How Steve Jobs Changed Google Plus

Let the guy fucking rest already... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-17 11:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

Seriously, he died months ago, we can stop jerking off all over his legacy now...

Re:Let the guy fucking rest already... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-17 11:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

he invites this treatment with his historical treatment of others, and his arrogant narcissism.
Re:Let the guy fucking rest already... by tompaulco · 2012-06-17 11:52 · Score: 5, Funny

Seriously, he died months ago, we can stop jerking off all over his legacy now...
Steve Jobs is dead, but contrary to the summary, Larry Page is still alive and well.

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If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Re:Let the guy fucking rest already... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-17 12:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

Even dead, Steve is far more interesting than all of /. commentators put together, more interesting than almost every CEO in the entire tech industry.
[snip]
Think about it next time you bash Apple.
That's what they said about Aristotle every time someone challenged some aspect of the great man's system. Maybe that's why it took 1800 years for the heliocentric model of the solar system, and the experimental basis of science, to gain any traction.
Just because someone has impressive stature doesn't mean that everything s/he did has to be worshipped and parrotted.
Re:Let the guy fucking rest already... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-17 14:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

Even dead, Steve is far more interesting than all of /. commentators put together, more interesting than almost every CEO in the entire tech industry.
CEOs are not so important as they (and you) think.

Steve & Steve (Jobs/Woz) formed the very computer industry you are enjoying now. No, it was NOT IBM. Their PC came out AFTER the Apple I/II as a response.
There were also Kenbak, Micral, Altair, Atari, Commodore, Sharp, Tandy/Radio Shack, etc... producing computers at that time.

Steve was tremendously influential in the Music, Movie, Smartphone, Computer, Retail sections. Apple haters tend to loath him and Apple. But you totally underestimate what a world without Apple would look like today. It would be frightening. The PC wouldn't exist (probably) as the PC-standard was only invented as a quick&dirty effort as response to the Apple 2.
I'm not an Apple hater, but you're exagerating. Saying that the IBM-PC was an answer to the Apple ][, is as saying that the Apple ][ was an answer to IBM's 5100. The IBM-PC was an answer to all 70s microcomputers.

The GUI wouldn't be there where it is now. (and not Xerox wouldn't have sold it. They had only a raw prototype and their own managers said it wouldn't be marketable)
Perhaps VisiOn or one of the other projects at the time would have happened.

Smartphones would still be in the iron grasp of carriers, filled with bloatware and branded to death. The iPhone was the first one were the carriers had ZERO influence.
That is very US-centric. Here in this part of Europe, the carriers never had any influence on smartphones at all.

Tablets would probably still be synonymous with failed Tablet-PCs featuring WinXP.
So you admit that tablets were happening before jobs. WinXP tablets were more popular than Apple's Newton. iPad was more popular than WinXP tablets.

etc, etc. No, Steve was not holy, innocent or a general good guy. Nevertheless, should he be recognised as one of the greatest figures in IT history. Yes he was that important. And no, it is not natural that someone else would have come along and did the same as Steve. Otherwise there would already be the next Rockstar CEO somewhere. But there isn't. Think about it next time you bash Apple.
Jobs was important to IT history. But he was not as important as you make him. And don't worry, new rockstars pop up all the time - they will as long as there are fans.
Re:Let the guy fucking rest already... by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2012-06-17 14:27 · Score: 5, Funny

Google+ on the ther hand...

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Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Re:Let the guy fucking rest already... by jd2112 · 2012-06-17 15:14 · Score: 4, Funny

No. For now that he has died it is only a matter of time before he steals, *cough*, I mean out innovates the Devil himself and becomes CEO of Hell. We now have to prepare even more, even harder.
Don't give Larry Ellison any ideas.

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Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Re:Let the guy fucking rest already... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-17 19:47 · Score: 5, Funny

Google+ on the ther hand...
is an actual manifestation of Shroedinger's cat
Re:Let the guy fucking rest already... by hairyfeet · 2012-06-17 21:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Apple I couldn't even be truly considered a kit as it didn't come with all the parts needed to make a functional system, not to mention there were only a few hundred made and sold in a very limited geographic area.I wouldn't exactly call that any kind of major milestone in the history of computing and if you are gonna count that you would need to also count the KIM 1 released in the same year but I can't find the exact day so who knows if it was earlier or later.
Regardless MOS Tech were already working on the KIM before they could have possibly heard of Jobs so one could argue that even if Jobs had never built squat you'd have still had the birth of the home computer, as its only logical to slap something like the KIM in a box with a keyboard and a monitor hookup which is exactly what Commodore did when they bought out MOS and had the same guys build the PET. Of course once the PET hit the scene with the TRS-80 right behind it that was it, the race was on.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.

