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Google+ Photos To Shut Down August 1
An anonymous reader writes: Now that Google Photos exists separately from Google+, the company is shutting down the Google+ version of Photos starting on August 1. The Android version will be the first to go, followed shortly thereafter by the iOS and web versions. Fortune calls the old Photos app "a relic of the times when the search giant thought its social network Google Plus could become a huge hit."
Seriously - I feel like Google+'s only fan. The layout is far better than the alternatives. It doesn't give a false sense of security. It's much more in tune with my phone. It's easier to navigate. It's not flooded with fucking idiots. There are no ads. It supports animated gifs... the list just goes on and on and on. Why the hell did it not catch on like FB?
People argue that they "already have a social network" but that didn't stop them from leaving MySpace in favour of FB.
Now that we've split off Photos from Google+, let's split off the GPS support into a separate product, ok? Or maybe bundle it into Maps where it belongs? We could call it LATITUDE.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I was excited when Google+ rolled out. That enthusiasm quickly dissipated when Google decided that no anonymous accounts would be tolerated. Their inability to understand how important it is for many people to be able to participate anonymously convinced me that this was not a platform that was going anywhere. Apparently, I wasn't the only person to feel this way.
Awesome job Google! You could have very likely created a real competitor to Facebook but instead orchestrated the internet version of New Coke.
Now that Google+ Photos is discontinued, Google Apps admins received a message which informs them that Google Hangouts will only use Picasa Web Albums for photo sharing.
http://googlesystem.blogspot.c...
Some of us don't want Facebook either.
I know this is hard to understand, but for many of us the internet "social network" is just more crap to enable analytics and ads, and hasn't got a damned thing to do with anything we want to do.
I ranked Google+ right up there with if Microsoft decided I needed a Live (or whatever they call it) account to use Notepad ... it was self serving crap by a company trying to force me to use something I didn't want or need.
I like some of Google's services, but I sure as hell didn't want them to overstep their bounds and attempt to force everything I do on the intertubes to go through it. But that's exactly what they did.
It was like digital panhandling. Eventually I blocked plus.google.com at my damned firewall.
It was a marketing experiment gone wrong, and it mostly came across as a shrill bunch of assholes saying "why haven't you used my awesome product". It really pissed people off.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I predict, based on past behavior, that Google Photos will be retired a year from now, maybe two.
I find that many people have gotten hesitant to trust using products and services from Google or Microsoft because both of them tend to start projects, promote it to death, and then decide to suddenly drop it one day.
Why the hell did it not catch on like FB?
Because nearly everybody was already on Facebook and Facebook gave them no reason to move that they cared about. Look up network effect if you need a more detailed explanation. Plus Google was more than a little pushy about G+ early on which didn't enhance the appeal. Nobody likes to feel forced into something.
People argue that they "already have a social network" but that didn't stop them from leaving MySpace in favour of FB.
People will leave if they have sufficient reason. Myspace was sort of focused on music and entertainment which is fine but not diverse and perhaps a bit too narrow. It's ties to News Corp probably didn't help and it didn't innovate nearly enough. They probably chased the money too quickly. Wikipedia has a decent overview of what happened.
What's Google Photos?
With the recent update, Google broke Chromecast support for Google+ photos. The biggest thing I liked about Google+ photos was that I could share the pictures and videos on my Chromecast. Of course, they did not add Chromecast support for the updated photos app.
While not everyone agreed with the "integration" of accounts, I am absolutely amazed at the number of services on which Google has dismantled the good parts. Google has created some pretty neat things over the years and they still are innovating. But for the life of me, I can't shake the feeling that some part of Google's management team likes self mutilation.
My use of G+ now caters for what slashdot provides. I hardly know anyone in person, but being subscribed to a few groups I get better tailored 'news for nerds' and a wider range of news too.
Also, G+ isn't shutting down, just being separated with photos.
It might be too little too late, but this policy was reverted.
No. It isn't the same. Vaccines serve to reduce everyone's risk. Your immunity helps the little baby next door who is too young to vaccinate, and the lady down the street who is allergic to albumen or whatever. Then there's herd immunity -- once a certain proportion of an inter-social group are immune, it becomes much more difficult for a disease to really get any momentum going, and that helps everyone. We share our air, and it's very worthy that we don't share it in such a way that is dangerous insofar as we can avoid it.
Vaccination is a very, very good thing. Intentionally avoiding vaccination when vaccination is possible is an act of aggression -- or stupidity.
The only reason it's being "shoved" down people's throats is because there are clueless idiots (cough/Jenny McCarthy/cough) out there spreading dangerous unscientific nonsense and fomenting unrest with regard to this in any way they can. People were not getting vaccinated who definitely should have been getting vaccinated. It was bad for everyone. So, just as we don't let idiots take a crap on the sidewalks even if they might like to, we aren't going to let idiots (or their children) become transmission vectors for disease, either.
Buck up and go get stuck, and encourage everyone you know to do so as well. It's the right thing to do.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Facebook hate was around by the time G+ was released. Had they simply released an Ad-free, private clone of FB it would taken the world by storm.
Google can't do that. Google makes well over 90% of its revenue from ads and almost everything they do supports that engine. Android was simply a defensive play to keep them from getting locked out of the mobile ad markets by Apple, Microsoft and others. Maps is a play for location sensitive advertising. Gmail is a way of mining personal communications for data. Aside from a few research projects (like cars and robots) pretty much everything Google does is to help them throw more ads your way.
Now Facebook has ads too but to your point nobody really cares if it is Google or Facebook throwing ads their way. If both are doing it there is no reason to switch. Google needed to make G+ something life enhancing. Something that provided extra value over what they already had. Nobody is going to switch to G+ when all their friends are on Facebook unless G+ offers something pretty amazing that Facebook doesn't have. I have no idea what that might be but clearly neither did Google.
The other big mistake Google made was the branding was confusing. They must have taken a page from .NET and java regarding how to make the product as difficult to understand as possible. G+ was/is more than just a Facebook clone but it wasn't especially clear exactly what it was or why we should care. They got too clever with it and confused all their potential customers. Plus they didn't respect the fact that people already think Google knows too much about them.