Google Keep Labelled "Delete" 221
judgecorp writes "The Google Keep note-keeping app has had a frosty reception. Analysts including Gartner have said its functionality is laughable compared to that of the rival Evernote (saying "it's like saying MSFT Paint is a threat to Photoshop") and other users have rejected it on the grounds that after the death sentence on Reader, Google can't be trusted not to pull the plug on a service which people have come to rely on."
delete? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe an extra l there?
My first thought was "how can I trust them with this when they just killed reader?"
Re:delete? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:delete? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, I will stick with the company that has their whole business model based in note taking and similar services.
A better comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Google Reader: Survived eight years DESPITE BEING FREE
Evernote: Has only five eight years history BUT CHARGES MONEY FOR APPS AND SERVICES.
Google Keep: ALSO FREE JUST LIKE READER
Huh, I wonder which one may be around after eight more years - the one that pays for it's own existence or the one that's like a pony in the stables of a rich guy with a bad gambling problem?.
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And how much did you pay for it back then?
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I might just be someone who can read, but that article claims that the paid version was $35. Apparently they offered a free version as well, but the paid version included handwriting recognition and some other features.
Re:delete? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google Keep does not affect your data even if Google would clean it off.
Why? Because Google Keep is tied to Google Drive where it store notes. And they are just text, image and sound files. Nothing radical would not happen if you couldn't use Google Keep anymore.
Google Reader does not kill RSS. There are plenty of RSS readers out there. Now it only demands that you need to sync readed/unreaded in different way but all the RSS feeds can be imported and exported to almost any reader. There is no such problem with Google Reader cleaned off.
Media is talking about Google Reader as it kills RSS from WWW.
Re:delete? (Score:5, Insightful)
Killing Reader didn't kill RSS. But killed all the ecosystem around it, both from apps and for the way you used it. Why i should do an alternative app that makes use of Keep if they could end it tomorrow? Why i use it to store notes if they could not be there tomorrow, and all that that was put there because that particular way of access is not there anymore?
In any case, either with Drive or Takeout, you don't lose your data, but it lose a part of its value without the "right" way to access it, all of it. A bit more "bening" shutdown was Wave [wikipedia.org], that if well was discontinued but open sourced the server so you can continue using it in the same way elsewhere.
Re:delete? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Buzz sucked ass. Google+ replaced and is a much better product....iGoogle is for old people and sucked and does not need a replacement....Reader does not integrate to G+ so its features will likely be integrated into a service that does work with G+.
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Google Reader does not kill RSS. There are plenty of RSS readers out there. Now it only demands that you need to sync readed/unreaded in different way but all the RSS feeds can be imported and exported to almost any reader. There is no such problem with Google Reader cleaned off.
The death of Google Reader means the death of eight years of archives. I will no longer be able to search my RSS feeds for something I read three years ago (something I do at least once a month). Any RSS application or service that I switch to won't have that data because it doesn't exist anywhere else.
So yeah, I'm sticking with Evernote partly because it's more feature-rich, but mostly out of spite.
Re:delete? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. First iGoogle, then Reader, two user-friendly, very efficient ways of getting stuff I want to see in front of my beady eyes. Google kills them both, and is constantly begging / pushing me to use Google +, which I have absolutely no wish to use. Both iGoogle and Reader were great examples of things Google did very well. Now they are putting their resources into things that OTHER companies do very well, like Google + and Google Keep.
I have ties to Gmail I need for now, but beyond that I'm not getting involved in Google anything.
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Next Slashdot headline: Is Google Turning Into the Next Microsoft?
Answer: Probably.
That's the risk of being a publically-traded company. Investors demand Google promote revenue-generating services and growth opportunties. They may not make such demands vocally, but the stock price reflects this. Google must push people into using Google+, because that's their largest growth opportunity.
The difference between a rigid company like Microsoft or IBM or Oracle and one that is more free-flowing like Google is tha
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They said that iGoogle would die on Nov 11, 2012... so far it is still running.
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It's been downgraded to beta?
Re: delete? (Score:4, Interesting)
Blog Spam - Move along. (Score:5, Informative)
Don't bother clicking the link.
Yes, we're all mad about reader, and we all should be warned about cloud services shutting down.
Next post please...
Re:Blog Spam - Move along. (Score:4, Interesting)
What is interesting is that they have angered the bloggers with killing reader. Maybe not a lot of people used reader, but apparently the people that do pimp out new google products to the masses. You can't blame them for having an axe to grind.
Google Fool (Score:5, Funny)
I propose we now use "google" instead of "fool".
Google me once, shame on you.
