Google To Challenge Facebook Again 197
Hugh Pickens writes "Google is set to make a fresh attempt to gain a foothold in the booming social networking business, seeking to counter the growing threat that Facebook poses to some of its core services. USA Today reports that the search giant is upgrading Gmail to add social-media tools similar to those found on Facebook, including photo and video sharing within the Gmail application, along with a new tool for status updates. According to reports, Google is planning to give Gmail users a way to aggregate the updates of their various contacts on the service, creating a stream of notifications that would echo the similar real-time streams from Facebook and Twitter. Google's decision to exploit the heavily-used Gmail service as the basis for its latest assault on the social networking business partly reflects the failure of Google's previous stand-alone efforts to enter the social networking sector. Its Orkut networking service, though launched before Facebook, has failed to gain a mass following in most parts of the world, despite success in Brazil, and its acquisition of Twitter rival Jaiku ended in failure after it scrapped development of the service." Update: 02/09 19:32 GMT by KD : It's been announced as Google Buzz; CNET has a detailed writeup.
Re:privacy is key (Score:4, Informative)
...if they manage to get the privacy thing right.
LOL
Just to be clear, I meant privacy in terms of your friends. In terms of Google, privacy was pretty much given up a long time ago.
no!!! (Score:3, Informative)
NO!
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!
Did I mention, NO?
I am already annoyed, pissed off, angry and fed up with having to use lame gmail and other core Google services on my Android device. I have PRIVATE business contacts in there. I have NO PERSONAL CONTACTS.
I do not want them seeing each other, seeing when I am online, what I am doing, where I am, or anything of the sort! I use corporate email, not silly gmail for emailing my clients, both from my phone and from my desktop. The *only* reason I use gmail is for the calendar and contacts that I am *FORCED* to keep there.
If Google makes me, or my company the least bit *more* uncomfortable with this situation, we'll be moving to Blackberries.
BAH!
Google has gone so far downhill, I've actually tried Bing!. I *HATE* Microsoft. I _LOATH_ them. Google is just getting so bad, however, I had to try!
Heck, it's almost impossible to search for what you want on Google now, as it constantly changes your search terms. You pretty much have to add a + in front of every search keyword, in order to get what you want. Shouldn't that be opt-out? You know, an "actually search for things I asked for, not things you suggest" option?
Now they have those idiotic search suggestions, while you are typing. Annoying, and slow. About 1% of the time I search for something (I'm in IT, I search hundreds of times per day), the Google redirect domain they use is slow, and you have to reload to get where you want to go. Now they have personalized searches, which of course just makes things worse.. so now I have to randomize all Google cookies using a Firefox app.
What is wrong with these people?
Re:Google Fail..... (Score:1, Informative)
Nobody wants to use it because it offers nothing over email except the ability to watch people correct typos in real time, and edit other people's words to make them look like idiots.
Re:The law of unintended consequences... (Score:3, Informative)
This is anathema to many, especially the young, but...
There are some things that cannot be resolved by a 'hold them responsible for fuckups' policy. You would probable, for instance, not be impressed by that policy if it required firing several people who let your financial data spew forth. After all, your credit is gone, your house is gone, your future is unnecessarily complicated, and it will take years to put it all back. No amount of retribution will fix it or make you whole.
We've read many reports of data breaches, and the result is not mitigated by punishing those responsible. And despite our fondest hopes, it's kinda pointless to expect the mid-level sysadmin to sport over a few tens of millions of dollars to compensate their former employer for the damage and recovery. Just the letters cost real money to mail. Writing off lost revenue, disputed transactions, and such is nontrivial.
And that's just the financial industry. In healthcare, there are things that can be disclosed that have no fix. NO FIX. And cost is the wrong concept. People often consider their private medical history beyond value.
There is no real point in having a 'hold them responsible for fuckups' policy. It should be obvious that you are responsible. Prevention is the only solution for many scenarios.
And yes, the policy seems arbitrary. And it is. The team assesses threats and potentials, and assigns levels of risk. I'm often amused by the websites blocked, but I can figure out why most of the time. Among the reasons to block sites here seem to be: Obvious hacker actvity/encouragement, obvious time-wasting, socially unacceptable behavior, excessive bandwidth utilization without any business purpose, etc. I haven't tried going to 4chan, for instance, I expect it to be blocked. I've never even gone to Drudge.
And among other things, the corporate Internet bandwidth is clearly the property of the corporation to manage and control. I'm just an employee. I have nothing to say about it, my job does not require control or special privileges. I'm somewhat amazed that I get /.
Re:The law of unintended consequences... (Score:3, Informative)
The URL is still visible. They block both HTTP and HTTPS, though I suspect from what I know of the proxy and filtering software, they can capture the UEL and block on that just fine.
ps- We use a LOT of HTTPS here. Managing that is not so much different from HTTP from a proxy/filter vantage point.
My original point was that if our team decides that Gmail (SSL or not) is giving access to services not permitted, like YouTube or Google Chat, they will block Gmail, and let us lose ALL of it.
You understand now?
Then I will be reduced to using my G1 to read my Gmail. Since my personal email is on my own server and domain, I will probably use the webmail for that directly rather than live on the pickup by Gmail. Which is just fine, until they figure out that Squirrelmail is also an email service, and start looking at it. Never know. The phone works. I will not be deprived.