And That’s It for Google+ | Hacker News Reader

And That’s It for Google+

techcrunch.com

17 pointstheBashShell20 comments

I know people love to complain about Google's track record of shutting things down, but for me this is the one that made me say "I'll never use anything new from Google for anything important. Never. Anything." The pushed this thing SO hard for a couple of years, and now it's just gone. I feel like I'd be a fool to use anything more than search and Gmail at this point. I've heard good things about GCP but there's no way anyone will convince me that'll be around in 5 years (though if it is I might be convinced). All those chat/video apps, no way I'm even going to bother with checking them out. And so on. Google+ seemed like THE most important thing at Google, tied into everything, even required for a while, and it's gone now, or maybe rebranded into that thing they just announced earlier this week?

TechCrunch has a nice Google+ timeline: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/08/looking-back-at-google/

> The pushed this thing SO hard for a couple of years, and now it's just gone. I feel like I'd be a fool to use anything more than search and Gmail at this point

Did they ever restore the general + search operator that they killed to repurpose for Google+?

Did they ever restore the general + search operator

No.

Use double quotes around your search string, it gives the same behavior.

Which is to say, "no".

They have this neat service called "Maps". You might want to use that.

Using (and improving) Open Street Maps to make life better for everyone might be a better overall net win for society as a whole though.

Is Google Maps better? Yes. Without a doubt. Will OSM improve to "good enough" if enough people and corporations care enough to use it? Possibly. If we get really lucky, a cycle might just form of companies using OSM (like Niantic/Pokemon Go) because it's good enough, and a small subset of people/corporations improving OSM because it's cheaper to push OSM to good enough for their use than to use proprietary maps.

Is it likely? Not really. But Free, Libre, Open-Source and Community-Owned maps for the entire world is a big enough goal that getting partway there can still be a win :)

Another Google project left to die, I give Stadia until 2021 before it's part of the abandoned google graveyard.

Google+ has been a wasteland for years. If nobody uses a product, how long should a company support it? Isn't pivoting considered a good thing?

Not when the result destroys published documents and causes link rot. It would be much better for the web to leave the system read-only, but Google's eng culture imposes endless maintenance churn they don't want to pay for.

It was pretty heavily used by a few communities, like the Ingress one.

Google Voice is still around, but that's got to disappear at some point. What could be keeping it alive are lots of small businesses and sole proprietors that use it.

It seems like people have forgotten the point of Google+. If I recall correctly... there were too many disparate login systems which resulted in a fractured identity. There were various legal and technical reasons which they could not associate users amongst their different properties.

Then they sent out advertisements to get everyone on G+. And a huge number of people clicked, without even understand what they were creating. Then all of the accounts were merged into one, that had different policies.

And so, there was no longer a profit motivation for the product.

Starting 2013 you couldn’t even comment on YouTube without merging your YouTube account into Google plus. I eventually gave in.

The unacknowledged point was NTSIC: National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace:

In Memoriam: The Rise, Fall & Death of Google Plus

Google was only going to be one of many identity service providers for a program run by the Federal Government called the NSTIC, or National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.

> “[NSTIC] The initiative envisions an online environment-the “Identity Ecosystem”‘ – that improves on the use of passwords and usernames, and allows individuals and organizations to better trust one another, with minimized disclosure of personal information. The Identity Ecosystem is a user-centric online environment, a set of technologies, policies. and agreed upon standards, that securely support transactions ranging from anonymous to fully authenticated and from low to high value.

Alex Howard, "A Manhattan Project for Online Identity"

The NSTIC proposes the creation of an “identity ecosystem” online, “where individuals and organizations will be able to trust each other because they follow agreed upon standards to obtain and authenticate their digital identities.” The strategy puts government in the role of a convener, verifying and certifying identity providers in a trust framework.

http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/05/nstic-analysis-identity-pri...

"In Memoriam: The Rise, Fall & Death of Google Plus"

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-plus-history-deat...

"Google & NSTIC Leading the March to Digital Totalitarianism?"

https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2011/11/08/google-nstic-le...

"National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace"

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg73124/pdf/CHRG-112... [pdf]

Earlier & more context (myself):

"A Manhattan Project for Online Identity: NSTIC -- What is social media for?"

https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/aa6pmi/a_manhatta...

Well, that and killing Facebook & catapulting Vic Gundotra into the Alphabet driver's seat.

Best laid plans, etc., etc.

Anyone know why the page loads fully, including article text, then the text diss appears and it says there’s an error?

Sometimes I hate the modern web.

Was Google+ the largest social network that didn't have advertising? In the right hands, Google+ could've been a strong ad-free alternative to Facebook/Instagram and Twitter.

Possibly.

Contrast Usenet, IRC, and MetaFilter.

Google+ was pretty fantastic. The only downside was losing the + operator in Google search. Then, I also thought Google Wave was a good idea.

Google Wave was a pretty good idea. Apache Wave stuck around for a bit though I don't know if anyone used it.

A lot of the things in Google Wave filtered out. Real time document collaboration is fantastic, and I don't think it existed as much in the public consciousness before Wave.

Google+ had some good ideas. The multiple social circles thing is still the easiest way I've seen that done. I don't know if facebook has fully copied it yet or not.

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