tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post3887726113508076652..comments2024-03-28T07:23:23.408-07:00Comments on DSHR's Blog: Economics of EvilDavid.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-60621171661733544262023-12-08T13:24:17.388-08:002023-12-08T13:24:17.388-08:00Ron Amadeo reports on the wait for Le Petit Musée&...Ron Amadeo reports on the wait for Le Petit Musée's latest acquisition in <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/google-podcasts-dies-april-2024-youtube-music-migration-tool-goes-live/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google announces April 2024 shutdown date for Google Podcasts</i></a>:<br /><br />"Google Podcasts has been sitting on Google's death row for a few months now since the <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/this-weeks-dead-google-products-google-podcasts-basic-gmail-and-more/" rel="nofollow">September announcement</a>. Now, a <a href="https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/answer/14151168" rel="nofollow">new support article</a> details Google's plans to kill the product, with a shutdown coming in April 2024.<br /><br />Google Podcasts (2016–2024) is Google's third attempt at a podcasting app after the Google Reader-powered Google Listen (2009–2012) and <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/google-play-music-podcasts-are-live-for-some-users/" rel="nofollow">Google Play Music Podcasts (2016–2020)</a>. The product is being shut down in favor of podcast app No. 4, YouTube Podcasts, which <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/youtubes-podcasting-push-begins-with-youtube-com-podcasts-landing-page/" rel="nofollow">launched in 2022</a>."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-80767160298493351262023-06-23T11:04:07.941-07:002023-06-23T11:04:07.941-07:00The Squarespace transaction inspired David Heineme...The Squarespace transaction inspired David Heinemeier Hansson to write <a href="https://world.hey.com/dhh/you-can-t-trust-google-f7d64064" rel="nofollow"><i>You Can't Trust Google</i></a>:<br /><br />"<a href="https://killedbygoogle.com/" rel="nofollow">Google will eventually kill every single service you care about</a>, if they can't find a way to directly monetize it with ads at a scale of billions. They're institutionally incapable of being in the product or service business, because neither products nor services butter Google's bread. Advertisement does.<br /><br />You can see this emphasis in a myriad of ways, but my favorite lens is customer service. Google has always been uniquely awful when it comes to customer service, because helping someone with a problem on Workspaces or even the Google Cloud Platform was never going to be as profitable as helping an advertiser carpet bomb your attention span."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-84172859005304096542023-06-16T13:57:03.424-07:002023-06-16T13:57:03.424-07:00Alphabet Selling Google Domains Assets to Squaresp...<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-15/alphabet-selling-google-domains-assets-to-squarespace" rel="nofollow"><i>Alphabet Selling Google Domains Assets to Squarespace</i></a> by Katie Roof is technically <i>not</i> an acquisition for Le Petit Musée because:<br /><br />"Squarespace said it will honor Google Domains customers’ renewal prices for at least 12 months following the close of the deal. Squarespace will also become the exclusive domains provider for customers who purchase a domain from Google along with their Workspace subscription, according to the statement."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-12172929619075576172023-05-26T06:59:44.220-07:002023-05-26T06:59:44.220-07:00Le Petit Musée gains another exhibit in Ron Amadeo...Le Petit Musée gains another exhibit in Ron Amadeo's <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/05/youtube-is-killing-off-youtube-stories-its-snapchat-clone/" rel="nofollow"><i>YouTube Stories, Google’s clone of Snapchat, is dying on June 26</i></a>:<br /><br />"YouTube's "copy the hot new video site" strategy is ending the way it often does—with a shutdown. This time it's killing off "YouTube Stories," a Snapchat clone the company launched in 2017 under the name "Reels" and later renamed to YouTube Stories in 2018."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-41844361146422766982022-11-01T07:18:58.311-07:002022-11-01T07:18:58.311-07:00Ron Amadeo reports that, after a long slow death, ...Ron Amadeo reports that, after a long slow death, <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/rip-google-hangouts-googles-last-best-chance-to-compete-with-imessage/" rel="nofollow"><i>RIP Google Hangouts, Google’s last, best chance to compete with iMessage</i></a>:<br /><br />"Google Hangouts is <a href="https://support.google.com/chat/answer/9854901?hl=en&authuser=0&visit_id=638025862117981006-3280237225&p=about_classic_hangouts_switch&rd=1" rel="nofollow">scheduled for death</a> today. The phone app has been individually booting people off the service <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/06/google-hangouts-finally-gets-a-shutdown-date-november-2022/" rel="nofollow">since July</a>, but the last vestiges of Hangouts, the <a href="https://hangouts.google.com/" rel="nofollow">web app</a>, will be shut down today."<br /><br />The article is a great indictment of Google's inability to, in Scott McNealy's words, get "all the wood behind one arrow". See this <a href="https://twitter.com/petergyang/status/1576985038511448064" rel="nofollow">tweet</a>.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-35110731241560728992022-10-05T06:48:00.465-07:002022-10-05T06:48:00.465-07:00@petergyang tweets:
