Google is about to learn a tough lesson - <AUTHOR> http://blog.calbucci.com/2013/03/google-is-about-to-learn-tough-lesson.html <comment><USER4> > Google made a big mistake cancelling Google Reader that will have severe > ripple effects to its empire.

Oh come on: enough already. Obviously there was a /vocal/ user base which is very loudly now upset that the product is being sunset. Guess what, Google didn't see it as a large enough set of people to make it worth monetizing. Such is life. Move on. It's certainly not the end of Google if that's what this article is trying to imply. It isn't even the beginning of some horrible backlash either. It is however getting old.

<comment><USER5> I don't think people who use RSS realize what a small minority they are. I don't use RSS or Google Reader, I've never even _seen_ it, but this week my Facebook has been filled by a tiny slice of my friends who are incredibly upset.

The vast majority are just shrugging and not caring one bit.

Only Google has the actual numbers on how many people are using their Reader, and they simply did the math. End of story. It's not going to affect Google one bit that they cancelled a tiny non-profitable product.

<comment><USER6> The point here is that your facebook has been filled. In other words, there may only be a few upset people, but they're people that other folks (like you) listen to.

<comment><USER5> In this case it doesn't matter, because the vast majority of my friends don't know what RSS is, don't care, don't use it, and don't care about Google Reader.

The few that cared posted their angry rants, and noone cared. Noone commented. It's a complete non-issue.

And even if you accept the premise of the article, that the ones who care about Google Reader are influencers, what exactly does that mean in practice? Google doesn't have very many services that regular people use. There's search, and you'll never get people to stop using that. There's gmail, and you'll never get people to stop using that. There's Google+, and you'll never get people to use that, because they've got Facebook, and it's only nerds on G+ anyway.

I get the abstract point of the article, that if you upset influential people, they'll badmouth your product, and the Microsoft Word example made a lot of sense, because it stopped people from buying the latest version of it and sticking with what they had.

But that scenario doesn't apply here. Those of you who are upset about this, exactly which Google services will you stop promoting to your friends, and which alternatives will you suggest?

<comment><USER7> The bigger issue isn't whether they influence the masses, it's whether they influence the decision makers who _do_ matter to Google's revenue streams – and that's an open question, IMHO.

The idea that you can't rely on Google to keep services around is a bit of a chilling one for many and too much of that vibe may well mean that established companies and smart startups are more careful about what services they depend on (and who they get them from).

But we're not at that point yet... and Google is hardly alone in the general rug-pulling-out-from-under-you trend these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I sympathize with Google Reader users. I find it occasionally tiresome to be half-foot in an ecosystem. But I've come to accept that this is just the way that Google does things.

I love Gmail/Calendar/Maps/DamnNearEverything. I love Groups, which they've recently taken pains to hide[1] so I suspect its up soon for the chopping block. Heck I even love Google+.

All that said, at least they had the gall to kill it. One thing that pains me more than killing a product they don't want is letting one _languish broken for ages._

I'm fully in the G-cosystem[2] but sadly Google Finance is nearly worthless, and only edited about once a year, usually to break something and fix it a month later.

You can't switch to a current (non-closed) holdings view where it only shows you information about stocks you own right now, instead you have to make two portfolios. You can't reorder portfolios so my real portfolios and my "lookers" are separated in an awkward list. News stories are half spam and appear out of order anyway. Finance doesn't sync well with the Android app, sometimes it finds zero portfolios and makes me make temporary mobile ones that I have to delete later.

How many Java errors are on the Finance homepage today? Just one. How about on a stock ticker page? Thirty-one. And it's still using _Flash._

I don't think the Reader backlash will hurt Google. There are just some products they _plainly don't care about_ and will continue to ignore them until somebody brushes over the "shutter" button while the rest of the company shrugs.

<comment>

[1] <http://i.imgur.com/bs7i5pL.png>

Groups isn't even on the extended products list in the Gmail header bar, though Reader is! You have to click "Even more" to get to Groups.

[2] I cringed writing that but it was too good to let go.

<comment><USER9> > Groups isn't even on the extended products list in the Gmail header bar, > though Reader is! You have to click "Even more" to get to Groups.

They have been really destroying Groups for a while now. The new ui is terrible, the new url format is also bad. They got rid of instructions for emailing for subscriptions, and someone reported to me earlier today that emailing firstname.lastname@example.com doesn't even work anymore.... are they just going to dump their usenet archives?

<comment><USER10> It's probably too late to ask now (the story was posted 19+ hours ago, as I write this), but -- do you know what happened to Google Groups digest emails? They just stopped working for me a long time ago, with no communication about what happened.

<comment><USER9> No, I don't use the digest email feature. Sorry. The other day I had to clean out some old Groups subscriptions, because apparently you can only subscribe to 200 groups at a time. What a fucking joke. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So, what's going to happen, exactly?

"Influencers" who liked Google Reader, now jilted, are going to use their magic influence beam to halt the growth of Android, to erode the dominance of Google in search, and prevent the regulatory approval of self-driving cars?

Google has quite a few heavy responsibilities on their hands. They have to manage growth and competition in hugely complex, emerging fields.

The lesson they learned _correctly_ was that focus is essential. RSS is dead. A handful of nerds enjoy it, it solves a handful of problems, but it's not a hot technology around which you can build a business on the scale that will move needles for Google.

So they cut it and they're not even going to notice it in the rearview mirror.

In an amusing, if anecdotal, aside – Gina Trapani, an OG nerd influencer if ever there was one, tweeted that she'd checked out of Google Reader long ago.

<https://twitter.com/ginatrapani/status/312451705692385280>

<comment><USER12> Search, which provides the majority of Google's revenue, is precarious because there are very low costs for someone to switch to another service.

To combat this problem, Google started providing all these associated services -- Finance, Reader, Blogger, etc, etc -- so that people would begin to use their Google ID as a significant component of their online identity. These services were never supposed to be profitable, they were supposed to provide a competitive "moat" for search.

If people begin to take their data out of Google services -- which is the only rational response given Google's repeated and blatant disregard toward its "customers" -- these customers might start looking toward Bing and DDG very soon. Then Google _will_ have a problem.

Even Android could have a problem if people begin asking the question, "what happens if/when Google sunsets Play? Will I still have access to my apps?"

<comment><USER11> They built Gmail. People need it desperately. So far, no one distrusts it or has any reason to. That's their identity moat.

<comment><USER13> People don't need gmail. They need email. You know, that thing that existed for years before gmail.

To say people don't distrust google/gmail shows your naïveté and/or your rose coloured google glasses.

Search and the collaborative part of google docs (ie multiple concurrent editors on a document) is the _only_ thing where it's hard to find a true competitor that you can self host, not to mention hosted solutions.

<comment><USER11> >People don't need gmail. They need email. You know, that thing that existed for years before gmail. To say people don't distrust google/gmail shows your naïveté and/or your rose coloured google glasses.

Aren't you a charmer.

I'm about as far from a Google fanboy as exists. Trust in this conversation has been about existing tomorrow or not. No one doubts Gmail is going to exist tomorrow.

And while you're right about the very obvious assertion that email existed before Gmail, that misses the point. There's a switching cost involved in changing your email. You have to inform all your contacts, update all of your accounts, learn a new web interface.