Google me twice, shame on me.
Re:Google Fool (Score:5, Funny)
I propose we now use "google" instead of "fool".
Google me once, shame on you. Google me twice, shame on me.
There's an old saying in Mountain View - I know it's in Redmond, probably in Mountain View - that says, Google me once, shame on - shame on you. Google me - you can't get Googled again.
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That would be funny if "google" wasn't already a verb (in vernacular)
No? (Score:5, Interesting)
Frosty reception? I beg to differ, people all over the internet seem to love it. Design especially.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1aoo1a/google_keep_googles_notetaking_app_is_live_again/
Check this reddit thread.
Also it works with Google Now on Android, so i can say "Google..Note to self Fix the printer" and it will take the note, save the text AND audio file.
I, personally, like it very much. Evernote is good, but something that integrated into android and synced with my Google account is much better for me.
Re:No? (Score:5, Funny)
Frosty reception? I beg to differ, people all over the internet seem to love it.
Reddit is "all over the Internet"?
The world has become such a sad place.
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Second largest? Yeah, right... Twitter and YouTube have far more people using them.
This "fact" you are parroting is an unsubstantiated "report" that completely defies observation.
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Perhaps it could be called "polarizing" instead? Normally when Google rolls out a product it's met with (from my experience) hesitantly positive reviews. Google Wave got a bunch of comments on- and off-line along the lines of "This looks neat, but I'll wait and see," as did Google Plus, Google Voice, etc. Maybe it sucks, maybe it's great, maybe people are just in a week-long state where they are keenly aware of Google services, whatever.
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What is clear is that Google is in the habit of ending useful services, so getting used to using this service is probably not indicated.
Re:No? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are the new and improved Netcraft. If Gartner confirms it you can be sure it isn't happening.
Seriously, their entire business is providing "intelligence" that contradicts reality for company that find the facts inconvenient.
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You're forgetting their other service, writing bloated verbiage about last month's overused buzzword and marketing it as cutting edge market analysis for clueless C-level executives.
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The Android specific section of reddit is hardly all over the internet. It's a group of people that are interested in Android, and are thus rather more likely than average to be positive towards Google.
Google appear to have lost their shine of late. Here's where I think they went wrong. Their famous "20% time", where engineers could take a day a week to work on their own pet projects. And if they looked good enough they were made public as Google products. The problem is that such products bred like bunny r
I thought features were passe? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice to see an application (yeah, I typed out the whole word!) slammed for being too simplistic.
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Hey, maybe your Rest Home and mine can play Battleship together. Over modems!
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NO CARRIER but you sank my submarine?
Re:I thought features were passe? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Microsoft came out with Metro because they don't know what the fuck they're doing.
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And didn't really want to do it anyway. You can tell right off the bat that Metro was implemented half-assed. It's a marketing gimmick, not a technical project (which would've overhauled the entire Windows UI, not just tack a "start screen" onto it).
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I'm not quite sure what you consider a technical project then, as Metro consists of a new application mode, a new set of APIs for implementing applications, and a completely new style for every part of the GUI.
Re:I thought features were passe? (Score:4, Funny)
Note application only takes notes, doesn't do my laundry.
Why won't it wash the dishes!?!?!??
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I don't features should be removed, unless removing them makes the programmers *make the features that are there work properly*. Maybe I am also a relic (ok, not maybe, definitely), but I get rather irritated when Word (or any other similar crap application) adds some more features or changes the UI just for the sake of doing it, and the same f*cking bug that sometimes for some unknown reason corrupts the document and won't let me save it still existing pretty much exactly like it worked in 1997.
Wasting tim
How can you trust google not to delete it (Score:5, Insightful)
Said everyone with a gmail account. Honestly, even if they do you will still have a copy of your data synced on your devices and the precedent is that you'll be able to get your data anyway.
Re:How can you trust google not to delete it (Score:5, Informative)
I keep hearing phrases like, "Don't worry. They will give you a way to get your data." For some reason, that is supposed to be a determining factor. So what?
Google says "Here is a fantastic new app to use. Please make part of your daily workflow." Some arbitrary amount of time later, Google says "Nevermind." If I have indeed made it a part of my workflow, I am required to change my workflow on their schedule on their notice. Maybe you are lucky enough to have never had life fall apart. Maybe you've never been so busy taking care of life changing issues, you could miss everything short of bombs exploding in your path. At such times, the last thing you need is for stupid little things, like a note taking app, to require attention.
As Google has a proven record of discarding their "Wow, Cool, check this out!" technologies in a fairly short time, the risk of putting the newest into a position where it will exclusively control an important workflow is too high from my perspective. Sure, I can get my data. Then what do I do with it? I have this great XML dump that nothing else can make sense of. I need something to rely on, free or not.
