confused why the two weren't consolidated on day one. But I guess that was Google not being too confident about either service... too bad.

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    "So don't get programmed by anybody but yourself" --Bill S. Preston, Esquire
  25. Buzzing away? by Neurotrace · · Score: 1

    You mean it was still around?

  26. Link to blog post. by g4b · · Score: 1

    I guess you meant this posting.

  27. Buzz, Wave, +? Just add features to GMail already by 2fuf · · Score: 1

    IMHO the problem is that Google doesn't listen enough to user feedback. For me and, according to the feedback voting system, for a lot of other users too, the main problem with Wave was that it's separate from the existing user accounts of GMail. Many people didn't like having to sign up and log in to yet another application. Also, you have to drag all your buddies over to the new system, half or more don't so they're not reachable there. So when you have something important to share, you just grab GMail, because you know everyone will be able to receive it...

    The same problem exists with G+. Only some of my nerdy friends use it, and many of them already have stopped posting stuff. I really don't get why Google doesn't simply add the new functionality to GMail, like they did with GTalk for instance. Or Buzz for that matter...

    Anyway, users who were asked for feedback on Wave massively voted for the GMail integration feature but it never happened. Why?