Brian Gongol
Yet more unexpected (and maybe unwelcome) changes at Google
Google is revising many of the pieces inside its RSS feed-reader, Google Reader. It has fewer users than Gmail or the search engine, but it's still a substantial part of Google's user base. As part of the company's efforts to make sure that everyone who uses their products is essentially forced into using Google Plus, they've integrated the two services a lot and stripped away many of the sharing options that used to reside within Google Reader -- including what was a very nice option to send streams from Google Reader to a widget that could be placed on any other website. Instead, they just want everyone to do all of their feeding through Google Plus. The whole "G+" thing is a major gambit upon which they seem intent on doubling down at every opportunity. That they are stripping away many of the features that made other Google products popular along the way in order to force-feed Google Plus seems to be a risk they're willing to take. But it's dicey. But the more they strip away, suspend, and disassemble products they've been offering for a long time, the more Google will cause savvy users to second-guess whether they're serious about supporting the new products they offer. It's not without parallels -- General Motors has stopped building several of its old lines of cars, like Saturn and Oldsmobile, in order to buttress their ongoing lines, like Buick and Chevrolet. But some doubt absolutely must enter the mind of today's GM customer about whether the company will abruptly stop offering its products in the future. The same must be true of Google's customers today. It's a very, very dangerous strategy to follow. They call it "spring cleaning", but it alienates developers and other users. And on a related note, they're creating all kinds of new privacy worries by introducing facial recognition into their photo searches. It sounds cute at first -- an innocent-sounding way to make sure you can find pictures of your friends and family online. But it's a bit Big Brother-ish.
Show notes from the WHO Radio Wise Guys - December 10, 2011
The full show is available for on-demand listening
Newt Gingrich has some seriously out-of-touch demands
As a paid speaker, he demanded first-class treatment
Weed-out courses are keeping women and racial minorities out of science and engineering majors
They're not the only ones, of course. The problem with "weed-out" courses is that they stop lots of good people from pursuing valuable majors. Why make the learning process unpleasant? A sensible approach to filling the need for people with technical training and education would be to make the introductory courses friendlier -- not tougher.