The fact that they announced this right on the heels of their spring cleaning product killing spree shows that as a company, they don't care. I, as an individual have the same sentiment about their new product. This has to be one of the worst marketing strategies ever attempted.
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Geez, it's called innovation. You try some things out ... some take off, some don't; the ones that work you keep, the ones that don't you ditch. But at least Google keeps trying things out. Would you prefer it if they always just pushed out the same-old, same-old?
Personally, I find that I've stopped using Google's failed offerings (Google Notebook, Google Reader) long before they get officially canned, and I presume most other people have too. But the consolation is that they were only developed through
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Because not everyone is Zelda.
I am Jack's total lack of surprise... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Google can't be trusted not to pull the plug on a service which people have come to rely on" - They've just now realized this? LOL.
Most people on /. have known this for years.
Google knows what it's doing when it comes to search (including maps), and (after several years) Android - everything else is stuff built/rolled out/supported by disparate uncoordinated groups with no coherent strategy or purpose beyond "hey, this looks like something the PR guys would like."
Re:I am Jack's total lack of surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google knows what it's doing when it comes to search (including maps), and (after several years) Android - everything else is stuff built/rolled out/supported by disparate uncoordinated groups with no coherent strategy or purpose beyond "hey, this looks like something the PR guys would like."
What a stupid statement. "They only knew what they were doing those times they did well." Most of their projects, with the exception of search, started out as disparate uncoordinated groups with no coherent strategy.
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What a stupid statement.
Oh, the irony. Talk about stupid... Maps and Android were both strategic acquisitions of existing companies.
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I've understood for years that I couldn't rely on anything in the cloud that was new, experimental, or not terribly well known. That makes perfect sense. I knew, too, that I couldn't rely on any particular *feature* of any software in the cloud, because an automatic update could remove or break the feature. Still, I thought it exceedingly unlikely that any software that *wasn't* new, *wasn't* experimental, and *was* quite popular, would just suddenly disappear, for any reason other than "the company went un
Re:I am Jack's total lack of surprise... (Score:4, Funny)
I've understood for years that I couldn't rely on anything in my butt that was new, experimental, or not terribly well known.
Man, cloud to butt [google.com] keeps delivering in hilarity...
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Epic! Googled it, there is indeed a Firefox version of that, too. Which is now installed. This rivals the Youtube Moronizer [phase.org] for hilarity in simplicity, text-modification-wise. (For context, see also: http://www.dorktower.com/2010/09/24/5585 [dorktower.com]
Yeah, I definitely don't think it's a good idea to rely on any technology in my butt, either.
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In other news: set the phasors to "very install on my PHB's PC". It's a matter of self-defense, really. Since I can't sue for mental anguish this might open him up to a sexual harrassment lawsuit when all he goes on about is butts.
Evernote competition? No. (Score:3)
Plus now with their credibility in killing apps, no one will use this for serious note taking. If they don't, then whats the point for Google? Not much to be gleaned from scanning scratch notes, at least they didn't think so when they got rid of Google Notebook.
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Just don't try and attach video clips or pictures to your Evernotes or you'll run out of your 60MB/month and have to pay for premium service.
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Last time I tried Evernote I was only able to attach a single picture to a note, making it useless for what I wanted it for at the time, and yeah their limit for the free service if pretty low. On the other hand, Keep does seem to do this but has few other features. Personally, I'm hoping that they're taking the "start simple, make it perfect" approach and adding features as they're developed. As it is now, you could replicate the app with a simple DropBox extension.
"Serious note taking" (Score:2, Insightful)
I really agree with a lot of points you're making, but there's something about this whole thing that, to me, speaks volumes about the absurdity of computing today.
What the hell is "serious note taking"? Is there really some situation where I would need to sync my notes across my desktop and mobile phone, where I couldn't just put it in my phone to begin with? Isn't this all what saving to your computer, or in a cloud folder, or a text editor is all about?
I really don't mean to knock Evernote--I understand w
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Personally, I think this one has an excellent chance of sticking around for the same reason that Voice is sticking around. It's a great feature for Android.
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Personally, I think this one has an excellent chance of sticking around for the same reason that Voice is sticking around. It's a great feature for Android.
Yup. In the same way that having a service that made it easy for people to get self-selected articles from authors they know and trust delivered directly to their phones to, uh, "Read" when they had a spare minute would be a great feature too...
The real issue with the google distrust is their current opaqueness.