It's a damn good moat.

<comment><USER13> If you're using a gmail domain email, setup auto reply/forwarding for a few months/indefinitely.

Businesses would largely be using their own domains, so the point is moot.

<comment><USER14> If you forwards emails through gmail then Google still gets your data.

<comment><USER15> Only what doesn't go directly to your new email yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Perhaps google learns a tough lesson. Or perhaps bloggers who think they are "influencers" are going to learn a tough lesson about how much impact their influence really has.

Google knows what they're doing. They haven't forgotten the outrage that happened after they stripped the social features out of reader and replaced it with the +1 button. They knew all those people and more would be pissed. And they decided it didn't matter.

<comment><USER17> No, they hoped it wouldn't mater. Unless they've perfected the ability to predict the future they and everyone else won't know for quite some time.

<comment><USER18> How will we tell whether or not it matters?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >Third, and lastly, Google is sending a strong signal to the market that it will have no mercy of killing whatever product it doesn't think it's going well.

Yep. I was just investigating Cloud SQL storage today and Google has a free Cloud SQL trial plan and decent pricing. I passed it over because I am concerned Google isn't interested in long term maintenance of products, and their support is non-existent. I'd rather go with some no-name startup that probably cares a lot more about my business.

<https://cloud.google.com/pricing/cloud-sql>

<comment><USER20> [Disclaimer: I work at Google in an unrelated area]

Google platforms like Cloud SQL generally have a deprecation policy that will give you an idea of the minimum length of time that they'll be maintained. For Cloud SQL it's 1 year (it's in the Terms of Service), which means that you'd get at least a year's notice before it could be turned off. It's on par or slightly better than what I know of Amazon's policy (they have 1 year deprecation on their APIs and an undefined deprecation policy on their service offerings).

In my opnion having this deprecation policy would make Google Cloud SQL a lower risk proposition than a 'no-name startup', at least until the startup is in a position to make similar guarantees (and the financial resources to stick to those guarantees).

Edit: I guess my point is that some Google products have service agreements as to how long they'll be maintained and so comparing consumer web services to Cloud SQL isn't really appropriate.

<comment><USER21> Tell that to users of App Engine who have experienced frequent, repeated downtime and utter apathy from Google. Google's customer support sucks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This just shows Google just doesn't get design. Sure, they may have figured out CSS3 and made Gmail super hard to use, but they don't really get design.

Ever noticed how Facebook kills a feature? Slow, steady, they drift you away, showing you by hand what better is out there, and then the feature disappears, first from our conscious, and then from the website. If FB was the one calling shots here, they probably would have somehow merged G+ and Reader, and then slowly started to show us those stories better using Currents, and by the time everyone is comfortable, would have killed Reader.

Google doesn't get design. It has to be in everything. Even in killing products off, there is design. You can't design with a corporate sledgehammer. All they seem to be doing is kill off established niche products in hopes of somehow making a niche social network successful. If only someone builds a better search engine, right this moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great observation. Google could have turned all this frustration into energy for Google+, but they didn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> RSS was a literal life changer when I first discovered it. Instead of going to the 5-10 websites I frequented to look for new stories throughout the day, I could check my reader when I took a break and stay up to date on everything. It probably cut my surfing time by 90% or more.

Additionally RSS allows me to follow far more things than would normally be possible. Instead of 10 I have 100, including things that don't update even every month.

Previously the discussion was always about how to make RSS usable for the masses, but I suppose this problem was never solved. Social media seems to work for some people, but it isn't the same. I can only count a handful of times in the last decade that I site I was interested in didn't have an RSS feed. It is practically universal. Facebook does indeed have a lot of people, but there is also the constant friend spam, and the algorithmic filtering to worry about.

When I look at the alternatives to Google Reader, it is clear that many of them don't get me. They are focused on content discovery, but i want to do is Keep Track. I don't want to miss a word from my favorite sources, and I need my reader to hold on to their words until I get to them.

I really hope RSS doesn't die. It is my handle on the internet, and without it I would still be refreshing sites all day.

<comment><USER24> It was a change of life for me too. But a bad one. Instead of checking my favorite websites separately I started checking a hundred websites.

I would eat information. I would get a new post every 30 seconds. I would spend my days just sitting at my desk and archiving what didn't seem of interest and read the rest.

After a few month I started realizing I wasn't enjoying what was written anymore. I wasn't enjoying visiting a website, its design, its UI (And I know the saying, we're not supposed to learn a new UI every time we browse a new website, but I like seeing a websites renovating its design, I like reading an article in its real environment )...

I decided to ditch it. I didn't need the technology. Nobody needed the technology. I didn't mind opening multiple tabs to check different websites.

I use bookmarks, multi row toolbar and tree style tab on Firefox and it's all I need for my big consumption. And I'm a power user. So imagine the normal users, why would they care about Google Reader?

<comment><USER25> It doesn't help you. But that doesn't mean it's not useful.

I subscribe to about fifteen developer blogs that update only two or three times a year. Huge waste of time to visit their websites, but whenever anything important happens, I'll know.

I subscribe to the New York Times' main feed. I don't read most of the articles, but I'll flip through all of the headlines for ones that I want to look at. Much faster than the main site.

I'll Option-R right before I leave the house, so if I'm stuck without internet for a while (the cell phone connection is very spotty on a commute I make) I can still read the news and the blogs I'm interested in.

It doesn't fit your use case, but that doesn't mean no one needs RSS.

<comment><USER26> >I subscribe to about fifteen developer blogs that update only two or three times a year. Huge waste of time to visit their websites, but whenever anything important happens, I'll know.

This is the EXACT use case I desperately need it for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This was my second thought when Google announced that they were retiring Reader (the first was "Nooo!")

Half of my friends use Gmail because I suggested that they switch. I am starting to see Google move toward the dark side, and that means you won't see me recommending Google products to friends. It'll take a while, but there will be backlash... because I'm not the only one in this boat.

<comment><USER28> In what way is this a move "towards the dark side"? I understand it's disappointing, but whenever someone doesn't do what you want, do you assume they're evil?

There's an underlying sense of entitlement in the tech community that really rubs me the wrong way sometimes, honestly. Sometimes folks are going to make decisions that you don't agree with. That doesn't justify freaking out. "Getting disappointed" shouldn't be filed in the same drawer with "getting cheated" or other such violations.

<comment><USER29> I agree that "dark side" is over the top. (I never thought Microsoft was so terrible either.)

Maybe some of the resentment here is from the lingering feeling that Google should still be the best thing on the internet. For quite a long time, everything they did, they did so amazingly well. I _loved_ that company.

They got worse, the rest of the internet got better, and they really don't stand out the way they did. But sometimes I forget that the new Google isn't the same as the old Google, and I feel stung about things like this.

(FWIW, I don't blame them for doing _something_ about Reader. I just wish they had tried selling it on subscription before fitting it for concrete shoes.)

<comment><USER30> I've seen a handful of people say that they would have been willing to pay for Reader. But overall, I imagine that the complaining would have been just as loud had they started charging users for something that was previously free. And what if it was still unprofitable? They'd need to go through all the complaints a second time if they decided to close it down anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I love Marcello and am a fan, but this is an emotional, not well thought through reaction.

The best leaders, the best organizations, the ones that create excellence, are those that are as good at saying no as they are at saying yes.

