What’s the next Google service to be closed down?

Many people are still reeling from the closing of Google Reader. Personally, I lost my innocence when they scrapped iGoogle. So the question is which one of their essential, life-sustaining services are they going kick off the island next?

Google offers so many services and I doubt there is anyone who uses all of them all the time. So my predictions are based on the services I do use and what I see happening in that realm at the moment. Currently I’ve been poking around a few development tools and javascript libraries, and the thing I noticed was that for newer projects Google is using Github rather than Google’s own Project Hosting to share open source code.

So my prediction for the next Google service to go to the big server farm in the sky is . . . Project Hosting on Google Code!

Besides the projects that they’ve started hosting on Github, there’s also the fact they’ve split-off a lot of content that used to be code.google.com to developers.google.com.

Closing down their project hosting service will be more significant than closing down iGoogle or Reader, since it’s not just an end-point but rather a distribution channel for many open source projects (although none of any significance from outside Google – apart from Eclipse Labs and Apache Extras but even they’re in a separate sub-domain).

Although it is not a creation point, so all the data that is there is created apart from Project Hosting and transferring to new service should be almost seamless (for the creator). Even issues created for a project can already be exported quite easily.

It would be disappointing to see Google Project Hosting close down, they offer more features than almost any other hosting service (with the exception of Source Forge). It’s not the prettiest code hosting site on the internet but it has a clean interface and they support multiple version control systems, binary file distribution, and seamless integration with other Google services (like Blogger and Groups).

And of course, you are never being pushed towards a paid version, or restricted because you aren’t paying. Big or small, sucessful veteran or new upstart, all projects are treated equally.

So if we’re going to play Google Service Roulette, I’m betting the next one to go down is Google Project Hosting. They’ll start by no-longer creating new projects, then no longer accepting updates to existing projects, and then they’ll strongly encourage everyone to migrate (probably to Github) as they announce the end date.

Cross-posted on 2FatDads

Flipboard for Android leaks

So Flipboard for Android was supposed to be an exclusive on Samsung Galaxy S III but it didn’t take long for an intrepid S III owner to pluck the APK from it’s comfortable surroundings and throw out into the wild for all to enjoy!

So far I’m pretty impressed, Flipboard certainly looks beautiful and makes viewing media laden tweets a joy – although tweets who’s media host is not integrated are still relegated to second place. And those tweets that link to an article an get a very fancy look with media from the article.

My two main sources of reading though are Google Reader and Twitter. For both of those Flipboard is a mixed result. Flipboard works best when there’s media to display, it makes the article look so much cooler. I’ve added The Globe and Mail, The Economist, and Make Magazine, which are quite nice to flip through – but I have to admit I had trouble navigating around the app to find stuff.

If you want to give Flipboard a try on your Android phone, either buy yourself a Samsung Galaxy S III or head-on over to XDA Developers to download the APK and sideload it yourself.

Cross-posted on 2FatDads

Why I Quit Facebook

Twitter is awsome! 140 characters then STFU!!! I only follow people I know so even if I only check it on the train twice a day I’m still not scrolling more than a couple pages to catch-up. And it only takes a few seconds to read each tweet. If there’s something really interesting I can star it and come back to it later.

For companies, blogs, etc. there’s RSS feeds in Google Reader.

It’s nice to have that separation. I know I can flush my backlog in Reader without missing something a friend says. And I know my Twitter is a quick catch-up on my friends without any corporate-ad-crap interlaced.

If I could do that with Facebook – and they had had a bit more respect for my privacy – I would still be active there. But I can’t. So I’m not.

Source: Young & Thrifty

Cross-posted on 2FatDads

Hide/Remove Google Buzz Updates from Your Gmail Inbox – google buzz – Lifehacker

via lifehacker.com

Thanks to Life Hacker – and @JohnnyCanuck – I’m no longer distracted by Buzz when I open my GMail. Not that there’s anything wrong with Buzz but I use Twitter, and everyone and everything else uses Twitter. But so far all Buzz does is clone your Twitter and other social posts. If you want to Buzz your friends have to Buzz too – if they’re still on Twitter they won’t get your Buzzes. In essence, Buzz is like a glorified feed reader that lets you make comments and stuff to yourself – kind of like Google Reader (except I prefer and use Reader often during the day).

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