Google Reader feature destroys Christmas - Valleywag Comments

Google Reader feature destroys Christmas

Oh No I Di'n't. — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:52:42 PST

I love how everything is "ruining" Christmas lately. First Facebook, now Google. Since Christmas has passed, what will be ruined by the internets now? I hope Yahoo doesn't ruin my Martin Luther King Day. They probably will though.

Oh No I Di'n't.

Google Reader feature destroys Christmas

cowsandmilk — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:46:20 PST

@TooManyEggs: the users understood how it worked. Google changed how it worked, which pissed off users.

Before the change, your Google reader broadcasted to the world what your shared items were if someone could guess your 21 digit (and cared to try to do so). After the change, your shared items were actively delivered and labeled with your name to everyone you had ever communicated with using gmail or gchat.

This isn't a matter of user ignorance, it is a matter of lazy implementation.

cowsandmilk

Google Reader feature destroys Christmas

LindsayT — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:15:46 PST

i have a couple feeds in my google reader. i checked yesterday when I heard about this and found that it prompted me to "share" them.

i think they fixed something yesterday.

[googlereader.blogspot.com]

LindsayT

Google Reader feature destroys Christmas

TooManyEggs — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:06:50 PST

Obviously, this feature is not "clearly" marked, if a significant number of users have been startled by the fact that their shared items are being broadcast to the world. In the words of Google itself, "don't blame the user!"

The bottom line is that it is the designer's job to make a product and its "features" transparent. I don't understand why after all the negative publicity surrounding this and similar issues, companies find it so hard to adopt an "opt-in" policy as opposed to a sly "opt-out" one... it seems to me like a misguided effort to force feature adoption.

TooManyEggs

Google Reader feature destroys Christmas

0x6772 — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 07:41:22 PST

@raincoaster5: Clearly, failing to protect users' from their ignorance equates to doing evil. Duh.

0x6772

Google Reader feature destroys Christmas

cowsandmilk — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 07:33:47 PST

@MikeReynolds: the vast majority of people on the internet believe in security through obscurity. Noone would have found your public rss feed unless you gave it to them. A lot of "techie" people say it's stupid to rely on this, but lots of sites protect private information through obscurity. The most prevalent example is Facebook, where you can type in urls and get pictures where the photo is private.

To most users of Google Reader, your definition of "public" differs from their definition.

cowsandmilk

Google Reader feature destroys Christmas

raincoaster — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 02:17:16 PST

Google is supposed to protect you against your own control freak asshole brother? Wow, I didn't hear about that new feature!

raincoaster

Google Reader feature destroys Christmas

MikeReynolds — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:10:17 PST

Google Reader's Shared Items are clearly marked as having a public RSS feed. I don't know what about the hub-bub is about.

MikeReynolds