I've worked at a large company. It is easy for outsiders to think "oh, they have infinite resources and can do anything". This is not the case at all.

I am not much of a Google fan. I dropped Reader about 2 years ago and have used NewsBlur since. The only Google product I like is Chrome.

Google will continue to be successful, not by doing a bazillion little things poorly, but a few things, really, really well.

And to do a few things, really, really well, you have to be excellent at saying no. Google has decided Reader is a little thing it could not do really, really, well. So it is saying no.

I applaud that. (Even if it's caused NewsBlur to become almost too slow to use).

<comment><USER32> _The best leaders, the best organizations, the ones that create excellence, are those that are as good at saying no as they are at saying yes._

Google doesn't say "No." They say "Yes... yes... yes... no! Just kidding! Psych!"

I can't tie my personal or corporate strategy to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I love the idea of loss-leaders aimed at a specific, influential segment of the entire market. I'd never really thought of services like that.

I'm curious what uses there are for this specific type of loss-leader (as in not the Dropbox freemium type). Ethics aside, for instance, Google could have tried to steer conversation among an influential group toward certain topics, by more aggressively suggesting certain Google blogs to follow, or specific stories relevant to Google.

I'm also very curious what other such loss-leading services exist. One example is this forum. It advertises to potential founders with the small banner ad at the upper-left-hand corner of the screen. It also provides an ecosystem for the discussions about and (indirect) promotions of organizations or ideas YC invests in (like Watsi, or job postings).

The other example I can think of is "high-brow" political magazines like The National Review. Often, parties dedicated time and money on promoting ideas there, even though it's a very small segment of the entire market of voters.

Has anyone here designed a service or product with this specific aim in mind? How did you use it to further some broader agenda?

<comment><USER34> Microsoft's vulnerable among college students in computer/IT fields, because they have technical knowledge, lots of time on their hands and little money -- a perfect audience for FOSS.

So they offer big academic discounts to try to keep them in the Microsoft ecosystem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I love how the closure of Reader reveals something about the tech journalists and "celebrities".

They throw tantrums. They throws hissy fits. They scream bloody murder. They divine doom and gloom for Google about how severely this will affect it in much more important markets like Android and Chrome.

And yet the world is not ending, and not every Facebook wall has this petition [1] plastered all over. Even GOOG stock underwent as a much as a correction, still hovering comfortably above $800.

What did happen, though, is that self-important "opinion leaders" had their illusions of power dispelled. No wonder they are furious.

[1] [https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google- reader-r...](https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader- running)

<comment> mkr-hn It's too soon to say whether or not the power of the trendsetters was illusory. The nature of trendsetting is that the setters have to figure out what it means for them before they can communicate it. Any change will take time to distribute itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm unconvinced Google is about to learn anything because this isn't the first time they have killed a product with a large following. It seems now if a product doesn't generate at least 100 million, it isn't safe from being discontinued. So YouTube, will continue to live alongside Search, but it looks like Picassa is on its way to be rebranded "Google+Pictures"

Instead it looks like everyone else is going to learn tough lesson - <USER2> isn't a charity, and anything that doesn't provide them any strategic value and/or revenue can be discontinued.

<comment><USER37> Of course, Google deserves to support/sunset whatever products they want.

The danger is that they've tasted Microsoft-level power in their ascendant Android/Chrome business, and want more.

There is a lot to be said about "leaving something on the table" and not maximizing everything. When you're the largest collector of personal data (other than perhaps the US Govt), you need goodwill or (influential) people will revile you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Look, the TFA is full of crap. Here is the reality: today I would have a hard time coming up with a better alternative for a free productivity suite and search engine for most individuals and small to medium enterprises. When I am talking to someone looking to run things under their own domain, they might ask "do you think Google is going to discontinue support for Apps/GMail/Docs/Drive/etc?" To which I would have to reply "very unlikely". I think the OP overestimates the influence of the people that used GR. Sure, some had pull but the pragmatic ones can see the difference between Google's flagship products and GR.

There are plenty of reasons to not buy into the Google Ecosystem, but this is not one of them. Then again, all we need to do is wait a few months and see if the earnings report supports the OP's claim or Google's strategy. My money is ong Google.

</comment><comment><USER39> Similar to the lesson(s) they learned after shutting down Google Code Search, Google Buzz, Jaiku, Google Health or any of the others? You just happened to like a product that was an overall failure. It happens.

</comment><comment><USER40> Twitter and Facebook killed RSS. It's a far friendlier interface for people to keep up with news and people they find interesting. Geeks may be lamenting the loss of Google Reader, but they make up a very small percentage of the internet population these days. When I suggest that Twitter/Facebook is the new RSS I often catch a lot of flack for it, but honestly, that's how far more people consume information than any other service.

<comment><USER41> I can't subscribe to <insert-generic-Wordpress-blog-here> with Twitter/Facebook. With RSS, content authors only have to update their websites and not worry about crossposting to a social feed.

<comment><USER40> That's exactly what "following" is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> One thing I haven't seen mentioned is how odd it is that google is killing a product likely used widely _within Google_.

<comment><USER43> I guess it's a sign of maturity when Google realizes that their own employees are not representative of the general Internet market that Google is targeting.

<comment> guard-of-terra Lying in a coffing in a fancy suit is a sign of maturity too.

Why is that kind of maturity good these days? For whom?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Parts of this post are premised the "influencer" marketing model, but there is at least some research indicating that it might not be as powerful as generally assumed. For example:

* <http://misc.si.umich.edu/media/papers/wsdm333w-bakshy.pdf>

* [http://www.digitaltonto.com/wp-content/uploads/WattsandDoddi...](http://www.digitaltonto.com/wp-content/uploads/WattsandDoddinfluentials.pdf)

"Grouped: How small groups of friends are the key to influence on the social web," the book by Paul Adams @ Facebook ([http://www.amazon.com/Grouped- groups-friends-influence-socia...](http://www.amazon.com/Grouped-groups- friends-influence-social/dp/0321804112)), talks a bit about this.

Anecdotally, I've also seen quite a bit of evidence first hand that suggests the impact of influencers is not clear-cut.

</comment><comment><USER45> If Google is shutting down reader, are they going to remove RSS feeds from Blogger? What about Feedburner?

I think Google's better move would have been cut a few features and 'Plus-ify' Reader - kinda like they have been doing with their other products. They would have evolved an important user base, shown commitment to the RSS standard, and kept a number of important apps using their api's.

Aren't they after all supposed to be championing the open web?

I don't think this is intentional, but it now hard to argue againsT people saying that they intentionally waited till they killed the RSS readers market and then shut down their product.

<comment><USER46> blogger and feedburner are next. They want you to move to spooky G+ ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> What are "influencers" going to do about it? Give Reader a bad review? Complain about the death of a product no one knew existed? I don't see how they have any leverage in this situation. The comparison with Microsoft's Word Count incident seems weakly relevant.

<comment><USER48> >> What are "influencers" going to do about it? Give Reader a bad review?

No, but you may start seeing instances of phrases like "I wonder how long it will be until FeatureX/ProductY gets the boot like Reader did" or "Perhaps this product will languish for years without innovation like Reader" or "Maybe Google will opt to ignore users of this product too" in the press related to Google products. Next time Google kills a product, the media will reflect about how it's "just as bad as what they did with Reader in 2013." Killing widely used products is now something Google does; it is a behavior they are now strongly associated with.