Great! "Delete" is an awesome band (Score:3)
I am more than glad that Google has become a music label, and that they signed Delete, they make very fine punk rock.
Also, naming their recording and artists's lair "The Keep" is mighty fun.
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A bit obvious (Score:2)
Ok, so we know that Google have issues with trusting apps at the moment.
It would be easier if Google just bought em. Ready made solution requiring little "start from scratch and try and compete"
That way, they get a ready made market. Few people are going to abandon it because it forms part of their "Digital life"
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but google has an army of engineers with no worthwhile projects to assign them to.
what I don't get is why they didn't just make reader use drive as the backend like they did for this - except from the standpoint that reader was losing them adviews on the web.
"Beta" means something different to Google. (Score:3, Insightful)
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I would have though a very detailed profile of someone's interests would be quite profitable based on their line of business.
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I would have though a very detailed profile of someone's interests would be quite profitable based on their line of business.
That what my initial skepticism of Google services was based on. Yahoo includes (often annoying) ads in its services - but not Google. I can trust more Yahoo services because they at least try to profit of it. Not so with the Google services: they are "free" and nice, but in the end, unfortunately short-lived.
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As I remind my students, "Beta" to Google means they haven't figured out how to profit on it.
If they can find a way to profit on it, it then becomes one of their many appliances. If they can't, it gets killed.
Clearly, Google didn't have a way to profit on Reader, as they couldn't on Wave, as they couldn't on Health.
If they can find a way to profit from Keep, it'll keep. Otherwise it'll be gone like the rest.
The only issue I have with Google is that their core mission (free services for most people) seems to inherently be unprofitable unless they have another profit stream (which they do, to sell Ads). If you can't imagine how Google will serve more Ads through a given product, it will likely go away at some point in the future (that or you need to exercise more creativity, which the folks at GooglePlex have a lot of).
It's just like with Microsoft (product must extend Windows/Office monopolies in a way that do
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I think google needs a person to run and make money off these little apps.
The potential is there for all of them.
They have forgotten how the internet ecosystem works.
Remember Chrome or Android? (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember when Chrome first came. I thought Google was wasting their time because Firefox was clearly the best browser, and there was no reason to think it would ever stop being the best. And the browser market already seemed too crowed with IE, Safari, Firefox, and Opera all competing for market share.
Keep now is not what Keep will be in the future. Google search, Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome, Android, and many other Google products are almost indistinguishable from what they were during their first iteration. And of those I listed, Gmail and Google Maps are the only ones I would say were actually better from the competition from day 1.
Evernote should be sweating at least a little bit.
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As I recall Google search was better then the competition from day 1. Unlike it competition, it used all the words you entered in its search, wasn't flooded with flashy ads and had its vastly superior page-rank algorithm.
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Initially, Google search wasn't indexing as much of the Web as Yahoo or AllNet(?) or even aging Altavista.
Google has caught up in about a year, but initially, their only advantage was that the Google was very fast, had strict word matching, was very light-weight (aka modem-friendly) and had less limits on the number of results.
The "page rank" appeared much later, when they have vastly out-indexed the rest of the search engines.
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Also, the weren't listing return alphabetically...Like some yahoo I could mention~
Google promotes tech (Score:2)
I think the case can be made that Google in all it's little projects are pushing tech by being a test bed. I do believe their thinking is to put up any service for free five years as a massive research projects. Their first question isn't if it's profitable but rather rather how useful it is. They leave thoughts of profitability to be answered further down the line. At the end of life of the project if something is just self sustaining I do believe they would rather have someone take over now that they did
Welcome to free cloud services.... (Score:3)
Headline? (Score:4)
I'm using it (Score:2)
and I like it better then evernote.
The cancelling thing is a worry.
Good (Score:2)
Pulling Reader was an assinine move. It may not be a hugely popular service, but guess what, the nerds love Reader. Don't piss off the nerds, we remember.
I, for one, am happy that the unhappiness and skepticism resulting from the Reader fiasco is being carried into new product launches.
Realistic thinking (Score:2)
After I saw the video with audio note taking and lock screen widget (though I don't have a late enough android version darn it) it looked useful with the audio notetaking part. Never got into Evernote (though I have the app).
However my first gut reaction to the announcement was, yeah like I'm going to trust google not to trash it once I've gotten used to it.
Currently I use emailing myself, OnePunch (a memo app), and Circus Ponies Notebook (for Mac only). But I have found this to be insufficient like if I wa
Re:Well, you know the saying. (Score:5, Informative)
You can't use the word scroogle without sounding like the worlds biggest Microsoft shill.
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Correction - you can't use the word "scroogle" without sounding like someone employed by Microsoft.
