Wave, Goodbye! (The end of a good idea.)

This is sad, but it's nothing new. Google Wave is actually something I thought of back in 2005/2006 while I was out of work and was thinking of a new business to start up, though I called the idea as "Communication Accounting," and of course Google invented the name, and actually implemented and launched Google Wave. But today...

Dear Wavers, 

More than a year ago we announced that Google Wave would no longer be developed as a separate product. Back in November 2011, we shared the specific dates for ending this maintenance period and shutting down Wave. Google Wave is now in read-only mode. This is a reminder that the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012. You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012. 

If you would like to continue using Wave, there are a number of open source projects, including Apache Wave. There is also an open source project called Walkaround that includes an experimental feature that lets you import all your Waves from Google. This feature will also work until the Wave service is turned off on April 30, 2012. 

For more details, please see our help center. 

Yours sincerely, 

The Wave Team 

© 2012 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Wave account.

Einstein says we are all geniuses. [quote them] [did you know?] [thoughts]

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Albert Einstein

I found this quote from Einstein from this blog article I linked to on RAW. My thoughts exactly.

But here's my question. What do you call a fish that actually tries to climb a tree?

Anyway, I've seen this a number of times; talented fish being asked to climb trees. Of course they will fail. Of course they will look stupid. Or fish that are kept in small fish bowls. Of course they can't swim so fast. Kudos to the fish though that leave those trees and go back to swimming.

And kudos to those who actually know talent. I don't know who said this first, but yeah, IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE. If you don't have the talent, you probably can't recognize one with it. And well, you probably feel more comfortable being around not-so-talented people like yourself. You say that the not-so-talented are talented - to make it look like you yourself are, in the same way, talented. Here's another question then; what do you call fish who claim they've climbed trees?

Can't understand all this? Yeah, just go back to your fish pond. Please.

[opinion] "Knol" and Google

When Google launched their service called Knol, I was at that time, excited as I am for most new Google products. Today I received this e-mail from Google about Knol:

"As part of Google’s prioritization of product efforts, we will be retiring Knol.  From now through April 30th, 2012, Knol will work as usual, but we’ve made it easy for you to download your knols to file and/or export them to Wordpress.com.  From May 1, 2012 through October 1, 2012, knols will no longer be viewable, but can be downloaded and exported.  After that time, knol content will no longer be accessible.  We hope that this timeline provides you ample time to transition your content.  For more information, please visit our FAQ: https://knol-redirects.appspot.com/faq.html

Thank you,The Knol team
© 2012 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Knol product or account."

To me, "We will be retiring Service X" is a subtle way of saying "Service X wasn't doing very well." So it is for Knol, their attempt at hijacking Wikipedia pageviews (i.e. advertisement $$$). Just like Google Wave. Google Health. And many others. In one way, it's good for Google. But is it good for the rest of us who are sort of coerced into using Google+, their attempt at hijacking Facebook? It was just a few years ago when Google had this "Don't be evil" mantra. Nowadays, when you do a Google search, you get Google+ results even when more relevant results are on Facebook, Twitter, or even LinkedIn. Okay, maybe it's not evil to prioritize your own products in search results. Just unethical.

I'm sorry, Google. My friends are all on Facebook, which is a great service (for now). Google+? Like Knol, it's a NO.

P.S. Just to point out, I still use Google search, Gmail, Blogger, YouTube, and Adsense. But not Google+. And Android - no, not really, if I can afford it, or unless it becomes as innovative as Windows Phone 7 Mango is looking like.