In terms of influencers, it's not about the individual product, it's about the behavior of the company that operated it. Don't piss off the people that give you free advertising by taking out features they like, even if they're the only ones who use them.

>> a product no one knew existed

While I find that a stretch, the point the article was making is that no one _needs_ to know of the existence of Reader for this to have a negative impact on Google. Except for the influencers, who did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> And as everyone knows the word count tool initiated the downfall of microsoft word empire. Seriously, I don't think it was a bad decision to kill the reader. Not a nice one, but I think certainly not one where Google is going to learn a lesson about.

<comment><USER27> That wasn't quite the point -- it was that the influencers cared about the word-count tool. (You might also notice that Word currently has a word-count tool.)

<comment><USER50> I think his story got mangled in a game of telephone. Microsoft loves their word count. Competitors got bit by it, though:

 _This story is as old as the PC. Most of the time, what happens is that they give their program to a journalist to review, and the journalist reviews it by writing their review using the new word processor, and then the journalist tries to find the "word count" feature which they need because most journalists have precise word count requirements, and it's not there, because it's in the "80% that nobody uses," and the journalist ends up writing a story that attempts to claim simultaneously that lite programs are good, bloat is bad, and I can't use this damn thing 'cause it won't count my words. If I had a dollar for every time this has happened I would be very happy._

From former Microsoft employee Joel: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html> He has links to reviews in the original

There are stories, though, of Microsoft shipping out beta copies of Microsoft Word with debugging all turned on, which made it slow, and despite saying so very carefully to all reviewers who got a copy, they still got torn apart for it being slow. I think the story is in "Coding The Microsoft Way" which I haven't seen in over a decade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I can't wait for this debacle to stop being news.

Google cancelled a product. It let you read websites quickly. There are other ways to do it. Moving on...

</comment><comment><USER52> Makes a lot of sense.

As an average Joe, I am preparing to go on Google-free diet come July 1. Firefox, Bing, Outlook. Will find a reader somehow. These are the daily habits which accumulate over time and provide GOOGLE what it needs to survive. So will do everything possible to cut down the ...

<comment><USER53> Better go yandex than bing. They at least manage to be ahead of google in some niches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I guess they're doing everything they can to get everyone to Google+. If they can't bait you, they force you. They want their own Facebook. Probably Blogger will also be phased out as soon as they afford to.

But I don't think the future will belong neither to Google+ nor Facebook. I'm looking forward to a descentralized, user centric platform, that anyone can run on its raspberry pi box at home, that allows you to manage your data however you please.

<comment><USER55> They are still "enhancing" Blogger. Less than a month ago they introduced a drastic change in the image-upload UI that basically broke it for everyone. It appears to have been meant as an improvement but whoever did it, clearly didn't understand who used it and how. Now they are "looking at" how they can fix it.

So what are the good alternatives to Blogger? And what if you have multiple blogs with hundreds of posts in them? Reader at least is emphemeral, there's no investment of work at risk.

<comment> mkr-hn WordPress.com can import from Blogger, and then export an almost human- readable XML file with posts. It costs money to point your own domain at it, but it has a DNS editor (text-based, but it has some click-based tools). It's worth the small price if you're concerned with easy portability.

And it's not a peripheral service like Blogger. Automattic _is_ WordPress.com, and all their peripheral products exist to serve it. The best part? You can take your WordPress.com and turn it into an identical WordPress.org with a billion different service providers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> An article full of nonsense. Discontinuing Google Reader IS NOT sending a message to enterprises that they should not use Google product for the long term.

<comment><USER57> Sorry, but your statement needs more to back it up, because the opposing viewpoint has an easy logical justification. Why should companies transfer their core infrastructure onto Google's products if they know Google might decide one day to discontinue them?

I know lots of companies rely on and pay for GMail, I'm sure it won't be discontinued anytime soon, but I'm also sure this event puts thoughts in the back of many people's minds about that eventuality.

<comment><USER58> The day that e-mail becomes widely irrelevant is the day that Google thoughtfully cancels Gmail. Google is a business. If they lose enough customers, it's not worth maintaining an expensive system just to satisfy the vocal minority who gets up and writes self-entitled articles like OP's. Google has been pulling plugs on services for the longest time; they're not a charity, they're a company. I don't think this makes them _evil_!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> No one mentioned it in the thread so far. I am working in academia, and RSS is a lifesaver for us, to keep track of new academic papers. I am following around 50 journals, everyone of which publishes a few articles daily, at least. That makes around 1k papers/month. There's no way for us to check every journal website every morning. Twitter or Facebook are totally unsuitable for this. My second constraint is that during my day, I use 2 different computers, a phone and an iPad to check on my RSS feed, depending on where I am and what I do. Reader was providing a flawless solution for the sync. There will be another one soon, that's ok. But according to my twitter stream, many, many people in academia are pissed off about this decision. I posted my feelings here <http://wp.me/p1eIvd-d2>

</comment><comment><USER60> \- Reader wars start again. This can be a big positive from this news. Already people are finding new readers to meet their needs. It will drive innovation and I expect to see some great products coming in.

\- As many people know things were pretty stagnant on Google Reader. Though it worked for a lot of us, products like Google+ were always going to get more focus. In this way Google might have done us a service by retiring a product it was not developing fully.

\- Wonder if the product name was a limitation in itself. Google Reader was always going to be a reader even if you add social stuff into it. If that is the case, maybe they should rename Google Finance to Google Money!

\- People are asking if we can trust with Google on providing all these free services. Pragmatic among us say "NO" and will remind us that they have been saying this for ages. Optimistic among us say, well "Gmail", "Youtube" etc. are for "forever".

\- Most people like Google services because it means "one login", and it goes all the way to help Android as well. Even if some people are considering their relationships with Google, it is not in Google's best interests.

\- Another side effect of the above is - what happens on next spring cleaning? Should I wait to use a product until that product acquires enough momentum? I will be a bit more hesitant to recommend other Google products.

\- There is a debate going on between free and paid services. I think it is more about getting a right business model. Services can fail even if you pay them. Most people are not going to pay more than $5/$10 a month for a service like this.

\- A big opportunity for a company like Yahoo to get an app for all the devices, and among the influencers. I will be surprised if they don't try to raise their game on readers and provide a better "Google Reader". (this advice is for other companies as well, however I believe, yahoo, will be the one to grab it.)

\- Was a bit surprised with all the bitching going on at hacker news. I mean, let them close it, we will have another one or built a new one! And, no petitions please.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm biased about this topic, but don't take my word for it. Robert Scoble is one such 'influencer' and here's his take and the discussion around it: <https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/499071000129201>

Key takeaway: it's not the 'vast majority' that bring about innovation and change on the web. It might be Google doesn't care about innovating on the web front anymore, at least less than the hardware and integrated systems fronts. So ironically, this might actually hurt Plus.

<comment><USER62> Precisely. Google _exists_ because of the nerd minority! Once they lose sight of that they're doomed. Who do they think will be the early adopters of self driving cars?