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[Spirit of Internet Present]: My time with you is at an end, Ebenezer Scroogle. Will you profit from what I've shown you of the good in most men's hearts?
[Ebenezer Scroogle]: Profiting from what's in men's hearts is what search engines are all about!
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I've never heard of a character named "Shcroogle".
Independently arriving at "Scroogled" (Score:2)
The additional L required to typo "Scroogle" from "Scrooge" is clear on the other side of a QWERTY keyboard
That's not what I was trying to imply. One could have arrived at "Google is acting like Scrooge" pun independently from Microsoft's ad campaign that began in November 2012. I just checked Google Search (Search tools > Any time > Custom range) for January 2008 through October 2012, and there were plenty of hits for "Scroogled". Is a short story by Cory Doctorow [blogoscoped.com] enough?
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The l is close to the o, you could easily slip with your right hand while your left is dealing with g and e.
I doubt I'd ever make that particular typo though. Especially twice. And especially when clearly trying to rhyme with Google and "you-gle".
I doubt they are an MS shill though. More likely an unaligned troll, or possibly an MS fanboy. I just don't think anybody can possible believe scroogle will come into popular parlance. Although they did release that godawful commercial, so who knows.
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That would have been more believable if you replied with his username or real name.
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I remember Synistar!
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The alternative is you pay for it with money instead of data. Its your choice, no one is forcing it on you.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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What Microsoft gets, and that no other tech company except maybe IBM does (and probably pioneered, no less), is that people were able to run their legacy 16-bit applications up until 64-bit Windows.
And I expect the legacy 32-bit emulation layer for Windows is going to be here to stay, because I don't really see humanity pushing the limits of 64-bit computing for a long, long time.
Re:Oh shit!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
What Microsoft gets,
Yep, Microsoft products and their Kin will always play for sure!
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I don't really see humanity pushing the limits of 8^H 16^H^H 32^H^H64-bit computing for a long, long time.
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Apple initially 'got it' with the Apple II family of computers, so old software from the 8-bit Apple II were playable on every computer in the A2 line, including the 16-bit Apple IIgs. Forgetting the importance of backwards-compatibility (or, perhaps, Wozniak taking the knowledge with him when he left) very nearly destroyed the company.
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>
Now as far as Google...why SHOULD you trust them for a service you depend on after Reader?
How quickly they forget... Google announced the retirement of iGoogle in July 2012, a popular service. It's scheduled to be shut down in November. Google Reader is just the most recent service to be put on the chopping block.
The only Google services that you can trust to stay up at this point is Google search, Google Maps and Gmail. Each of these are making money, in some form or another, for the business. iGoogle, Google Reader, etc. do not... Like it or not, Google is now a corporation with a focus
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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You paid for Windows XP and Office 2003...you didn't pay for Google Reader. Google services are free! Would you stop fucking complaining about a free service being discontinued. I'm sorry your mother stop breast feeding you when you finally left the basement at age 30 to find your job as CEO of who gives a fuck incorporated. You are not entitled to support from a free service!
Google Reader, iGoogle (which I personally use and have a replacement for when tbe time comes*), and numerous other Google products that have been cancelled and forgotten, and any products they have now (Google Docs got absorbed into Google Drive, which won't last, it's shittier and nobody is going to pay them more than $5 a month for personal account) and nobody wants file storage that will just evaporate when they pull the plug....
In all that, the PRODUCT is not what Google offers. The PRODUCT is the E
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Facebook admits hiring PR firm to smear Google
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/12/facebook-admits-hiring-pr-firm-to-smear-google/ [engadget.com]
Apple's war against Google
http://www.informationweek.com/development/mobility/apples-war-against-google-time-for-new-t/240002054 [informationweek.com]
Microsoft Wage War on Google
http://www.idfmarketing.com/blog/microsoft-wage-war-on-google/ [idfmarketing.com]
Microsoft spending 7 figures to revive Gmail smear campaign
http://9to5google.com/2013/02/07/microsoft-spending-7-figures-to-revive-gmail-smear-campaign/ [9to5google.com]
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Check out Microsoft OneNote. It gives you greater flexibility than just using Outlook at a note keeping tool. The hardest part will be adjusting your workflow, OneNote is free form so it's difficult to jump into as you are learning what organization method works best for you versus adjusting to one imposed by the application you are using.
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Just checked, and you can paste images straight into a note in Evernote's website, and use ordereded and unordered lists. The note interface is pretty much the same as for an Outlook email - title line, formatting controls, body text.
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...or "Google Keeps On (Not) 'Keep'-ing On".