Parallel world. by Ostracus · 2012-06-17 11:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

Privacy advocates beware, as the problem is almost certainly worse than ever anticipated.

Good thing we have alternatives, right?

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Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"

Re:Parallel world. by PNutts · 2012-06-17 11:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yes, as in none. I don't use any of them.
Re:Parallel world. by ClioCJS · 2012-06-17 11:19 · Score: 5, Funny

I also never go to the park, because people might photograph me. I stick to the shadows, and only go out at night, wearing a mask.

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-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Re:Parallel world. by Sponge+Bath · 2012-06-17 11:29 · Score: 4, Funny

You are not alone.
Re:Parallel world. by interkin3tic · 2012-06-17 12:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

There's a guy around town who must not be right in the head, he's always shielding his face with one hand, has long fingernails, all black clothing, a hat, long hair, and a beard. Whenever I see him I'm tempted to tell him that whoever he thinks is watching him, he's making it really easy to track him by standing out like a sore thumb. Holding your hand over your face is not really a good way to stay incognito.

I wonder if the same isn't true for online privacy, if by caring about it and making some attempt to remain private, I've put myself on the radar for anyone who happens to be monitoring online activity.
Re:Parallel world. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-17 15:40 · Score: 5, Funny

That's how they protected Salmon Rushdie

What were they protecting him from? Bears? Fishermen?
Re:Parallel world. by wvmarle · 2012-06-17 15:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

Privacy advocates beware, as the problem is almost certainly worse than ever anticipated.
Good thing we have alternatives, right?
Well, yes and no.
There are alternatives, but no useful alternatives. The problem of the Internet is that it is very conductive to the creation of monopolies, especially when it comes to sites that rely on user input. Facebook is big because in the early days it managed to gain critical mass. This made it grow to the juggernaut it is now. Slashdot is also a site that gained critical mass, and as a result is one of the biggest IT/tech related discussion sites.
As a result, if you want to connect with friends and use an online social network, you go to Facebook, because everyone else is there already. You don't go to Google+ or any other such network, as your friends aren't there. The sheer size of Facebook is its main attraction, and this makes it also very difficult for other networks to start to compete. After all you first have to get critical mass, and that's really difficult.
Even a company like Google, with its very positive image, its huge resources, gaining enormous publicity with their start-up network (they made it to the TV news, front page of news papers worldwide, all over the tech sites) didn't manage to do this. They didn't even gain enough traction to survive as social network in a niche, like e.g. LinkedIn still survives. This just goes to show how hard it is to come with a viable alternative. The only way to come with an alternative is to link your network to Facebook, which Facebook won't allow, and still doesn't give users much of an incentive to use your network and not Facebook's.
Re:Parallel world. by dido · 2012-06-17 17:35 · Score: 4, Informative

I seem to recall that MySpace and Friendster also achieved critical mass. I think it is naive to think that Facebook will not someday be supplanted in the same way as well. The main reason why G+ is stumbling in this respect is that they don't provide anything, not even better assurances over privacy (which is something people care little enough about) that is compelling enough for people to begin to use their G+ accounts more than they use their Facebook accounts. The thing here is that social network lock-in and network effects are weaker than say, Microsoft's lock-in and network effects with Windows. In the first place, nothing really prevents me from say, using both G+ and Facebook at the same time. If G+ or some other competing social network provides something really compelling, not just to me but to large numbers of users, I'd eventually find myself using Facebook less and less, and G+ more, and at some point it'd be hard to characterize me as a "Facebook user". At this point G+ does not seem to be giving people that kind of incentive. Think back on what killed off MySpace and Friendster. Friendster I remember had problems scaling their systems to handle the increasing load, and the poor responsiveness of their site was what caused people to migrate away from them to MySpace and Facebook in the way just described. I don't quite remember what happened with MySpace, because I never did make an account there, but I believe that Facebook had a much better user experience (ads not as intrusive, easier interface, less of an ability to make garish pages, etc.), and that's what caused people to gradually migrate.
Facebook had a P/E of 88 at their IPO, which means that they'll have to increase revenue at least sixfold to live up to the expectations set by their stock price. They can't increase their userbase much more: there just aren't enough people on the planet for that. Their revenue per ad is going down, so to increase revenues they'll have to make their ads occupy more and more of their page and become more intrusive. I think doing that was part of what killed off MySpace.

