Google just announced the impending shutdown of Google Plus, effective August 2019. You can read more about it here (https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/10/08/google-plus-being-shut-down-next-year/).
Is anyone actually surprised?
A bit surprised. I had assumed G+ had become viable for data collection, especially due to the user demographics, but clearly there was not enough engagement with the platform.
I see G+ dying as a net positive for forums. RPGPundit should do some marketing.
Wasn't Google Plus just Google for fat people?
The only thing I use Google for is Google Drive (which isn't part of Google+) and that's only for sharing my playtest files with my playtesters. Once my new site is up and running I'll be hosting those there instead so this will literally not affect me at all.
In another month Google could go bankrupt and collapse back into the bowels of Hell from which it crawled and I'd be more likely to throw a party than anything else.
Oooh, it gets worse. Ars Technica just posted an article (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/google-exposed-non-public-data-for-500k-users-then-kept-it-quiet/) with more details:
QuoteGoogle exposed the private details of almost 500,000 Google+ users and then opted not to report the lapse, in part out of concern disclosure would trigger regulatory scrutiny and reputational damage, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing people briefed on the matter and documents that discussed it. Shortly after the article was published, Google said it would close the Google+ social networking service to consumers.
The exposure was the result of a flaw in programming interfaces Google made available to developers of applications that interacted with users' Google+ profiles, Google officials said in a post published (https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/) after the WSJ report. From 2015 to March 2018, the APIs made it possible for developers to view profile information not marked as public, including full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation, and relationship status. Data exposed didn't include Google+ posts, messages, Google account data, phone numbers, or G Suite content. Some of the users affected included paying G Suite users.
Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai knew of the glitch and the decision not to publicly disclose it, the WSJ reported. Based on a two-week test designed to measure the impact of the API bugs before they were fixed, Google analysts believe that data for 496,951 users was improperly exposed.
Google has gotten into the habit of destroying their business branches rather than fixing problems.
For example, all the content creators running away from YouTube for Twitch. Instead of fixing algorithm problems or tackling copyright claims in a new way, they are just letting it die. (*tin foil hat, YouTube celebrities are not controlled by Hollywood and thus free to be conservative, so it is better for their political morals to destroy YouTube and only let mass appeal mindless shit remain profitable).
Same problem with Google+. It has a privacy leak, instead of fixing it, they are shutting down the service and just giving up competing with Facebook. (*tin foil hat, small Google+ groups with separate mods are difficult to push an agenda through, so might as well kill it and let more advance Facebook algorithms control the discussion)
They cite low usage and never consider that they have made it so difficult to use. They diluted the communities with collections, then the auto subscribe you to collections and don't provide any options like unsubscribe all. They provide very few options for the communities. Forums are much easier to have conversations on and much easier to navigate.
It was one of those "Damn, I'm old" moments for me because I could never understand how to use it.
I think that's one of the reasons Facebook was so popular, everyone could understand it. It followed a lot of the old AOL design.
Google has a bad habit of floating out new technology, getting unhappy that they aren't #1 in that space, and then walking away.
Google+ had a predecessor called Google Buzz. Remember that?
Oh, that's a shame, I quite liked Google+
Oh well. :(
Quote from: Lynn;1059429Google+ had a predecessor called Google Buzz. Remember that?
And Google Wave. 'Member that?
I just hope Blogger is safe - I basically use it for all my RPG campaign needs. Would be very sad to lose all that stuff.
S'mon, I'd back everything up just in case.
The writing was already on the wall when I opened my blog and G+ profile (said so in my first blog post! (https://beyondfomalhaut.blogspot.com/2016/08/blog-how-do-you-do-fellow-kids.html)), so it does not surprise me in the least. It was a matter of time until they'd do it. Honestly, it also made me uncomfortable. I can't really decouple myself from Gmail, since I've been using it since 2004, but Google, Facebook and their ilk really are slowly destroying what made the Internet a good place, and subverting it into a top-down surveillance instrument instead of an open communication platform everyone can access. I really do think they do social harm.
It seems a lot of people are migrating to MeWe, a platform of which I know nothing (interestingly, it does not even have a Wikipedia page), but which is at least making the right kind of noises (https://mewe.com/group/55f9dd29e4b050c69e693558) about privacy and free speech.
(https://img.mewe.com/api/v2/photo/BB5r5wyAXqNGXFdx4e4DIPx2eNlPLQaTxnrhIECvfcxbu5wwpfTlJ9E6b1Y/1600x1600/MeWe%27s+Privacy+Bill+of+Rights+for+Members.png)
I could live with that.
MeWe sounds interesting. Thanks for posting that link. I do question whether their business model can support their goals.
Quote from: Apparition;1059404Oooh, it gets worse. Ars Technica just posted an article (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/google-exposed-non-public-data-for-500k-users-then-kept-it-quiet/) with more details:
Wow.
Note to future generations: If your motto is "don't be evil" you probably are.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1059405Google has gotten into the habit of destroying their business branches rather than fixing problems.
Quote from: Lynn;1059429Google has a bad habit of floating out new technology, getting unhappy that they aren't #1 in that space, and then walking away.
Google+ had a predecessor called Google Buzz. Remember that?
Quote from: GeekEclectic;1059448And Google Wave. 'Member that?
Google Wave was a great tool for running tabletop RPGs, as was Hangouts, which is why G+ has such a strong RPG community in the first place. It's insane how many effective tools and APIs were dropped for 'reasons' by Google. And I was witness to the genesis of Android. It was and still is a badly engineered piece of garbage. But who needs to be good when the current state of iOS is your only competition, and you have a lockdown on app distribution?
Software has become less useful and usable over the last decade, and it looks like things are only going to get worse.
Quote from: S'mon;1059476I just hope Blogger is safe - I basically use it for all my RPG campaign needs. Would be very sad to lose all that stuff.
I wouldn't count on it. Back up your stuff as Spinachcat suggested.
Quote from: Melan;1059492It seems a lot of people are migrating to MeWe, a platform of which I know nothing (interestingly, it does not even have a Wikipedia page), but which is at least making the right kind of noises (https://mewe.com/group/55f9dd29e4b050c69e693558) about privacy and free speech.
(https://img.mewe.com/api/v2/photo/BB5r5wyAXqNGXFdx4e4DIPx2eNlPLQaTxnrhIECvfcxbu5wwpfTlJ9E6b1Y/1600x1600/MeWe%27s+Privacy+Bill+of+Rights+for+Members.png)
I could live with that.
MeWe doesn't have a Wikipedia page because it was deleted (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/MeWe) last year. It was determined to be a blatant PR piece.
Quote from: Apparition;1059502I wouldn't count on it. Back up your stuff as Spinachcat suggested.
Not much point saving to my laptop, they break regularly. I can still find most of my old Geocities pages from the mid '90s* archived online so I would hope if there's a general termination of Blogger someone would recreate a cached version. Probably the biggest risk is individual blog deletion, for copyright or nipples or both. :)
Hmm, given my limited tech prowess, maybe copying a few critical posts to a cloud storage site might be the best bet.
*God, my games were (mostly) crap then! It was certainly a Dark Age for gaming.
I've moved into Minds.com.
Here's a link to my account (http://minds.com/rpgpundit). If you add me there, check out the groups I'm on; there's a good Minds Roleplaying group, and OSR minds group there.