~ R.I.P Google Reader ~

It has been quite a journey with an application or service that I have used consistently for about 7 years now. From the basic functional web app to the feature rich upgrade, Google Reader has seen been a very decent application / service from the stable of the search giant, Google. 

Lack of active users, is the reason why Google is killing the service. I seriously doubt if that is really the case & most of the internet seems to disagree with such reasoning. Agree that, the way we consume information has changed over the last 3 years, after the rise of Social Media applications. The consumers cannot choose the shelf life of an product or an app. Companies change their strategy based on their business objectives. 

The retirement of Google Reader has provided an opportunity for many companies to fill the void. Not sure if the new application can perform as good as G Reader, but there are a lot of alternative already available:

1. Digg
2. Pulse
3. Feedly
4. AOL Reader

There are reviews available on the web for each of them, just Google them. With very limited usage of the above services, Digg being my current favorite. Shall post my review of Digg after spending additional time with it.

Don't forget to download your Google Reader data via Takeout.

More: Fans braced for Google Reader's demise flock to new services {BBC} | Where to move your Google Reader subscriptions {Techcrunch} | The state of Google Reader replacements {Tidbits} | Google breathes new life into Reader {My review from 2006} | Update Google Reader: See personalized trends {My review related to updated features 2007}

~ Apps & UX ~

We never seen so many companies vying for users who want to have a pie in the so called social web sphere.

This is not the first time were we are seeing so many companies offerring the same service / app in different formats. Off-late many of the old players are redesigning their web offerings to take on the disruptive upstarts.

It happened with the following, where the existing players were challenged & eventually upstaged by the new entrants:

1. Blogger vs Wordpress vs Tumblr
2. Yahoo & Hotmail vs Gmail
3. MSN Messenger vs Skype {Before MSFT acquiring it}. Hangouts is trying to take on Skype with the latest unified messaging
4. Symbian & BB vs iOS & Android 
5. IE vs FF & Chrome
6. Flickr vs 500px vs Instagram
7. Dropbox vs Box vs GDrive
8. MySpace vs Facebook & G+

Over the last couple of years after the explosive growth of mobile phones across the world, the internet has turned from content consumption to content generation. There is so of much user generated data across various web applications that we have surpassed all the data from the dawn of civilisation. As Eric Schmidt says, "We create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003". 

Here is an infographic which depicts a day in the life of internet.

Now when we have so much of data, we need a good UX to represent it. We keep witnessing UX changes with many web apps & off-late mobile apps too. Of the numerous apps, Social Networks keep users actively engaged  with - sharing, likes, comments, tweets, instagrams, pluses, RTs, etc. In order to attract New users & turn them into active participation companies are Now redesigning applications. Google revamped Google+ offering last week which looks like 3 column Pintrest-styled offering and today we see Flickr UX look like combo of G+ photos & 500px.

There is more to UX design than what meets the eye. I like the way Om puts it:

I don’t know James, but my sense from reading his post is that he approaches design through a visual lens. Unlike him, I am not a designer and so my way of thinking about design is influenced by not mere visual aspects, but also how things are constructed. I don’t just love the shoes because of how they look — though that matters — but I also look at where the leather comes from, how it is stitched together and what kind of craftsmanship has gone into it. From shoe trees to little patterns on the toe to the packaging to the font on the label, all of those little things add up to the design aesthetic. 

I have come across many Existing Users who have welcomed the new UX changes to G+. While few lamenting the design change. In case of Flickr, few loyal users are upset with the UX & others are hurt over the current 1TB free offering, while they have been paying for their Pro accounts for years. However, with New entrants go through Paradox of Choice deciding which service to go for & remain loyal. It takes a bit of experiment with an App before one concludes whether UX is more important over feature offering. There is no Universal answer on how a person decides what is best. UX definitely plays a major role in creating the stickiness with an User.