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Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Re:Parallel world. by azalin · 2012-06-17 19:21 · Score: 4, Funny

Well their relation is rather fishy
Re:Parallel world. by rtb61 · 2012-06-17 20:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

The main reason G+ 'appears' to be stumbling is because it is Google, people expect it to win overnight. Google didn't beat Alta Vista and MSN overnight, it took some years and all G+ has to do is continue, refine and improve in favour of the customer, while Facebook is forced to continue to squeeze the screws on the customers to increase revenue and the result will be inevitable, it wont happen overnight and Google can still screw it up but if they or someone else work solidly and carefully at it, just like Myspace, Facebook will die as a fad.

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Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen

FFS. Steve Jobs is not god, you dimwits. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-17 11:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is the same man who came up with "MobileMe" and Ping. Remember those massive failures? No? That's because the media ignores them in portraying Apple as a company that never makes a mistake.

a certain lack of users by Trepidity · 2012-06-17 11:08 · Score: 4, Funny

Privacy advocates beware, as the problem is almost certainly worse than ever anticipated.

Wouldn't that require people to actually use Google Plus, in order for it to be a problem?

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10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10

Re:a certain lack of users by achlorophyl · 2012-06-17 11:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

Google+ gets fun to look at. Google seeds your timeline with nifty examples of posts from all different people. Like for example blogger posts stuff about making blogs.. Then Google will put random posts from different people. It's not boring like Facebook, where only your friends show up on your timeline.

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David C. Baird theunspokenyes.com
Re:a certain lack of users by MachDelta · 2012-06-17 11:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

TFA explains it - if you're using YouTube, Google search, gmail, or any other google service, you're using Google+. It's just a big wrapper for the whole experience. No one cares if you aren't posting about drunken weekend escapades because your digital footprints are just as valuable without the meaningless banter that serves as an excuse to use the FaceTubes.
Re:a certain lack of users by evorster · 2012-06-17 12:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

I have to agree. There are less users, but they are overall more useful. I subscribe to the photography and technology groups, so I have a neverending stream of nice photos and interesting gadgets to look at on a slow news day. In fact, I sometimes learn about new gadgets even before they pop up on slashdot. So, G+ is aimed at a different group of people, and that being so does not make it a failure. Facebook pretty much has the market cornered with the Farmville and other online game types, G+ news seems to have more news from creative types. Also, G+ is easy to train, and after weeding out the worst spammers, the rest is all good. -Evert Vorster-
Re:a certain lack of users by LandDolphin · 2012-06-17 16:36 · Score: 4, Informative

To my understanding, each google website used to be individual. Now they are connected, meaning that they can track you across all of google's websites/services. So instead of multiple files about you, they have one grand file.

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Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Re:a certain lack of users by EvilAlphonso · 2012-06-17 17:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

So you mean the big fuss is over them being able to do "grep $googleid unified_services_access.log" instead of "grep $googleid *service_access.log"?

This article is rank content-free linkbait. by wordsnyc · 2012-06-17 11:09 · Score: 5, Interesting

Slow news day much? This article is devoid of news, consists solely of "Duh!" opinions rendered in awkward sophomoric prose, and is all too typical of the low standards of fourth-tier tech sites. "The leader in technology news and commentary"? Maybe at your particular high school.

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Sent from the iPad I found in your car.

Re:This article is rank content-free linkbait. by ColdWetDog · 2012-06-17 11:48 · Score: 4, Funny

That's OK, we just slashdotted it.
That'll teach em.

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!

Re:This is what Slashdot has become? by NoSleepDemon · 2012-06-17 11:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

I like how the article quite randomly mentions that Jobs used to do LSD, for no apparent reason:

"But where does Steve Jobs fit into all this? Before he passed, the famed Apple CEO (and former LSD user) met with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, with Page as Google CEO by that time."

I'm not sure exactly what reaction that little interjection was supposed to elicit from the reader...

This article says nothing by guises · 2012-06-17 11:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

There's nothing in the article (yes, I read it). It's just what everyone already knew - Google+ is one more Google service and will continue to exist and act as a data source to better target their advertisements. Big deal. The actual content of the unified privacy policy remains less threatening than most, even if people continue to cower at its mere existence. The contribution that it mentions from Steve Jobs is essentially non-existent, and I've already written more than this thing deserves.

