Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Google Reader needs GPC

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

max — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:54:24 -0000

We had passed the patriot acts, 2006,
We do not have a privacy anymore.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Handy — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 20:34:26 -0000

Reader just has too many ways to share items:
1. Email - click email and type in a name and press send. Best for users you know don't use RSS.
3. "Share" button. Easy. Press share and everyone you gave your private URL to can see.
2. Tag - press tag then type in a name or previously thought of "grouping". Share that out the same way you would have sent a link to the "shared" items.

Clearly #2 is the easiest. Apparently the reader team really meant for use to accomplish granular sharing by #3.

Google. The solution is EASY. People want to share "shared" items by clicking the shared button - and remain private. Here's how you do it. Make the Share button pop open and give a taglike choice: All, group of people, maybe contacts, etc. No one understands what you mean by tags or bother learning what you mean by them in this context. Its hard enough explaining del.icio.us to people. There's your GPC.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Drew — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 12:57:46 -0000

Tangentially related: there is no way to turn off sharing your orkut profile in google talk. And similarly, the maps locations you search in google maps are somehow in a separate category from their search history function, which, incidentally, I have disabled yet somehow see a list of searched locations stored by the cookie that I was not aware of. Seems to me it should be either airtight privacy or none at all. What's the point of giving people a choice if it's not across the board?

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

HexToInt — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:59:51 -0000

> can we now please put to rest the idea that our shared items were previously ... easily accessible to the public?

Obviously not. :) It's pretty clear that quite a lot of people did NOT expect privacy from a feature that declared itself "publicly accessible" (see the ZDNet poll or the Mashable poll) and your attempting to dismiss the many, many people who have made the reasonable assumption that public/obscure-equals-public is as incorrect as Google's apparent dismissal of the people who made the leap from "publicly accessible" but obscure to mean "private".

@Modulo Noh - Why won't you acknowledge this? It seems pretty obvious that the issue is divided.

I like this conversation, it seems good to let people better realize the trade-offs when accepting obscurity as security rather than get surprised by it later.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Tristan Chaika — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:34:45 -0000

All Google Reader says about shared links when you sign up is:
"This page is accessible to anyone who knows its address, so all that's left to do is to let your friends know about it."

I can see where the confusion is. They specifically say in this statement, that it is up to you to let your friends know what your feed URL is. They say absolutely nothing about Google intentionally sharing your feed link with everyone in your contacts. I don't know about you all, but some people in my contacts are closer than others. Some are friends, some are business relationships. Some contacts I just emailed once and don't really know. I can definitley picture situations where this could upset people, especially in an election year.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Modulo Noh — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 08:35:02 -0000

Yes, those shared feeds before this change sure were public. I often expect people to be able to guess which one of the 99.9 QUINTILLION obfuscated urls my shared items are randomly located at. By all means, feel free to email me the title of one of my shared items from my own email account, after all, if you are able to guess which one of those urls is mine, then by George, guessing my email address and password should be weak sauce by comparison. So, can we now please put to rest the idea that our shared items were previously, by any conceivable stretch of the imagination what any person of any intelligence would consider easily accessible to the public?

As for the shared tags being an adequate replacement, I think that that is a perfect workaround, for someone that uses Google Reader on a regular basis, or who has an average to more than average amount of experience with computers. I'm not concerned about this for myself, I'm concerned about this for people like my grandmother or my sister or my mother, who while able to use the computer, oddly enough, even after fully reading Google's explanation of the change, might somehow not fully understand the implications thereof. But I guess, what, those n00bs deserve what they get? Right, nerds? Right?! It's THEIR fault for having social lives and other interests that prevented them from chewing themselves into the technoflesh of the internet like a maggot with Asperger's. Right?

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Matt Cutts — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 03:35:54 -0000

If you're interested in this subject, Chrix on the Reader team did a post on the Google Reader blog: http://googlereader.blogspo...

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Laura — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:30:18 -0000

My issue with it wasn't that I was bothered by what I was sharing. I was using shared items like miketheactuary, as a back-log of items I wanted to look at a little more closely, while starred items went to my blog.

My issue was that several people got my shared items feed added to their daily list without any warning. Suddenly a new feed appears that they never subscribed to. When they figured out it was from me, they blamed ME for junking up their feed lists.

My friends tend to be light feed readers. Having a bunch of feeds added without any warning and without subscribing annoyed them. It annoyed me, too. Especially since most of the folks that got my feeds were people I'd never chatted with, contrary to what Google later told us.

I deleted all my contacts then deleted all the feeds in my shared items just for good measure.

I don't mind the "feature". What I mind is the bone-headed way in which it was forced on every user of the Reader. If it had been opt-in, no problem. But not only was it not opt-in, there was no real way to turn it off without disrupting possibly useful OTHER functions. That's bone-headed.

And worse, Google still hasn't fixed it. Utterly bone-headed.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

HexToInt — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 22:39:35 -0000

@TX You're wrong about Google explicitly telling people that obfuscation meant privacy. DEAD wrong. That help page and that banner that appears within Reader DO NOT SAY that people could expect "reasonable privacy if they were careful about who they shared it with". At worst, they mention explicit visibility to people who "know its address" but they DON'T GUARANTEE PRIVACY in any manner whatsoever.

Why are so many people are making up stuff that doesn't exist with regards to Google's sharing feature. To believe that "publicness" means "private enough" takes a leap of logic that seems pretty bizarre.

