The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Fretting Googler retracts anti-Google+ rant

Please don't fire me!

Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery

A Google engineer who accidentally published a long rant about the failings of Google+ has since issued an apologetic make-up piece, explaining why he has taken the piece down, how kind Google are for not immediately firing him and that really Steve Yegge is a lowly oompa-loompa who knows nothing and to whom nobody should pay any attention, least of all the media who have been lapping up his 4,700-word rant in a frenzied blood lust.

Yegge, who works as a staff software engineer in the Chocolate Factory's cloudy systems, used a post on Google+ to criticise Google for failing to understand the importance of platforms. He cited Google+ as a prime example of Google's focus on product at the expense of platforms – a "knee-jerk reaction". The problem was that he accidentally set the post to be available publicly, instead of just to internal Google users. He took the original down pretty sharpish, but it is still readable here.

In a second Google+ post Yegge wrote:

Please realize, though, that even now, after six years, I know astoundingly little about Google. It's a huge company and they do tons of stuff, and I work off in a little corner of the company (both technically and geographically) that gives me very little insight into anything else going on there. So my opinions, even though they may seem well-formed and accurate, really are just a bunch of opinions from someone who's nowhere near the center of the action – so I wouldn't read too much into anything I said."

He didn't quite go so far as to declare that Google+ was a stunning innovation that actually does everything right and is definitely better than Facebook, but we think that might be implied.

Of all the comments posted on his retraction, one simply read: "Do not worry, there are plenty of jobs at Facebook." ®

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

Ha ha, that is why I liked Google, very simple UI and most important (or maybe because of that) FAST. Before 1999 I was using Altavista (and I was in a tech job at that time as well). If you remember, at that time the portal was the big thing, the site with the kitchen sink thrown on the first page, with horrendous times to load. Yahoo and MSN (or whatever passed that day as such) were portals. Slow to load because of a ton of graphics, hard to find the search text box, then slow to show results, because of graphics again.

Google was a breath of fresh air. Fast, clean and relatively accurate. Text only. I jumped as fast as I could, and I was recommending Google to all my friends. Now I dislike their privacy policies and stay away as far as I can, but that's another story.

6
0

I think the most lasting outcome of this will be a very public example of how not to trust social networks with data that could embarrass you. If this example helps people realise this and they cut back on the FaceCrack, then Google+ might get to contribute towards taking FB down a peg just not by taking their users as they would hope. When you get past the hype and the bumf, FB is popular because it's a one stop shop to chat and share (non-sensitive) photos with mates, with a calendar for birthdays. Its only 'killer feature' is being popular, so there's a good chance your pals are on there.

6
0
Anonymous Coward

tit

lessons:

let off steam with your mates in meatspace and then move on

but if you can't do that ...

sleep on it before you click <send/>

and if you do click ...

stand by what you post...

3
0

More from The Register

 breaking news
Number of cops abusing Police National Computer access on the rise
Only a telegram from the Queen can get you off it
 breaking news
Julian Assange: Google's just an arm of US government
Pale, embassy-dwelling blond claims conspiracy betweeen ad giant, politicians
 breaking news
NSA PRISM snoop-gate: Won't someone think of the children, wails Apple
10,000 things probed, mostly about missing kids, Alzheimer patients, we're told
Google flings another £1m at online child sex abuse vid CRACKDOWN
See, see, we're trying, ad giant tells Daily Mail UK.gov
Report: Cloud could slash biz software energy use by 87%
Study sees millions of redundant servers slurping power
 breaking news
CIA spooks picked Amazon's 'superior' cloud over IBM
Procurement report reveals tech gap in cloud cold war
Bone up on fresh EU privacy law - or end up in the clink, IT biz warned
Resellers no longer just flogging boxes - now they must offer legal advice
 breaking news
MPs demand UK rates revamp after Google's 'extraordinary tax mismatch'
Report: 'Highly contrived' structure has damaged HMRC's reputation
Amazon SLASHES hosted database prices
Microsoft, Google, stare meekly at own margins