I'm annoyed at Google again

[ChaosFish]

They killed Aadvark. The site is now off the web. I loved that site. From the Wikipedia page:

"Google acquired Aardvark for $50 million on February 11, 2010[2][3]. In September 2011, Google announced it would discontinue a number of its products, including Aardvark"

I'm sure they had no intention to even use it when they bought it. They just used their power to stomp down a competitor and own the patents.

[Bot13]

Oh man, I used that website like a million times. Got it sending random stuff to my Google Talk and I would pretty much always answer it. Meh.

[Darkflame]

Killing Aardvark pissed me off hugely too, but I cant find any rationisation for it - evil or not.
Google is doing nothing remotely in the same field.
Nearest equilivent is something like Quora - which too my knowledge google has nothing to do wirh. Effectively they killed the only thing they had to compete for no obvious reason.

Aardvark was well intergrated into Gmail Chat too, it fitted nicely with googles lineup. My only guess is there was some internal despute with them.

[ChaosFish]

My guess:
They had to buy Aadvark, it interfered with their primary objective of "owning all of the world's knowledge and deciding who gets access to what", according to their TOS. They saw no reason to invest in it since it didn't bring them money and there weren't any other comparators, so they closed it.

[Streg]

You own the money, you own the world. Expect everything from them now. They also are in the internet browser business. If they did the same to opera to favour Chrome I wouldn't be surprised.

[Neko]

What was Aadvark?

[Bot13]

Aardvark was a website where you could ask anything, add tags, and upload that question to the website. I would then be sent to anyone who was a member of Aardvark whose profile matched the tags in the question.

Later on they made the system work with MSN Messenger, Google Talk, etc. I had it set to MSN, there it would send me questions (It would start a conversation and ask if I could answer a question, my reply could vary from "yeah" to "sure" to "shoot" and it would understand and proceed). The answer would then be sent to the person asking the question, and he or she could send me a quick thank you via the Aardvark system.

And if I wasn't available on MSN it would sent the questions to either my Google Talk or gmail account.

[Darkflame]

Originally Posted by ChaosFish

My guess:
They had to buy Aadvark, it interfered with their primary objective of "owning all of the world's knowledge and deciding who gets access to what", according to their TOS. They saw no reason to invest in it since it didn't bring them money and there weren't any other comparators, so they closed it.

But they have reduced the amount of information flowing though them by removing it.

And they could have stuck adverts in it easily enough. Its not like their regular chat has adverts anyway, or their calander, docs, chrome, android , google web kit, etc.
They do lots without advertising profits - much is just to keep people using their products or, more generaly, to make the internet a more essential tool and keep us online. (aka GWT - which is a lot of work by google to make other peoples website's better)

Also, googles mission statement is:
"Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Aardvark would have fit with this nicely.

Note; no "owning" or "deciding who has access to it". You might as well start having a go at wikipedia if your looking against people hosting all the infomation themselves.

Google has been consistantly and very publicly for a open network - both in investments and phylosphy. They have done nothing remotely to deserve the "who has access to it" line.
Critise google purchase of aarvark for sure, but try to be accurate in your critism because there are many companys that really are trying to limit our access right now. Google, when it comes to keeping infomation accessible is an ally in the fight, not an enemy.

If they did the same to opera to favour Chrome I wouldn't be surprised.

Opera has sub 2% off the desktop market, so it wouldnt help them much in terms of market share.
Might give them some very smart engineers though - theres a lot of very clever ideas Opera has that most people dont get to use untill Chrome or FF copys it.
Fortuntely, unlikely the phone market, browser makers havnt started sueing eachother over every last thing yet so innovations tend to cross fertalise quickly anyway.

[ChaosFish]

Yeah you're right Darkf, I guess I tried being provocative.

But... perhaps I'm being paranoid, but...
I still think it could true in the long term. I suspect Google is supporting projects like Freenet and such simply because they are sly. They see the world's trends. They know what they need to do to make people trust them. And without anyone noticing, everything will eventually depend on them. And when this moment comes, that's it... they're Earth's one single ruler. Like the churches in the dark ages. I think almost every corporation's main objective is to take over the world... I just think Google is getting closer at an alarming rate.