"Google insiders explain...<a href="https://twitter.com/petergyang/status/1576985038511448064" rel="nofollow">@petergyang tweets</a>:<br /><br />"Google insiders explain why Google launches many products and then abandons them.<br /><br />Hint: It has to do with chasing promotions."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-25812425338194270292022-09-15T10:46:26.105-07:002022-09-15T10:46:26.105-07:00Another exhibit for Le Petit Musée. Sarah Perez r...Another exhibit for Le Petit Musée. Sarah Perez reports that <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/14/google-cancels-half-the-projects-at-its-internal-rd-group-area-120/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google cancels half the projects at its internal R&D group Area 120</i></a>. Most of the victims had yet to see the light of day but:<br /><br />"One of the projects now being cut with the changes is <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/15/googles-area-120-launches-qaya-a-service-offering-web-storefronts-for-digital-creators/" rel="nofollow">Qaya, a service offering web storefronts for digital creators</a>, launched late last year. Similar to “link in bio” solutions available today like <a href="https://linktr.ee/" rel="nofollow">Linktree</a> or <a href="https://beacons.ai/" rel="nofollow">Beacons</a>, Qaya additionally integrated with Google Search and Google Shopping. It could also be linked with a YouTube Merch Shelf, to promote the creator’s products and services."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-56053742441237144522022-08-26T14:34:50.662-07:002022-08-26T14:34:50.662-07:00Katyanna Quach reports on Le Petit Musée's lat...Katyanna Quach reports on Le Petit Musée's latest acquisition in <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/25/google_waze_carpooling_closes/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google says there's no Waze forward, carpool app axed</i></a>:<br /><br />"Google is shutting down its Waze carpooling service apparently due to poor demand from workers commuting into the office – although road traffic has bounced back to levels from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-67711019526564302112022-02-24T06:50:22.424-08:002022-02-24T06:50:22.424-08:00Simon Sharwood has the latest from Le Petit Musée ...Simon Sharwood has the latest from Le Petit Musée in <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/24/google_chrome_lite_mode_deprecated/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google kills download-shrinking Lite Mode browser tech</i></a>:<br /><br />"Google has announced that it's going to deprecate "Chrome Data Saver" – a feature added to the mobile version of its Chrome browser in 2014 to … wait for it … save data.<br /><br />When Google introduced Data Saver it <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/16/mobile_chrome_data_compression/" rel="nofollow">revealed</a> that it saved data by re-routing web requests through a SPDY proxy to optimize content, re-encoding images to shrink them, and even trimming the fat from carelessly-coded HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Enabling Data Saver – it was an opt-in feature – also saw traffic routed through Google's Safe Browsing filters that aimed to stop malicious webpages making their way into mobile devices."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-15484438997282412512022-02-11T08:00:46.037-08:002022-02-11T08:00:46.037-08:00Ron Amadeo comments:
"By the way, the "...Ron Amadeo <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/02/so-nice-they-killed-it-twice-googles-business-pivot-is-dead/" rel="nofollow">comments</a>:<br /><br />"By the way, the "Google Currents" mentioned here should not be confused with <a href="http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/12/google-currents-is-hot-off-press.html" rel="nofollow">the earlier product</a> called "Google Currents" which existed from 2011-2013 as a magazine app. Similarly, the "Spaces" product here should not be confused with the earlier "<a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/6/#h1" rel="nofollow">Google Spaces</a>" messaging app, which existed for nine months in 2016."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-55076788299458828562022-02-11T07:57:42.948-08:002022-02-11T07:57:42.948-08:00Ars Technica's correspondent from Le Petit Mus...<i>Ars Technica</i>'s correspondent from Le Petit Musée, Ron Amadeo, has an update in <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/02/so-nice-they-killed-it-twice-googles-business-pivot-is-dead/" rel="nofollow"><i>So nice they killed it twice: Google+’s business pivot is dead</i></a>:<br /><br />"In the latest <a href="https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/02/currents-spaces-migration.html" rel="nofollow">Google Workspace blog post</a>, Google says that Currents is "winding down" starting in 2023. This is no surprise, since Google+ was a completely failed consumer product. Why Google thought pushing the dead service onto business would make Currents successful is unclear. (Hey, Google Stadia, does this <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/02/deprioritized-google-stadia-to-pivot-to-google-stream-white-label-service/" rel="nofollow">sound familiar</a>?) Google never really did anything with Currents after rebranding it as a business product. After rotting for years as a dead consumer product, Currents just rotted for a few more years with new business branding."