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Google Is Discontinuing Google+ Hangouts On Air On September 12 (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google today quietly announced that Google+ Hangouts On Air will no longer be available on September 12. Four weeks from now, Google users will be asked to use YouTube Live instead. Google first debuted the livestreaming feature for its Hangouts group video chat on Google+ back in September 2011, though it was only available to select performers and celebrities. Google started making Hangouts On Air available to all its users in May 2012, and completed the rollout a month later. But then in May 2013, Google debuted YouTube Live, which also gradually became available to more and more users.
And one step closer to the end of that piece of shit called Google+
when you can just make something new that does exactly the same thing and annoy your users by forcing them to switch.
Google+ is (was?) a better designed and engineered alternative to Facebook, but it was marketed poorly. They positioned themselves as some kind of social network for cool tech people, forgetting that all the real cool tech people were already active with each other in their own online communities, You *had* to be on LinkedIn, because Business, and you *had* to be on Facebook, because Family, even if you weren't active in either, so you really, really needed a good reason to join another social network with strangers. And all that cringeworthy astroturfing and bought-and-paid-for testimonials by the those who were supposed to be our Nerd Leaders, such as Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, and Guy Kawasaki just made the whole thing a laughing stock.
I feel like using Google products is becoming a bad idea, simply because you can expect it to be retired as soon as it becomes useful when they decide to make an identical product under the banner of choice of the moment, or simply kill it with no replacement product at all. This used to be disappointing, but Google does this so often it doesn't affect me any very much more because I won't even try most of their recent offerings knowing they won't keep it around. According to this article, I started avoiding Google's new offerings late 2011 or earlier.
Man, this is going to piss off a whole lot of podcasters and streamers I know about.... though the ones most dedicated to that abandoned the platform long ago due to complete abandonment and a whole lot of weird glitches, bugs and problems.
But yeah... another proof that people just can't rely on Google to keep up their platforms or even develop them properly. They just keep releasing crap, abandoning development, and then shutting them down. Really doesn't inspire much confidence on the company.
what else has Google been real successful at?
Errr.. a fucking search engine?
If it doesn't bother you then why are you bashing it? Is Facebook sending out an army of astroturfers?
Android. And the search engineof course.
> Other than a decent browser and ads what else has Google been real successful at?
Gee, maybe 2 Billion Android Devices:
http://www.itechpost.com/artic...
Microsoft had a ~20 year head start with WinCE and yet Google still managed to beat them in ~ 6 years! (WinCE first shipped on 16 November 1996, Android first shipped on December 6, 2010)
--
Linux on the Desktop didn't "win" compared to Linux Mobile
Android
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
"And nothing of value was lost."
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
By "fucking search engine", you mean the worlds most used widely used service for searching for videos and pictures of people fucking, right?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The real name policy was a complete turnoff.
Oh, that and the fact that G+ conflated my "mission-critical" GMail, Voice, Wallet (mainly for Express), and other stuff with my personal life, where I could get banned for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.
Yeah, about the same kind of incentive mismatch as Apple Ping (where I had to worry if Apple's closeness with the music/movie industry meant I couldn't discuss torrents/etc).
You have everything to lose (your Google identity) with G+, and little to gain - why should I bother?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
So, is Hangouts on air different from the Hangouts app on Android? Or will the functionality of the Hangouts app shut down on Sep 12?
No, the Hangouts App contains Hangouts on air support.
Just the Hangouts on air portion.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
What exactly is that? I remember when Google switched their messenger service to Hangouts, and to this day, I've resisted using it on the desktop. Just use it on my phone to force open a dialog window w/ a contact, and then continue the conversation on the computer. Is there a separate Hangouts on Google+ than there is for one's normal Google account?
Hangouts on air is when you can host a Google hangouts session between a few select people and essentially provide the general public the option to view the stream (but not join). It's popular with podcasts, game streamers having discussions etc.
It's a feature built into Google Hangouts, but isn't Google Hangouts as a whole.
Sorta, I guess? You can access Hangouts separately on hangouts.google.com, which I don't believe requires a Google+ profile (I could be wrong).
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Android
And Drive, and Photos, and Google Docs (that is not going anywhere). If you are not in need of Excel's analytics capabilities, Google Docs are a good alternative to MS Office for home and small businesses.
1. /sarcasm Who knew pointing out the facts makes one a shill! What are you smoking, because I want some of that!
2. I don't use either Microsoft nor Google operating systems on mobile.