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> It shouldn't really come as a surprise that Google is acting more and more now like a big established company with shareholders (which they are). When you become an established industry leader (as a profit-driven shareholder company), you tend to focus on minimising overheads, cutting cruft and focusing on core profit-driven services.

They aren't going to be benevolent dictators of the internet forever - <USER3> should be thankful that their benevolence has lasted so long (and still is lasting through many free services provided).

</comment><comment><USER64> I haven't used a feed reader in more than three years. I believe that fad is gone. Google has closed many more important services and they're still strong.

Nop. There is no lesson to be learnt.

</comment><comment><USER65> > Third, and lastly, Google is sending a strong signal to the market that it > will have no mercy of killing whatever product it doesn't think it's going > well.

They have been doing that for years. I'm not sure if anything but Search and Gmail are safe from the axe. They'll _probably_ not end-of-life Maps or G+, but almost anything else should probably be treated as a beta that can be removed at will.

<comment> mkr-hn I read a post a while back where someone theorized that Google owns enough fiber to make YouTube inexpensive to run, and it's deeply embedded in the minds of most web users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> "By killing a product that was beloved and heavily used by most influencers, you start to alienate those folks. Killing a product like Picnik with tens of millions of users, might have less impact on the business than killing a product with less than a million users, where most of those users are influencers."

Reminds me of what Apple is doing with the Mac Pro.

</comment><comment><USER67> It's very easy to make up a story like the one about MS Word after the event. Not so easy to predict in advance who these influencers are, who they influence, and if they exist in the first place. Duncan Watts has researched this and there's an interview here. [http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising- branding/scientist-in...](http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising- branding/scientist-influencer-theory-bogus-105981)

" They throw parties or they give away free samples or they advertise in particular publications that brand themselves as reaching an influential audience and run some campaign in their normal manner. And if it works, they say, "We reached the influencers." And if it doesn't work, they say "We didn't reach the influencers" or "We weren't able to make them help us." In that sense, it's just a rhetorical device to help you explain the randomness that you actually experience in the world. "

<comment><USER68> That was an extremely interesting link, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Meh, I don't use google reader or really care, but I am pissed they plan on ending igoogle in November. It's insane to me that they will do this.

It's my homepage and I'm sure millions of other people's homepages. Setting your homepage to an internet company's site is pretty much their whole goal. It's insane to me that they will give this up.

<comment><USER70> _> Setting your homepage to an internet company's site is pretty much their whole goal._

That always felt hokey to me. I was always more likely to "homepage" a website that just gave me great content and proportionately less likely to "homepage" a site that wanted to be my home page. This is why HN/reddit are basically this for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> How many little web services have you all used, that have come and gone over the years, that never had as much money behind them as Google? Most people are going to trust that Google has a better chance long-term, even if the product has a chance of going away some day. I am always leery of my data with small companies, and make sure there is a good backup/exit strategy (obviously, this applies to Google too).

I see a lot of passionate tweets over just another web service. If Google wasn't killing the service, but asking users to spread the word to keep the service, would they be so passionate about it then? Maybe. People don't often go to Twitter when their service is working, generally when they're pissed (unless the service is mind-blowing great). I just don't think all the whining is going to do much convincing at this point, or that it will impact Google all that much.

</comment><comment><USER72> The right way to respond to this backlash would be to make Reader a paid app and tell people it'll stay while enough pay for it (and of course be transparent about user count etc). I can't see Google going that way though, it was free and if they don't want to pay to support it there's no reason to expect them to.

<comment><USER37> Reader is getting the axe because it's getting in the way of the new protege project, G+.

They can't have anything holding Google from becoming what they think Facebook should be.

In fact, they don't just want to become/defeat Facebook, but also Apple (see Nexus/Chromebook) and Amazon (see Shopping Express), not to mention Groupon (see Offers). By trying to be all things, they will become none.

They are on the path to becoming Microsoft. I desperately hope that the Glass/Driverless-car part of the company prevails in corporate culture. I fear that will not be the case.

<comment><USER46>
        >    By trying to be all things, they will become none.

I just agree 100% they are an advertising company ,that's all they will ever be. The rest is bull. And i'm not going to use any of their vaporware anymore. But it's a great wake up call against all this Saas bull* , i guess journalists had a taste of what the implications of cloud computing are.

<comment><USER72> I don't think that's fair. They're an AI/machine learning company at heart now. Primarily that powers advertising of course, but they have the potential to do so much more.

<comment><USER37> Just that it used to be that they'd do it because it was cool, and potentially profitable.

Now they'd do things to be profitable first, and cool as a side effect.

It's arguable which iterative path leads to a greater market social and market impact.

<comment><USER72> Of course. We shouldn't expect them to pursue things that some people might deem "cool" and their shareholders will deem a loss leader, but to argue that they are just an advertising company is to miss the bulk of what they do in my opinion. They'd be nowhere without AI and machine learning, and really are pushing boundaries of where we can take them things. Primarily to sell adverts and be profitable sure, but what they are doing is not equatable to any other company that sells adverts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> If it isn't Google search or Gmail, I'm not making any decisions that depend on it. It's that simple. And frankly, I'm likely moving my email off it as soon as I get some spare bandwidth to find something I like enough. (I really like webmail.)

</comment><comment><USER74> I had exactly the same feelings when I heard about the decision. Now I'm planning to stop using Google Voice, which has the same indications of getting killed soon (zero development, no promotion, etc.) I am less excited about Google+ as well - I just cannot tolerate a company that kills features and products like this. This decision from Google is really damaging to them and they are idiots of they don't see it. This "focus" thing applies to small shops. Google is huge. They can afford to keep a product like Google Reader - small shops can't.

</comment><comment><USER75> I'll say this: This behavior by Google has gotten me for the first time to take a deeper look at Microsoft's 365. I'll also be much more careful in the future before using GCE for a real business purpose.

<comment><USER76> Yeah, MS is oh so much more trustworthy. Like when they discontinued POP (and IMAP?) access on Hotmail accounts, before Gmail came about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> As a user of Google Reader, I'm kind of glad it's going away. Why? Because now good quality web-based RSS feed readers will finally arise. Sure, there are some out there now, but with Google's monopoly on the product nobody really cared about them and they weren't very good or reliable. Now that will be forced to change.

To me this is like if in 2002 Microsoft had decided to stop making Internet Explorer and force everyone to use a different browser - quality browsers would have been developed and adopted a lot faster.

</comment><comment><USER70> _> First, Google says that it "gets" social, but you can't "get" social if you don't get the concept of an influencer. By killing a product that was beloved and heavily used by most influencers, you start to alienate those folks._

If op is right about Google Reader users, then the same thing is happening with OS X users. A part of the reason for OS X's success was adoption by influencers. Samsung, Android, and others have made a lot of inroads on influencer groups.

</comment><comment><USER78> I'm not saying that Google "gets" social (because they obviously don't), but everyone I know who uses Google Reader is definitely not the influencer type.

</comment><comment><USER79> How I read HN: 1) Subscribe to HN feed in Google Reader 2) Install Reeder app everywhere (phone, iPad, laptop) 3) Link Reeder to Google Reader 4) Read happy... all items synced across all platforms, read, unread, starred. 5) Any time I have a free moment I pop open Reeder on my phone and read HN.

I don't give a %$@*%& about "social"...

