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Google Criticized Over Its Handling of the End of Google+ (vortex.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein shares his report on how Google is handling the end of its Google+ service. He's describing it as "a boot to the head: when you know that Google just doesn't care any more" about users "who have become 'inconvenient' to their new business models."
We already know about Google's incredible user trust failure in announcing dates for this process. First it was August. Then suddenly it was April. The G+ APIs (which vast numbers of web sites -- including mine -- made the mistake of deeply embedding into their sites), we're told will start "intermittently failing" (whatever that actually means) later this month.
It gets much worse though. While Google has tools for users to download their own G+ postings for preservation, they have as far as I know provided nothing to help loyal G+ users maintain their social contacts... As far as Google is concerned, when G+ dies, all of your linkages to your G+ friends are gone forever. You can in theory try to reach out to each one and try to get their email addresses, but private messages on G+ have always been hit or miss...
And with only a few months left until Google pulls the plug on G+, I sure as hell wouldn't still be soliciting for new G+ users! Yep -- believe it or not -- Google at this time is STILL soliciting for unsuspecting users to sign up for new G+ accounts, without any apparent warnings that you're signing up for a service that is already officially the walking dead! Perhaps this shows most vividly how Google today seems to just not give a damn about users who aren't in their target demographics of the moment. Or maybe it's just laziness.
I'd be more upset about this if I actually used Google+ -- but has Google been unfair to the users who do? "[T]he way in which they've handled the announcements and ongoing process of sunsetting a service much beloved by many Google users has been nothing short of atrocious," Weinstein writes, "and has not shown respect for Google's users overall."
It gets much worse though. While Google has tools for users to download their own G+ postings for preservation, they have as far as I know provided nothing to help loyal G+ users maintain their social contacts... As far as Google is concerned, when G+ dies, all of your linkages to your G+ friends are gone forever. You can in theory try to reach out to each one and try to get their email addresses, but private messages on G+ have always been hit or miss...
And with only a few months left until Google pulls the plug on G+, I sure as hell wouldn't still be soliciting for new G+ users! Yep -- believe it or not -- Google at this time is STILL soliciting for unsuspecting users to sign up for new G+ accounts, without any apparent warnings that you're signing up for a service that is already officially the walking dead! Perhaps this shows most vividly how Google today seems to just not give a damn about users who aren't in their target demographics of the moment. Or maybe it's just laziness.
I'd be more upset about this if I actually used Google+ -- but has Google been unfair to the users who do? "[T]he way in which they've handled the announcements and ongoing process of sunsetting a service much beloved by many Google users has been nothing short of atrocious," Weinstein writes, "and has not shown respect for Google's users overall."
Google plus was a data harvesting scheme. Facebook had been telling advertisers that it knew so much about the users (age, name, likes). Google responded by releasing Google Plus, harassing everyone until they had signed up for an account, then once they had everyone's data, abandoning it.
Many of us would have liked to have seen an alternative to Facebook, but Google just didn't care enough to make that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
... that some people just failed to see the obvious.
It was clear 12 months after launch the service was more or less DOA - it was a ghost town.
"You pays your money and you takes your choice."
... the end of Google+ doesn’t break our YouTube channel.
We set up a channel for our work, but quickly found that there were numerous artificial constraints on the channel unless we also created a Google+ account and linked them together. A couple years ago Google said they’d provide a way to unlink YouTube from Google’s+, but as far as I know they never followed through on that. So, with Google+ ending, it will be interesting to see what breaks.
#DeleteChrome
Quantity is not quality.
FB is the home of memes. G+ was the home of quite a few interesting discussions.. To be honest, I much preferred G+, the problem being not enough of my friends used it, as they already had Facebook, which I can entirely understand.
Running a mail server is a pain to maintain.
If you're in an IP block that is getting blacklisted, it sounds like you were running a mail server on dynamic client side IPs, rather than on a static IP server block. The glut of spam means we can't just allow everybody, and a lack of reverse DNS with your domain name, that is pointing to a static IP, is gonna get you blacklisted.
Your server might have existed before SPF, DEMARC, and other TXT strings to validate authenticity of a domain. A properly configured set of SPF and Demarc strings should prevent anybody else from spoofing your domain.
I found Debouncer.com and MXToolbox.com to be helpful when setting up a mail server, or migrating to a new domain or IP.
Nope
The "ghost town" discussion was based on false premises outside and within Google.
The service never rivaled Facebook and nobody on G+ ever wanted the service to become Facebook.
The users there came to G+ because they did not like Facebook. So we were just a few million people who were happy with what they had. So were no billions, but it was far from being a ghost town.
My stream had about 400+ posts per day. I can't remember my last post that did not get any reaction.