Google is trying something new on the search feed
TWO YEARS LATER: Perspectives will be shut down …
Two years is too generous. 6 months later unofficially dropped support, 1 year later introduce some stupid redesign and some functionality that lowers user experience, and then 2 years later is merged with some other random Google service.
2 years later… “Good news! Perspective has now been organically merged with Google Search”
I would trust a google product any further than I could throw a single one of their servers. Well except for gmail. That one has been around a while.
… And they killed it. It’s dead.
Google does not really offer a space where people can come together to create communities or discussion threads. However, with the introduction of Perspectives, it may do so later.
So—despite the dumbass title (article’s fault, not OP’s)—explicitly not an alternative to Reddit, where literally the whole point is to create communities and discussion threads.
I do love the “it may do so later” part. It reads like the journalist was writing this via speech-to-text from the shower, just rambling off whatever thoughts came to mind.
Google’s infamous graveyard makes it seem like they’re just a bored university student that can’t ever finish its side projects.
Numerous employees and former employees have written extensively on this. The metrics employees are evaluated on for raises and promotions highly encourages people to start new projects and move on from them before they are complete, and significantly disincentivises anyone from doing upkeep or bug fixes.
Basically if you aren’t constantly working on making the “next big thing” you are seen as someone who is negative, stuck in the past, inflexible, and not a contributing team player.
It sounds pretty toxic tbh.
That sounds awful lol. I’m in university right now and have neglected work on any projects. I finally found something of a passion in retro game reverse engineering a few months ago and have obsessed over it. It’s only one game I’m reversing though so it’s likely to take me years and years before I can release anything resembling something playable.
You’ve now scared me into maybe working on other things too…I wonder if related projects count? A website for the project, developer tools, documentation, etc.
Invent the problem, then sell the solution.
Just fix search that you intentionally broke so that it returns all relevant results, inhumane cowards.
This sounds like they’re copying Brave Discussions, which is basically just giving a little box with only reddit results near the top.
It’s definitely not an alternative to reddit or even its own platform. It sounds like just another conditional algorithm update, but I haven’t seen it yet.
If people are looking for alternatives that won’t be shut down, you… recommend they look to Google!? Ahahahahaha!
Seriously, the graveyard is pretty extensive: https://killedbygoogle.com/
Oh man, I knew there were a lot but I had no idea.
I remember when Google Wave was demo’ed to a live audience, there were audible ooohs and aaahs from the crowd. It was such a mindblowing idea 14 years ago, shame it never really got off the ground.
“Google, thanks for inviting us all to the launch of perspectives! What are your goals with this new platform?”
“Perspectives? Perspectives on what? Who are you people? how did you get in here? Would you like to hear more about our new weekly meat-delivery service?”
“oh. . . . Uhm, sure. . . . Where is your product sourced from?”
“where is what sourced from?”
Neat, another service that Google will inexplicably kill in anywhere from 6 months to five years time.
And hiring people up to the last second. Last few hires probably barely have time to sell their old apartment and pack their families on the plane to California before being laid off.
Google, a company you can trust. A company that thought the phrase ‘Don’t be evil’ didn’t fit anymore.
It’s still in their code of conduct, though. Got moved to the bottom.
I remember when they took it off. They probably brought it back because it was giving them a bad image.
I remember people saying that too. Then someone on reddit pointed out that they had moved it to the bottom quietly before the whole rexxit thing. Not sure how to interpret it being removed, added back and moved discretely. But as they say in Camp Cretaceous, “at least…” it’s in there somewhere.
I looked for more info, and you’re right. Strange, because I can remember it clearly. Was I a victim of the mandela effect?
Nah, no Mandela effect here. Just businesses being sneaky about appearing honest.
How long until Google gives up and shuts it down? Place yer bets!!!
I give it a year before it’s shut down. This is Google, after all.
!remindme 1 yr
oh wait
Man, deleting my reminders felt almost as final as deleting the account itself
@artisanrox @lostwonder @Thalestr Well someone needs to build this ASAP. I miss it.
This just sounds like Google with extra steps.
if they add support for forums I might even consider using it, but if it’s just reddit, twitter, tiktok or whatever then it’s not really all that useful
This will be saving you typing in +reddit +stackspace on searches. Still the same results.
Wish they’d include a -pinterest option.
-site:pinterest.*seems to work for me.
I don’t think this feature will be anything like reddit or lemmy. But I do see what they are going for.
Unless they have something like AI powered moderation, it will turn into a shit show really quickly.
I’m not sure I see what they’re going for. Where are they going to get this human generated content? How are they going to keep it from being AstroTurfed or LLM?
What community is going to police it and self-moderate it? Is it going to be like Google maps reviews for places? Where there’s really no discussion just kind of shouting into the void.
Is it going to be like Amazon reviews?
The whole value of Reddit threads was that you could read them and see organic discussion a real back and forth. Evaluate the earnestness of the discussion, a post by single person with no feedback it’s not super helpful even on Reddit. Honestly the best results came when there is disagreement in the conversation, forcing the subject matter experts to come out from the corners and stop lurking and contribute.