[Neko]

That is quite paranoid.

Besides, people could then move on to bing or whatever other alternative.

Every company has to deliver the goods, if they do a bad job, another company will take its place. If people stop using Google...then what? How can they 'rule the world'?

[Bot13]

Indeed Jesse. A deal should only be possible when two parties feel like they're gaining something. When something is going wrong over at Google, there won't be any deals anymore. The company would collapse. I love economics.

[Odysseus]

I think GFish is just using a hyperbole to make clear he is aware some ideas are paranoid. But it's naive to think big companys are not aware of their public appearance and appeal. They hire people for that and it pays well to get the general/relevant public to trust them. So its not some paranoid idea but a big industry.

"Gaining something" has some rather unethical implications. Supply and demand ideas are naive. Acting as if there are only two partys is ignorant even from a treu economic perspective.

Even if google was just a free calculator that happend to use child labor to keep running: people would still use it.

[Neko]

We simplify things to make a point. The point is that the minute Google will stop putting out services of value they will lose their power. They rely on us to keep them running.

No matter how powerfull you get, you can be replaced.
Myspace? Altavista?

And ofcourse every company thinks of themselves first. And they all like a bigger slice of the pie. Fair game. That does not make big companies evil.

Chaos: do you support occupy?

[SpaceGuitarist]

FUUU**!

I loved aardvark!
Now this adds to my hatred for google.
Can anyone resume in one sentence WHY ? can't find it on the web.

EDIT: Oh, right...:

Originally Posted by Co-founder Max Ventilla

Google+ has already become a great place to share knowledge online, eclipsing the original vark.com!

(source)

[Neko]

Seems sad, sounds like it was really cool...

[DarkOnistar]

Maybe I'm being ignorant of the facts, but I thought they just bought out the competition to better themselves.

Its only a rumour (since I can't find the article since it was ages ago) but I think they might integrate what's left into Google+ like they've done to other things in the past. Eg. 'Fridge' was a groups website which was bought by Google and there is discussion on it being the next new groups thing for Google+.

If they integrate I'm not too bothered, but if its just removing it because they can't compete then that sucks.

[Battler]

Originally Posted by Darkflame

You might as well start having a go at wikipedia

Wikipedia is a joke. And Google would just make it worse. Wikipedia needs owners that are willing to reroganize it as a truly web repository of knowledge rather than a web equivalent of a paper encyclopedia "and some more".
This of course would mean Wikipedia establishing its own peer review comittee and letting any knowledge be contributed and peer reviewed rather than simply parrotting what other cherry-picked publications etc. write. Give an opportunity to evolving personal research and stop being so scholar-centric. Stop assuming everyone with knowledge in a particular field can easily publish in books or journals. Then you'll have a truly useful repository of knowledge. Where information won't removed just because it's "fancruft" or "original research".

[ChaosFish]

Originally Posted by Battler

Wikipedia is a joke. And Google would just make it worse. Wikipedia needs owners that are willing to reroganize it as a truly web repository of knowledge rather than a web equivalent of a paper encyclopedia "and some more".
This of course would mean Wikipedia establishing its own peer review comittee and letting any knowledge be contributed and peer reviewed rather than simply parrotting what other cherry-picked publications etc. write. Give an opportunity to evolving personal research and stop being so scholar-centric. Stop assuming everyone with knowledge in a particular field can easily publish in books or journals. Then you'll have a truly useful repository of knowledge. Where information won't removed just because it's "fancruft" or "original research".

That actually makes a lot of sense.

