Google CEO Confirms Social Integration 96
siliconbits writes "As we get closer to — and hear more about — the launch of Google's upcoming social product, Google Me, the less and less it seems like a stand-alone social network and more like an interweaving of social connections into its existing offerings. It sounds eerily similar to those 'social' search results that have lingered at the bottom of the results page and third-party extras like Rapportive, the Gmail add-on that gives you the social networking lowdown on your email contacts."
Why do they term beta programs "Product Launch"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fully expect this to be in beta for 2 years and then canceled, a la Wave, for some other 'uber' replacement 'product.' Seriously, with so many talented people, Google actually produces relatively very little.
Re:Uh, no thanks. (Score:4, Insightful)
Its just there used to be places you could go that everyone in the world couldn't follow you and find out everything you were doing.
The Internet is not and was not necessarily that place ("On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog" notwithstanding). The reason everybody can follow you and find out everything you're doing everywhere else in the world is because you announced to everybody where you were going and what you were doing anyway.
Re:Why do they term beta programs "Product Launch" (Score:3, Insightful)
Mixed Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
I really want Facebook erased from the digital landscape but I'm not sure if I want Google to be the vanquisher...
Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
Facebook will be dead in 3 years (Score:3, Insightful)
And replaced by something else. In the meantime, Google is jealous that they got a movie made about Facebook, but nobody's rushing to make a movie about Google. Even Apple and Microsoft have have movies 9TV movies anyhow) made about them, so they are feeling left out.
In the mantime, this whole "social networking" thing will die out in about 3 years, that's the general timeframe before everyone gets bored and moves on to something else. I mean, how many time can you post a picture of your cat?
Blogs are already dying out because they oversaturated themselves, it should take Facebook about that much time to oversaturate themselves as well. eBay is dying also as everyone now hates them, Google is now viewed as "evil", let's face it, things change fast in web-time, the WWW has only been around for slightly less than 2 decades (publicly), and one of the first sites here was Yahoo. Does Yahoo make the news every day? No. Nobody gives a crap about Yahoo. They are a dull company. And so it will go with every other internet firm.
There still are (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't follow you outside slashdot unless YOU make that possible. I don't know who you are. I can search your posts by your username because YOU choose to create an account and post under that account. I can't see what posts you made as an AC. Or what moderations you have done.
All your actions outside posts made under your account are unknown to me, unless YOU somehow share them AND link them to this account. You could be Obama for all I know, or be Lady Gaga. Now, I could google your nickname, but that only works if you used the same nick somewhere else.
It is possible to analyse all your posts and from them deduce a profile based on your style of writing. To be fair for the average slashdot poster that would put their location as "nearest kindergarden" but it might be possible to trace you to a specific location.
BUT that is because YOU choose to link all your posts together.
On the other hand, in the real world, I can't go invisible when I leave my house. So my neighbours know when I come and when I go. The supermarket can tell what I am doing by what I am buying. The bookshop knows my reading habbits (you sicko, is their personalized greeting) etc etc.
So, why do people worry about their online visibitlity where you can be a million different people, when everyone and their dog knows your offline person and what it is doing?
If you ever lived in a small community, you are used to it and you know, if the community is good, then it is a benefit. Neighbours actually stopped an attempted burglary because they knew I was away and saw movement so knew it couldn't be okay when I was younger and lived in a "village" that was about a dozen houses. In Amsterdam I had a neighbour discovered after the smell from the rotting corpse finally drifted into the hallway. All I knew was that the previous resident had moved and nobody ever noticed the new person moving in.
Don't complain about invasion of privacy is you broadcast every fart you make to the entire world. It is like saying "how dare people look at me when I streak down the high street".
Re:Why do they term beta programs "Product Launch" (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like gmail, and gtalk, and search, earth, maps, .. oh wait.
Her is an idea, stop using fallacious arguments.
Your argument is basically this:
Hey, a few of there products where accepted to market, there fore every thing they ever do will fail.
I, for one, am glad they do this type of RnD research.
Part of research is failure. An idea that just doesn't work when implemented.