Mission #1 is now to find another service that will reliably feed RSS feeds into Reeder.

</comment><comment><USER80> Google Reader is not just a feed but also as a tool for many people that are oppress by internet censorship it the only way people get free information and fight oppression...

I guess Google don't care

[http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512566/unintentional- in...](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512566/unintentional-interfaces- google-readers-censorship-busting-power-will-be-hard-to/)

</comment><comment><USER81> I saw a HackerNews thread ranking/listing RSS alternatives, found Feedly was the top one and migrated my feeds from google reader. Now, I kick myself for using Google Reader all this time when Feedly is clearly far better (for me).

While I've lost a little respect for Google, I am overall happy to find a better RSS reader alternative.

</comment><comment><USER82> My first inclination seeing the title of this post even before I read the article was to comment, "are you a fortune teller?"

But seriously, to put it mildly my friend, I don't agree with you. Google determined that the best thing to do was to kill it and they did. They continue building other stuff; life continues.

</comment><comment><USER34> Actually, I'd say it's the _audience_ that learns a tough lesson: If you use an application that requires a server operated by somebody else, there's never a guarantee that the service will operate forever.

This is a compelling argument in favor of DRM-free desktop applications.

</comment><comment><USER83> all of this (I think) is Larry Page in action. for a long time there was no clear strategy with Schmidt. "products" would pop up everywhere with no clear relationship. now Larry is cutting the wild growth. while it hurts some people I think in general it will strengthen Google.

> Oh, and I'm pissed with Google Reader going away. I used it 3-10 times a day > to consume about 100+ feeds.

look, if you want to have a more effective RSS reading habit, use rss2email <http://www.allthingsrss.com/rss2email/> and plug into the power of email- filtering. you don't even have to go to some "reader" to get updated.

</comment><comment><USER84> I think we are all just going to learn the tough lesson of how little we matter.

</comment><comment><USER85> > Sure, I'm pretty sure Gmail is not going away, but what ... YouTube? I think > a lot of products would be happy to as precarious a future as Youtube...

</comment><comment><USER86> With this decision, Google made it lot easier for our company to choose between self-hosted mail server and Google Apps business account.

</comment><comment><USER87> If I were Microsoft I'd be pushing Bing Reader out the door ASAP. I'm sure they'd find a use for all those disgruntled influencers.

</comment><comment><USER88> If you really want Google to bring Reader back we should all delete our Google+ accounts. Not banter in a corner of the Internet.

</comment><comment><USER89> Google has made a pure "Top-down decision". Apple also made one like this: replace Google Maps by Maps Apple style. #Fail

</comment><comment><USER90> Heck, if you display feed titles, excerpts from Google Reader aggregated feed on your website, this will be dead too!

</comment><comment><USER91> "Microsoft new about it but didn't care because it had data that showed that feature was just minimally used."

What?

</comment><comment><USER92> Seems like wishful thinking.

</comment><comment><USER93> Why would Google want to maintain and promote an app that makes it easy for people to go to non-Google sites?

<comment><USER94> Isn't that the core purpose of Google Search?

<comment><USER95> it was

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Google officially lost the "we're not Facebook /Microsoft /Apple [other "evil empire"] company." They have played that game for way too long and many people fell for it. Since Larry Page took over, Google has lost it's soul; now it's just a greedy, money grubbing machine.

Nothing is sacred anymore, no matter how much they repeat <http://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/>

<comment><USER96> wait... your saying that because they are discontinuing a product?

I'm not suggesting that google is/isn't evil these days, but I would suggest that there is absolutely no moral aspect to discontinuing a feed reader.

<comment><USER97> "discontinuing a product"

I guess you need to unpack what that product was. It was loss-leading free product that killed the ecosystem that proceeded it. That whole 'embrace, extend, extinguish' thing is what many people are decrying as a tad 'evil'.

<comment><USER95> Google did that to websites too: first they penalized a slew of sites such as local search, travel, finance, shopping comparison for having "shallow content," and then they introduced the Google versions of said sites, on top of everyone else on search results.

<comment><USER98> Google's mission is to organize the world's information, to be a Search Engine, not specifically a "Web Search Engine". People come looking for answers, not just sites. When I search for "Samsung TV", I don't want a link to another vertical crawler as the top answer, I want links to where I can read reviews and buy it. Vertical search is getting rolled up into search, not just by Google, but by Microsoft too, because ultimately, search engines should be smart enough to understand the semantics of the search to an extern where a special curated vertical isn't needed anymore. When Jean Luc Picard asks the Enterprise computer for the nearest Starbase, it doesn't tell him to phone up StarBases.com and ask them for a list instead.

When I ask "AAPL", I want the current price of AAPL. This has a direct, factual, answer, I am not looking to be sent to finance search engine or portal as the top answer.

Even before Google built reader, the "RSS" market was mostly free. No one was making a killing selling RSS readers, anymore than commercial web browsers really succeeded. Is Mozilla evil because a free open source browser "killed the market" for commercial-for-pay browsers? That ship has already sailed.

What's arguably evil is using a lossleader to kill another product, and then jack up the price once you have a monopoly. But releasing free services when the price was already zero is hardly anything to write home about.

If you want to know who really killed RSS, ask Facebook.

<comment><USER95> _Google's mission is to organize the world's information, to be a Search Engine, not specifically a "Web Search Engine". People come looking for answers, not just sites._

Their mission changes based on their revenue needs. First it was no ads on top, then send users as fast as possible to other sites, now it's almost all ads and keep users at Google at any cost. Even if what Google provides is sub- standard, very typical of companies that gain a monopoly in a field. You can argue that they might have a right to do it, not that it is the right thing to do. If major websites go out of business, how is the web better off? Google produces no content and now wants to send no clicks to the producers.

>> _When I search for "Samsung TV", I don't want a link to another vertical crawler as the top answer, I want links to where I can read reviews and buy it._

Yes, but Google decided that _they_ have the best reviews and best price. Either way, they gained share by being nice and now they are on top, with lots of money to buy off protection from politicians. [http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/google- accumulat...](http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/google- accumulated-25m-for-lobbying-during-ftc-probe)

 _What's arguably evil is using a lossleader to kill another product, and then jack up the price once you have a monopoly._

Google clones everything and when those cloned go out of business, consumers lose. Any hope that they may charge $1 /month vanishes when Google clones their app /features.

 _Is Mozilla evil because a free open source browser "killed the market" for commercial-for-pay browsers? That ship has already sailed._

Mozilla is one company, Google clones a product and uses it's billion users to have it adopted. Imagine if Microsoft used that muscle to have users adopt Bing or IE, by showing ads for them virtually each time you went online.

<comment><USER98> Vertical crawlers and linkfarms going out of business is different than publishers going out of business. The web's fertile lifeblood is content, federated, distributed, content accessible by URL. I worry more about newspapers going out of business than comparison shopping sites or RSS readers that never could charge $1 per month, that's nostalgia for a history that never existed.

The open source community as a whole continues to put people out of business by offering free alternatives. We don't call it evil, we just tell those who can no longer compete with free to find another business that isn't com- modified.

There was a time when people also sold memory managers and TCP stacks and everyone OS vendors put them out of business by including their features.