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-28652111518187555292022-01-19T12:09:40.550-08:002022-01-19T12:09:40.550-08:00It has been a while since the last acquisition at ...It has been a while since the last acquisition at Le Petit Musée, but Ron Amadeo announces the next one in <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-kills-youtube-originals-its-original-video-content-group/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google kills YouTube Originals, its original video content group</i></a>:<br /><br />"<a href="https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/youtube-original-content-group-shutdown-1235156299/" rel="nofollow">Variety</a> reports that Google's original video content group, YouTube Originals, is dead. The YouTube division was founded six years ago to make exclusive, original content for the pay-per-month YouTube Premium service. Now, the group is being shuttered, and YouTube's global head of original content, Susanne Daniels, is leaving the company in March."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-83432117938015186112021-08-26T14:56:17.376-07:002021-08-26T14:56:17.376-07:00Natasha Lomas reports on Le Petit Musée's late...Natasha Lomas reports on Le Petit Musée's latest acquisition in <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/26/google-confirms-its-pulling-the-plug-on-streams-its-uk-clinician-support-app/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google confirms it’s pulling the plug on Streams, its UK clinician support app</i></a>:<br /><br />"Google is infamous for spinning up products and killing them off, often in very short order. It’s an annoying enough habit when it’s stuff like <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/" rel="nofollow">messaging apps</a> and <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/01/google-shuts-down-its-internal-stadia-game-studios/" rel="nofollow">games</a>. But the tech giant’s ambitions stretch into many domains that touch human lives these days. Including, most directly, healthcare. And — it turns out — so does Google’s tendency to kill off products that its PR has previously touted as “life saving”.<br /><br />To wit: Following a recent reconfiguration of Google’s health efforts — reported earlier by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-health-shutting-down-david-feinberg-leaves-2021-8?r=US&IR=T" rel="nofollow">Business Insider</a> — the tech giant confirmed to TechCrunch that it is decommissioning its clinician support app, Streams.<br /><br />The app, which Google Health <a href="https://health.google/for-clinicians/streams/" rel="nofollow">PR</a> bills as a “mobile medical device”, was developed back in 2015 by DeepMind, an AI division of Google — and has been used by the U.K.’s National Health Service in the years since, with a number of NHS Trusts inking deals with DeepMind Health to roll out Streams to their clinicians."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-39838783774246778112021-08-20T12:04:01.422-07:002021-08-20T12:04:01.422-07:00Ron Amadeo, a veteran of the Google abattoir, repo...Ron Amadeo, a veteran of the Google abattoir, reports that <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/google-is-killing-android-auto-for-phones-if-you-even-know-what-that-is/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google is killing Android Auto for phones (if you even know what that is)</i></a>:<br /><br />"Google is shutting down "Android Auto for phone screens," which was an Android Auto offshoot for people who didn't have cars compatible with the service. <a href="https://9to5google.com/2021/08/17/android-auto-phone-screen-stops-working/" rel="nofollow">9to5Google</a> confirmed the cancellation with Google, and XDA Developers spotted a shutdown message in the app pushing users to a newer Google car computing solution for phone screens: "Google Assistant driving mode." As usual, we have many similarly named Google projects to keep track of, so don't get confused!"David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-2664515320975253832021-08-17T09:51:29.228-07:002021-08-17T09:51:29.228-07:00Thomas Claiburn reports that Google Groups kills R...Thomas Claiburn reports that <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/16/google_groups_rss/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google Groups kills RSS support without notice</i></a>:<br /><br />"Google has either turned off RSS support in Google Groups without telling anyone, or has failed to notice that RSS in Groups no longer functions."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-5874095416038757092021-07-25T07:57:31.747-07:002021-07-25T07:57:31.747-07:00Katie Baker's The Day the Good Internet Died m...Katie Baker's <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2021/7/21/22586870/google-reader-ode-end-of-the-good-internet" rel="nofollow"><i>The Day the Good Internet Died</i></a> makes some excellent points:<br /><br />"And when Google Reader disappeared in 2013, it wasn’t just a tale of dwindling user numbers or of what one engineer later described as <a href="https://twitter.com/mihai/status/1138961875691950080" rel="nofollow">a rotted codebase</a>. It was a sign of the crumbling of the very foundation upon which it had been built: the era of the Good Internet.<br />...<br />The offering certainly was, over the course of its 2005 to 2013 existence, an ideal showcase for some of the web’s prevailing strengths at the time—one of which was the emergence of the blogosphere, that backbone of what the Good Internet could be.<br />...