I kind of like this controversy however, since I think it's past time we had a community involvement in what these terms mean with regards to the biggest services that will be using and interpreting them.

What does "share" or "public" mean? It's clear that it's far from unanimously decided.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

TK — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:45:33 -0000

fwiw, the original FAQ for google reader sharing (not yet updated to reflect the new feature) makes it plain that only those to whom you provided the obfuscated URL could view your shares. This was a very useful, well implemented feature for many of us at the time.
http://www.google.com/help/...

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Douglas Karr — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:32:08 -0000

I wasn't complaining, Robert... razzing a little... but not complaining ;).

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Mister Snitch! — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:31:17 -0000

A verdict worthy of Solomon, Robert.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

TK — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:11:34 -0000

I'm one of those pissed off Reader users. Reader's previous sharing system was EXPLICIT in telling users that although their shares were on a publicly visible page that the URL was obfuscated and they could expect reasonable privacy if they were careful about who they shared it with.

In my case I used this feature to share with a handful of trusted colleagues market research and information that was directly relevant to current projects. To suddenly discover months of market research and revealing info about our future initiatives broadcast to competitors in my address book was a shock. Initially the only options were to delete all shares (effectively erasing 700+ items of research) or delete people from gmail's contacts. They've since wisely implemented a feature to allow us to migrate our existing shares to new tags. Admittedly an edge case situation, but judging by the thread on googles help page there are many of those.

This new feature and its clumsy notion of my social graph wouldn't have been such a nuisance if it had been rolled out with some regard for legacy users.

What seems to be lost in all the noise, hyperbole and half-informed opinion on this "controversy" is the more interesting revelation: the gmail address book and users email behaviors seem to be being mined to bootstrap a new social network platform that has no opt-out. The "open-social" future is becoming a ride we're all being herded in line for, like it or not.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Roy — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:05:57 -0000

I've never thought of Shared Feeds not also being Public Feeds. If it can be Indexed then of course all feeds with become public to some extent.
The interweb is the epitome of transparency and if you don't want it for all to see then don't post it!

Quite simple when you break it down!

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Robert Scoble — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:37:15 -0000

I turned off the snow, cause I was getting complaints about it.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Tyme White — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:04:16 -0000

To confirm, I logged into Reader, looked at how Google describes the Shared feature:

"This page is accessible to anyone who knows its address, so all that's left to do is to let your friends know about it."

Then there is a URL that the person can share with their friends. There is a "find out more about sharing" link, I clicked on it, and it describes the public PAGE.

I don't see anything about my friends on GTalk getting those feeds automatically. I don't see anything about my friends using Reader automatically getting the updates. It specifically states it will go on a PAGE.

Robert, I'm confused on how users "assumed" something wrong. Google did not do their job by stating specifically on Reader what Shared items would do/does. The user shouldn't have to hunt around for it and if they implemented a new feature the user should have been notified of it when they logged in. Instead of giving me a Tips/Tricks on the Home page give me "We made a major change, this is what this change means to you...".

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

ManiacD — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:29:31 -0000

Robert
Another option people can do is to create a new label and set that up as being a shared feed then all they need to do is to add that label to the items that they want to share to be included in that shared label feed.

I'm pretty sure that these items won't show up in the shared friend feeds as google would only be sharing the actually "Shared Feed Items" and not any others.

I did a blog post back in June on how to set this up you can check it out here http://blog.maniacd.net/200...

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

dnc247 — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:25:06 -0000

So here is a question...

the "shared" items, which you choose to share is only shared with people on you google TALK and not necessarily with everyone you have in your email contacts correct?

so if you have a problem sharing things with a certain individual why not, uhhhh, remove them from your google TALK contacts (not block, but just remove them).

If you care about your privacy that much in respect to a particular individual or a group of people not finding out the articles in which you are SHARING, you probably don't want them chatting with you anyway, so just remove them.

uhhhh I believe that is their GPC, you just remove them from you chat list. you can still have them in your email list....

I think people, just like to have drama in their lives, this is a non issue, and definitely not a issue to ruin anyones Christmas, thats just childish people.

Kudos for google not giving in... there is always bloglines for the people who are whining.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Andrew Girdwood — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:48:13 -0000

It has to be option (1) - doesn't it?

Otherwise we're asking Google to find the lowest common denominator of its user base and go at that speed only.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Douglas Karr — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:14:45 -0000

Is there a meteor storm in your page?

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Solita — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 16:06:56 -0000

Google reader works fine for me
http://www.spymac.com/detai...

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Larry — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:16:03 -0000

@7 And on top of that we can ask Scoble where his perfect featured feedreader is that he built so we can see how it's supposed to be done.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

Scott — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:47:52 -0000

I can't wait for the Scobleizer to get "TTFSOC" (Turn That F-cking Snow Off Control).

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

orcmid — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:21:24 -0000

This was a nice addition to my "I will Facebook no more Forever" post, but I am commenting here just to say I like the snowflakes you added to your banner picture. Heh.

Re: Google Reader needs GPC

HexToInt — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:00:19 -0000

@miketheactuary, @Project

One thing that should be mentioned is that we can copy our Reader shared items to a different, obscure tag that behaves the old way. Go to "Manage friends" and click "move or clear your share items" to move them.

I'm also told you can move them right when you see the announcement. Anyone else confirm this?

I like this feature, but I'd like it a lot better if I could choose subsets of friends to share with. Or at least one subset that differs from my Talk contacts.