If anyone is hurting the Web these days, it is mobile, and a new generation of DRM'ed, native, locked down computing devices that take away far more rights than people who had general purpose computers used to have, and who push a new way of distributing applications that is platform dependent, distribution dependent, even carrier dependent in some circumstances.

Yeah, but keep droning on about ads, ads, ads, as you seem to do in every post, and how the world would be a much better place if somehow people had paywalls and subscriptions for stuff they access for little transaction cost today.

<comment><USER99> People seem to be clamoring for subscriptions to ostensibly free services that come at a cost, whether it's the threat of cancellation or restrictive use of their APIs. That's why App.net got so much buzz, remember?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age? - <AUTHOR> http://db.tidbits.com/article/10493

<comment><USER2> An interesting post, greatly harmed by this little note:

 _(Linguistically, this same devolution has happened with the Web itself. Although it's TidBITS house style to capitalize "Web" - a proper noun that's a shortening of "World Wide Web" - it's commonplace to see even professionally edited publications lowercase the word, thus de-emphasizing the fact that it's a unique thing. I think they're wrong: "Web" should always be capitalized, as should "Internet.")_

Linguistically, no one cares. This is so unimportant a point that it just points out how pedantic the author is. Just because someone doesn't know the origin of a word doesn't mean that they can't use that word correctly and to good use. That's like complaining that people spell the word "medieval" instead of "mediaeval" and trying to argue that it must then be impossible to understand the Battle of Hastings.

<comment><USER3> Yep. Complaining about the natural evolution of language is a sign that you're being a crank.

But at least language cranks are good for a laugh, because in the throes of rationalization they invariably make up these _hilariously_ broken rules. Today's rule seems to be that "unique things should be capitalized in English usage", which is certainly how the World should be. Why, my Mother would cringe if she saw such terrible usage.

Or maybe I'm misstating the rule: It's "if your word was once part of a proper noun, its proper-nounishness should be preserved henceforth". Which means that whenever I accidentally drop my Sandwich, or a Hamburger, or even a Frankfurter on a pile of Xeroxes I should use a Kleenex to clean up the mess. And you have to really watch out for those backformations, lest you write Crap when you really mean to write crap. (Though it looks like "crapper" -- or should I say Crapper? -- might in fact be derived from a proper noun, if the following link is 100% correct... which, frankly, is not too likely.)

<http://www.theplumber.com/crapper.html>

<comment><USER4> _Complaining about the natural evolution of language is a sign that you're being a crank._

+1 (coming from a reformed ex-crank).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Enjoyable article, I would suggest a different interpretation of the Google interview results.

The Google video data suggests to me that we are in a "pre-literate" technological age (assuming that we judge literacy by a person's knowledge of standard web technology). I'm not clear that there was ever a time when people in general knew this stuff. (I still get a kick when I hear nontechincal people describing a web address: "H-T-T-P-colon-...")

Nontechnical people often don't know terms like 'browser' because they don't have to. The reason why IE has such strong market share is because most people use Windows and they just use the browser that comes with their computer.

I say "pre-literate" because as technology gets easier to use and applications become more relevant to people's lives, then people will know much more than they do today (simply compare the twenty-and-under crowd to the fifty-and-over crowd as an example of what's coming). If current trends continue, then the next generation will continue to be more technically savvy than their parents.

<comment><USER6> My anecdotal experience leads me to argue to opposite case. As the article notes, "the better technology works, the less we'll learn about how it works."

My grandfather (almost 90) knows what operating system and browser he's using because he bought his first PC in the early 80s when you had to mess around with DOS. My dad is the same way, as am I. My sister, who is 6 years younger, has no clue. By the time she started learning to use a computer, most of the technology had already become invisible (for example, she never learned how to use a modem because by then we had DSL - always on).

Now, my sister is certainly web savvy, very comfortable with cell phones, texting, social networking, etc. But she's got no clue about any of the underlying technology. She doesn't need to know, because it just works. So I agree with you that upcoming generations will be more comfortable with the uses of technology, but I think that most of them will be clueless about how it works.

<comment><USER5> It sounds like your grandfather was and is technical.

I'm talking about trends about nontechnical people. The question for me is whether nontechnical people are getting more technically literate.

Literacy to me is about the deeper patterns. For radio, think AM/FM/Satellite and radio waves. For the telephone, think electricity and sound waves. For television, think about the broadcast spectrum and channels. These concepts become part of the literate vocabulary only afer the technology gets better established and people get better informed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the core argument here is that if the majority of the users don't understand the implementation details of the software/hardware they're using, then selling them new stuff might actually involve spelling out the benefits in practical terms that users can relate to. I really can't see the problem with that.

I also can't see why the Car analogy is somehow invalid because cars only do one thing. For years having a car was essential for living in many (not all) modern cities, without a car you couldn't get to work, visit family or buy groceries. It was an essential tool for living in much the same way as computer will be in coming decades. People did not generally understand the inner workings of fuel injection, anti-lock brakes or catalytic converters, but that didn't mean engineers weren't able to introduce those things. They just had to articulate the performance/safety/economy/environmental benefits in terms that people understood and cared about. The same will be true for computers.

</comment><comment><USER8> So we are not facing this problem only in Tunisia, but also NY have the same.

Casual people don't know a lot about computers, worse I talked few days ago with someone that studied Computer and Multimedia (as they call it) and he don't know how to use a web browser (even don't understand it).

But this can turn at your BENEFIT

1- If you are working for a developer (let say an application) he'll check the code and then know if it's good or bad. Casual people won't and then with poor programming knowledge you can make more.

2- programming with Flash is easy, casual people don't know the difference between Flash and HTML; you can design their site with Flash and charge more money than your competitors do.

3- Culture of fear: They are always afraid from viruses and spyware which makes a huge profit to Anti-virus companies and you also.

Many advantages to pull from those people. It's like doctors, when patients don't know medicine.

</comment><comment><USER9> Aside from the fact that saying post-anything makes me cringe, this was good. I see a new law on the horizon:

"Anything sufficiently innovative will face an uphill battle due to the technological illiteracy of the user base."

It may need to be phrased more neatly though. ;)

<comment><USER10> Kudos on the post-anything sentiment; to steal a quote from a monster, whenever I hear post-something, I want to reach for my Browning.

<comment><USER11> to quote another famous person, "Post-industrial Barbarians"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who defines what words mean? The people who created them, or the people who use them? I can't see any pressure to reverse the trend shown in this video, and so I predict that "browser" will come to mean a search engine (but don't worry, there will remain a vestigial secondary technical meaning of, a kind of software application for accessing the web.)

But it does illustrate Chrome's positioning challenge: how can google _have_ a browser, when it _is_ a browser?

</comment><comment><USER13> If Chevy or someone made a new motor and asked most people "What engine do you use?", it seems like there wouldn't be many people that knew what was in their car. Average people care about features like "miles to the gallon" for cars or "has email" for their computer. They don't care about the name of the part that does it. They just want to hit accelerator or double click on something that brings up their home page.

</comment><comment><USER14> I was with him until he blamed the Macintosh. If "basic computer skills" are things like saving a file in a particular path, what is bad about an interface that makes that abstract concept more accessible to most people?

(But I guess I'm thinking of the original, spatial Finder, not the current one. I am not an Apple user.)

</comment><comment><USER15> For the several millions of people Internet = Facebook. For tens of millions - Internet = Google.