<br />Google had purchased Blogger back in 2003, and <a href="https://kottke.org/plus/misc/google-playboy.html" rel="nofollow">in an interview with Playboy</a> in 2004, founder Sergey Brin outlined a vision for his company that felt extremely bloggy: “We want to get you out of Google and to the right place as fast as possible,” he said. But nothing gold can stay, and as smartphones and tablets and apps and social networks began to supplement and then supplant the simple-text-on-a-desktop experience near the start of the 2010s, Google’s corporate frame of mind shifted ever-inward."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-11087983739381386042021-06-09T12:12:59.236-07:002021-06-09T12:12:59.236-07:00I missed Alastair Westgarth's Saying goodbye t...I missed Alastair Westgarth's <a href="https://medium.com/loon-for-all/loon-draft-c3fcebc11f3f" rel="nofollow"><i>Saying goodbye to Loon</i></a> back in January:<br /><br />"While we’ve found a number of willing partners along the way, we haven’t found a way to get the costs low enough to build a long-term, sustainable business. Developing radical new technology is inherently risky, but that doesn’t make breaking this news any easier. Today, I’m sad to share that Loon will be winding down."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-14838707126638688982021-06-09T12:00:37.054-07:002021-06-09T12:00:37.054-07:00Ron Amadeo reports on Le Petit Musée's latest ...Ron Amadeo reports on Le Petit Musée's latest acquisition in <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/google-kills-its-augmented-reality-measure-app/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google kills its augmented reality “Measure” app</i></a>.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-25301468499981333182021-04-12T15:05:46.545-07:002021-04-12T15:05:46.545-07:00Another acquisition for the Petit Musée! Ron Amade...Another acquisition for the Petit Musée! Ron Amadeo reports that <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/04/google-is-killing-the-google-shopping-app/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google is killing the Google Shopping app</i></a>:<br /><br />"The Google Shopping app launched only <a href="https://9to5google.com/2019/09/10/google-express-shut-down-shopping/" rel="nofollow">19 months ago</a>, when it took over for another Google shopping shutdown, Google Express. The Google Shopping service has been a rough proposition for users—<a href="https://searchengineland.com/google-product-search-to-become-google-shopping-use-pay-to-play-model-122959" rel="nofollow">starting in 2012</a>, it has been nothing but an ad vector that exclusively showed "paid listings" and no organic results whatsoever. This made some sense as a service that showed advertisements in little embedded boxes in Google.com search results, but it was unclear why a user would download an app that exclusively shows ads."David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-84385143424557355442021-02-01T12:46:47.825-08:002021-02-01T12:46:47.825-08:00And another one bites the dust. Stephen Totilo rep...And another one bites the dust. Stephen Totilo reports that <a href="https://kotaku.com/google-stadia-shuts-down-internal-studios-changing-bus-1846146761" rel="nofollow"><i>Google Stadia Shuts Down Internal Studios, Changing Business Focus</i></a>.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-23473613047850918492021-01-22T09:31:22.452-08:002021-01-22T09:31:22.452-08:00The Petit Musée is going to need more space. In G...The Petit Musée is going to need more space. In <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/01/loons-bubble-bursts-alphabet-shuts-down-internet-balloon-company/" rel="nofollow"><i>Google’s dream of flying Internet balloons is dead—Loon is shutting down</i></a> Ron Amadeo writes:<br /><br />"Google has decided that a network of flying Internet balloons is indeed not a feasible idea. Loon announced it is <a href="https://medium.com/loon-for-all/loon-draft-c3fcebc11f3f" rel="nofollow">shutting down</a>, citing the lack of a "long-term, sustainable business.""David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-31391107616830706192020-12-30T06:03:34.353-08:002020-12-30T06:03:34.353-08:00The hits keep coming! Cohen Coberly's Google&#...The hits keep coming! Cohen Coberly's <a href="https://www.techspot.com/news/88114-google-cloud-print-service-shutting-down-soon.html" rel="nofollow"><i>Google's 'Cloud Print' service is shutting down soon</i></a> celebrates the Petit Musée's latest acquisition. 27 exhibits in 7 years.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-91678047046851428472020-12-17T08:04:18.051-08:002020-12-17T08:04:18.051-08:00And another one bites the dust. Matthew Hughes pro...And another one bites the dust. Matthew Hughes provides the details of the latest from the Petit Musee in <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/17/google_kills_android_things/" rel="nofollow"><i>Stony-faced Google drags Android Things behind the cowshed. Two shots ring out</i></a>.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-8032226774608367862020-10-28T13:49:45.166-07:002020-10-28T13:49:45.166-07:00Ron Amadeo reports on the latest acquisition by th...Ron Amadeo reports on the latest acquisition by the Petit Musee in <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/10/rip-google-play-music-2011-2020/" rel="nofollow"><i>RIP Google Play Music, 2011 – 2020</i></a>.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-44648703345826882932020-09-23T13:56:28.510-07:002020-09-23T13:56:28.510-07:00Thomas Claiburn reports that Another body for the ...Thomas Claiburn reports that <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/23/google_sunsets_chrome_web_store/" rel="nofollow"><i>Another body for the Google graveyard: Chrome Web Store payments. Bad news if you wanted to bank some income from these apps</i></a>.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.com