[SpaceGuitarist]

Originally Posted by Battler

Wikipedia is a joke. And Google would just make it worse. Wikipedia needs owners that are willing to reroganize it as a truly web repository of knowledge rather than a web equivalent of a paper encyclopedia "and some more".
This of course would mean Wikipedia establishing its own peer review comittee and letting any knowledge be contributed and peer reviewed rather than simply parrotting what other cherry-picked publications etc. write. Give an opportunity to evolving personal research and stop being so scholar-centric. Stop assuming everyone with knowledge in a particular field can easily publish in books or journals. Then you'll have a truly useful repository of knowledge. Where information won't removed just because it's "fancruft" or "original research".

True.

I think they don't want to be responsible/have to monitor this much amount of information, once the doors are open.

But it should have, perhaps, a button in every page which unfolds new sections in the article which were hidden before but still embedded in the page.
This button would be called "Activate Unorthodox Wiki".

[Reek]

*sigh*

i don't know what's more ridiculous , obras saying what he said or you people saying it makes sense.

if wikipedia established it's own peer review committee and started featuring original research than it would no longer be an encyclopedia anymore. rather it would become a really general academic journal.

this can be verified by actually reading the definitions of an "encyclopedia" and "academic journal". go ahead, give it a try :)))

an encyclopedia is something we call a "reference work". original research isn't part of its function. it isn't better than an academic journal. it isn't worse. it's only different :)

[SpaceGuitarist]

Well I'd actually like to have both types of info in one place, thus my suggestion of making it something optional and not part of the main wiki which as you say would be uncharacteristic of an Encyclopedia.

I simply consider that wiki's ultimate goal is to become a free resource of information. Tons of people go there seeking info, and tons of people are willing to contribute and share their own info. No definitions should interfere in that. And, within this logic, Obras does have a good point.

And yes, I get your point as well, which (now coming back on topic) reminds me of why aardvark was so useful.

[Reek]

nothing wrong with that (although it could get messy since at any given time there are tons of scientific issues which are highly debated and trying to have everyone have their say could be endless), but saying that wikipedia is a joke because it isn't more like [something which isn't an encyclopedia] is rather silly.

[Battler]

Originally Posted by Anakin

nothing wrong with that (although it could get messy since at any given time there are tons of scientific issues which are highly debated and trying to have everyone have their say could be endless), but saying that wikipedia is a joke because it isn't more like [something which isn't an encyclopedia] is rather silly.

The basic definition of encyclopedia is a "collection of knowledge". And unlike with a paper encyclopedia, on the Internet we aren't limited in the knowledge we can collect.
Now, on the one hand Wikipedia policies are OK, but on the other hand, Wikimedia Foundation provide no "journal" or anything of the kind of their own that anyone could contribute to and would get their contributions peer-reviewed. So basically they turn their back to anyone who has a lot of knowledge in a field but no access to publishing in books or journals. So a lot of voices are still unheard and a lot of information unpublished.

[ChaosFish]

Originally Posted by Anakin

nothing wrong with that (although it could get messy since at any given time there are tons of scientific issues which are highly debated and trying to have everyone have their say could be endless), but saying that wikipedia is a joke because it isn't more like [something which isn't an encyclopedia] is rather silly.

That actually makes a lot of sense.

(why do people even read my posts?) *shrug*

[Reek]

Originally Posted by Battler

The basic definition of encyclopedia is a "collection of knowledge". And unlike with a paper encyclopedia, on the Internet we aren't limited in the knowledge we can collect.
Now, on the one hand Wikipedia policies are OK, but on the other hand, Wikimedia Foundation provide no "journal" or anything of the kind of their own that anyone could contribute to and would get their contributions peer-reviewed. So basically they turn their back to anyone who has a lot of knowledge in a field but no access to publishing in books or journals. So a lot of voices are still unheard and a lot of information unpublished.

There are a very few people in this world who are at a position to say whether some modification of super string theory makes it a better candidate for being a grand unified theory or not. and chances are none of these few people will be willing to join the peer-review committee of a non-profit organization.

so there goes the idea of forming a committee which will decide which original research is worth adding to the wikipedia.

also personally i'm glad that a new idea comes under the scrutiny of top researches from all over the world before it is added to an encyclopedia.
i don't why anyone would want it to be the other way around.