Re:This article says nothing by slasho81 · 2012-06-17 12:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

I suggest we start tagging articles with no content as 'fluff'.
Re:This article says nothing by Gaygirlie · 2012-06-17 14:44 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's just what everyone already knew - Google+ is one more Google service and will continue to exist and act as a data source to better target their advertisements. Big deal.
Indeed. Personally I use Google+ nowadays on a daily basis and I know full well that Google collects some data for marketing purposes. They sell the data in large batches per demographic and anonymizes the data first, and in exchange I get to use an extremely handy platform that isn't crowded with the "Mememememe" - or "I have a 5 seconds attention span" - crowd. Sounds like a good deal to me, atleast.

Re:FFS. Steve Jobs is not god, you dimwits. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-17 11:19 · Score: 5, Funny

They were so non-traditionally successful that they were too good for ordinary people. Think different.

Re:We know who you are. by ClioCJS · 2012-06-17 12:12 · Score: 5, Funny

I stab myself in a different part of the leg every night to thwart gait-detection.

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-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com

Re:We know who you are. by AngryDeuce · 2012-06-17 12:18 · Score: 4, Funny

I just spent 5 precious minutes mopping soda up off of my desk thanks to you.

Yet another fluff article. by slasho81 · 2012-06-17 12:24 · Score: 4, Funny

[Steve Jobs] told [Larry Page and Sergey Brin] something to the effect of, "You have so many products spanning several services: Search, GMail, YouTube, Maps etc. – why not unite them all under a fluid user experience to both you and your users’ benefit?"

Page and Brin, struck with this epiphany, thought to themselves: "My God, how come we and our 30,000 highly-qualified employees never thought of this before!? This man is truly a genius!"

Re:FFS. Steve Jobs is not god, you dimwits. by Georules · 2012-06-17 13:53 · Score: 5, Interesting

Where do you get off calling MobileMe a massive failure?

Well, Steve Jobs called MobileMe and the MobileMe team a massive failure himself.

"Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" Having received a satisfactory answer, he continues, "So why the f*** doesn't it do that?"
Steve Jobs summoned the entire MobileMe team for a meeting at the company's on-campus Town Hall, accusing everyone of "tarnishing Apple's reputation." He told the members of the team they "should hate each other for having let each other down", and went on to name new executives on the spot to run the MobileMe team.

Source

Re:FFS. Steve Jobs is not god, you dimwits. by bluemonq · 2012-06-17 14:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

Apple themselves readily admit their own mistakes.

"You're holding it wrong." "Just avoid holding it that way." "Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong."

Re:This is what Slashdot has become? by Mister+Transistor · 2012-06-17 17:21 · Score: 5, Funny

I used to do LSD for no apparent reason, too...

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-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --

Almost Certainly by ryanisflyboy · 2012-06-17 20:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

I almost certainly read the article, and I almost certainly agree with the summary. You almost certainly read the article too, in which case you almost certainly agree that this almost certainly occurred. This is almost certainly the most accurate story ever posted on /. And almost certainly, this comment will be rated +5 informative.

It is either certain, or it isn't. If it is certain, then there is no doubt evidence to back up that claim. In which case you would simply say "it is certain that... because of..." Unless you are writing an article on probability theory, then we should expect facts. Not rumor dressed up as fact.

You know what we call things reported on web blogs that are almost certain?
Bullshit.

Here are some red-flag phrases the writer of the summary almost certainly read, and almost certainly ignored:
"Nobody would expect..."
"I'm going to reveal..."
"It all started when..."
"...something to the effect of..."
"...easily verified via his Wikipedia page..."
"I'm told by people familiar with the situation..."
"I project that..."

Well, before I totally dismiss the article let us learn about the author. Perhaps he is a well connected business savvy insider who has connections right at the top. Let's see what the bio says:

Chris "...is a business grad student at USC who is very fluent with technology..."

Okay, I can't go on any more. I'm going to be sick. Whatever journalistic integrity I had is being sucked dry by this one. Since when did USC grad students start getting taken so seriously?

Give C= a bit more credit sir by cheekyboy · 2012-06-17 23:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

C= made a PC too in the 70s

C= made a cheaper home fun computer than Apple

C= made a better color computer than Mac System 6

The C= Amgia could emulate the Macs+OS via ROM module or (copy rom as most did via BBSs). The Rom in ram ran faster. The Emulator patched some OS calls to be asyncronous and ran faster and better that a real mac did. And also ran Amiga apps at the same time as Mac Apps.

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Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.

Re:This is what Slashdot has become? by Metabolife · 2012-06-18 02:00 · Score: 4, Funny

In other news, president Obama (and former coke-head) met with vice-president Biden (current raging meth addicts) this weekend to discuss the political campaign against Mitt Romney (disconnected asshole).

I wish all news was like this...

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How Steve Jobs Changed Google Plus

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