Here is an insight into what went into thinking of redesigning of Google+. Om chats with Fred Gilbert, lead designer of Google+

Gilbert explained that when Google started working on the new look, the idea was to take a lot of information and show it in as simple a manner, giving the eye the visual cues to understand the importance of content. Bigger photos, for instance are indicative of their importance. Photos become bigger based on analysis of past relationships to the people and the content and their ensuing interactions, Gilbert explained.

Underlying these visual cues are a lot of data analytics. This data-informed design is actually a clever approach and the wave of the data-informed design. Gilbert said that usually when companies undertake a redesign of their website, it is based on some kind of data they have collected over a period of time. For Google+, data is informing the design, except at a much faster speed and is hyper-personalized based on who you really are. “Data and design have to be used together to tailor experiences,” said Gilbert. 

Application, be it web or mobile, is getting more personal in the manner we use. We act as curators, choosing what we like to consume from various sources to be Social. It would be great one day where data-informed applications can recommend / suggest what goes well with our taste. Need to see how well Google+ fares in recommending contextual content with #hashtags.

Only time shall prove it, if brand new UX { or unlimited data offerring } will get New Users or upset the existing Loyal Users. One thing for sure, companies need to keep innovating & competitive against the upstarts to remain active in business.

~ G+ Community Page ~

 ~ Facebook Page ~

~ Flickr Stream ~

~ Google + Album ~

~ LinkedIn Home ~

~ Google+ Home ~ 

~ 500px Home ~

~ Pinterest User Page ~

~ Graph Search ~

The post is response to today's Facebook Graph Search event. Verge coverage. Engadget coverage. My initial reaction to this was: 

Facebook + Bing = Graph Search.

Basically they are adding more functionality to their Graph API to search not just your own feed but now amongst your connections. Technically if I have you on my friends' list, I can build a tool to snoop what you did, liked, watched, attended, checkins, etc.

Am not sure if Facebook is getting Evil or not. Zuck said that Graph Search is privacy aware. Om nailed it well, "Graph Search is privacy aware, says Zuck. Of course, that is private till Facebook needs to make money off it".

Facebook owns the data - Connections, Likes, CheckIns, Comments, Shares, etc. They already know a majority of this. Graph Search is more of an indexing feature which gets the results faster & they have opened this up to Users. 

Zuck says no ads for now. Am sure advertisers are waiting to pour in money to squeeze their ads in between the trillion connections which the Graph Search aims to resolve.

BTW, Google has integrated web search into their Gmail service for quite sometime. I have never done a single Google search from Gmail fromt the time this feature has been there. Going with that factor I doubt people would switch to #GraphSearch over #WebSearch. 

There is a lot of potential for snooping amongst the friends on what they are reading, listening, doing, visiting, etc. 

Recommendations or Promotions for a targeted audience is where I feel Graph Search will fit. Don't think people would like Ads being poped up every now & then. 

Graph Search brings competition Yelp, Google, LinkedIn, Dating Sites, Good Reads, etc.

What do you think -

1) Have you used Google Search from your Gmail Account?

2) Will you use Graph Search in FB to search something on web?

3) In general about Graph Search?

Updates:

Wired has a good article - Facebook’s Bold, Compelling and Scary Engine of Discovery: The Inside Story of Graph Search Interesting to note that two Ex-Googlers have helped build Graph Search.

GMail sports new features: Slideshow, FilterAssistant

Google has been very quick to integrate Zenter - their latest acquisition - to support online viewing of Micorsoft Powerpoint application into Gmail. I happened to notice that yesterday evening when one of my friend has sent an powerpoint attachemnt. It was handy because I haven't installed MS Office on the laptop.

a) Snapshot of slideshow feature

b) Snapshot of FilterAssistant feature

Was discussing about 'Slideshow' feature with my friend (who was on the mailing list of the earlier mail) in the morning, but she didn't have feature on her account. But, she spotted another feature called 'Filter Assistant', on her account. Again, this feature wasn't available on my account.

No clue as to why do we need 'Filter Assistant' on every mail you recieve. Looking at the brighter side, the GMail dev-team seems to be constantly introducing new features; unlike their competitors who seem to be resting on their laurels.

Am not sure when these new features will be available to all google accounts.