What browsers you're talking about?

</comment><comment><USER16> This post was ridiculously good, I hope more people vote it up so that it gets wider exposure.

<comment><USER17> Really? What do you think is good about it? I took a look (based on your recommendation - the title itself turned me off) and all I see is overblown non-sequiturs.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Tyk Cloud – Open Source API Management in The Cloud - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.tyk.io

<comment><USER2> Congrats on launching.

Where are you data center(s) located and what does it mean for API performance? I assume that your service basically works as a reverse proxy in front of my API, but wouldn't there be a noticeable performance penalty if my DC is e.g. in the US and yours is in Europe?

Also: You should probably go back and give the FAQ on the pricing page another sweep. [https://cloud.tyk.io/pricing](https://cloud.tyk.io/pricing)

assocaited costs = associated costs when you create a new API = When you create a new API don;t = don't

to name a few :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers, spelling has improved :-/ damned sausage fingers!

Our servers are currently in the US as that's where the market is (from what we've found, so far). It's something we've thought about and we will be looking at doing international deployments as soon as there is demand.

For API performance, a cloud-based setup does mean an increase in latency, but that is why our solution can be self-hosted too, it's a trade-off that works on a scale, you can start off with a cloud service, with quite straightforward integration and then as your API usage grows look at using Tyk within your own data centers.

<comment><USER3> > Our servers are currently in the US as that's where the market is

And yet your pricing page shows rates in GBP, not USD. What's up with that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats guys! You know we're big fans of Tyk already (it says so right there in the testimonial)

Highly recommend this to anyone looking for a modern, light, powerful API management platform/service. We use the on-prem, open-souce version but I'm sure the SaaS version is just as good.

(no affiliation here...just lovers of great software).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much! :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why are you using Sam Soffes'[1] photo for a testimonial by someone called 'Luke B'?

[1] [http://soff.es/about/](http://soff.es/about/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, good point - legacy assets in the template, they'll need updating.

<comment><USER4> Here you go: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/upjkq61j06qmjoa/Screenshot%202015-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/upjkq61j06qmjoa/Screenshot%202015-06-08%2022.39.01.png?dl=0)

#theRealLukeB (although template Luke looks cooler)

<comment><AUTHOR> Done and updated - thank #TheRealLukeB! :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congratulations on your launch! I'd love to hear some regular updates on how the company is doing and how the product is being received. So often I read this exciting and interesting launch announcement, and then... nothing. Did they succeed? Did they flop? I'm always interested in hearing things _beyond_ the launch. Keep us updated!

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do! We atually started as an open source / licensed hybrid model. Then moved to offer all of our software for free and charge for support. Moving to a cloud platform was a natural next step - not only is it a great way to demo the tech and on-board new users, but it's also a great way to accelarate features for the rest of our users.

You wouldn't believe how indebted we are to our community that give us feedback and feature suggestions, it's quite amazing really.

<comment><USER6> What language/platform is Tyk written in/designed for? I'm always curious about what SaaS vendors are using. There's so much variety and different approaches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds nice!

But... Maybe it's just a pet peeve of mine, but seeing, twice, images/videos of gears that wouldn't work, is irritating. Such a mistake doesn't look professional to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah yes, noted!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How does Tyk differentiate from Kong([http://getkong.org/](http://getkong.org/))?

<comment><AUTHOR> Tyk (self-hosted) offers a dashboard and analytics for free out of the box. :-)

Tyk Cloud was very much built to make the open source and free versions better (and sustainable), so I think there's probably some differences in motivation.

Ultimately we're trying to solve the same problems, which is great, we're seeing more and more projects try to make API management better, just noticed the other day that a new ruby-based app has shown up called API Umbrella ([http://apiumbrella.io/](http://apiumbrella.io/))! It's getting busier, which is great news for API developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How does price scale when you exceed the number of requests allowed in a plan?

<comment><AUTHOR> You would need to upgrade to the next tier - we're working on adding "soft maximums", currently they are hard cut-offs.

We would, most likely allow a certain % overage, then notify the user, with some kind fo three strikes rule to upgrade plans.</comment></comment>


Dutch police claiming to have de-anonimized Tor - <AUTHOR> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DFNMsZOXoAIBdZ2.jpg <comment><USER2> It seems like they are claiming _not_ to have de-anonymized Tor.</comment>


Dating App Scams - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/21366576/dating-app-scams-romance-women-quarantine-coronavirus-scheme <comment><USER2> Until reading this I was under the impression that wire transfers were guaranteed funds. Nearly everyone's heard of wire transfer scams where a scammers gets you to send funds and then it's almost always irreversible/you're screwed. But I didn't realize you could receive a wire transfer and the bank could find it's fake months later and remove the funds. That's insane. Good to know for the future, but how then does one receive guaranteed funds? Cashier's Cheque (or can those be found fake after deposit too?)? Is receiving something like Bitcoin/Ether the only way to guarantee funds are real? If you don't trust the source what non-crypto mainstream financial transfer tools can you use and be guaranteed? Are PayPal funds guaranteed?

<comment><USER3> My understanding is that wire transfers are guaranteed by the nation state at the receiving side, which is one reason most Nigerian scams are Nigerian because Nigeria will almost never refund/reverse a wire transfer and other countries have different laws/perspectives.

I believe Cashier's Checks are still the safest option, because of most Cashiers require upfront escrow of the funds involved. So long as you trust the Cashier bank in the middle of the transaction, you should be safe?

> Are PayPal funds guaranteed?

Nope. Lots of eBay scams in the history books.

> Is receiving something like Bitcoin/Ether the only way to guarantee funds > are real?

Depends on your opinion of forks, the likelihood of 51% attacks, and even the underlying assumption that cryptocurrencies are "real". Not to mention you probably aren't using a cryptocurrency as your day-to-day currency so you'll encounter plenty of scams in the edges and exchange markets.

Also, there have been Ethereum smart contract scams already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is very, very sad. It is an extreme example of how when society moves away from in person communication it becomes meaner. When you remove the in person element people start acting much worse to each other.

<comment><USER5> It's not just that. Even if everyone is just as nice, a low-friction online environment allows the few bad actors to access more marks more quickly.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A daily aggregator of all tech events - <AUTHOR> https://techevents.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

I created TechEvents.co to solve my own problem. There are a lot of event websites that already exist, such as Meetup.com, Eventbrite.com and Facebook, but the problem I had is that it took a lot of time searching through these sites individually to find interesting events.

So I built TechEvents.co, which is an aggregator that collects tech events from Meetup.com, Eventbrite.com, Facebook and Lanyrd.com into a single source which can be filtered and ordered by popularity. Right now there are over 35,000 active events and 260,000 attendees. I will be adding more sources in the future.

This is saving a lot of time for me. Hopefully, it will be useful for others too!

Would love to get some feedback and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have!</comment>


The Disappearing Physicist and His Elusive Particle - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/13/symmetry/the-disappearing-physicist-and-his-elusive-particle <comment><USER2> "A child prodigy, capable of doing cubic roots in his head as a kid"

I'll teach you. I used to do that when I was 10. Easy enough.

Let's say you want to take a cubic root from 148877. Looks scary enough?

First, look at the last digit. It's 7. Map it through the following correspondence:

1 -> 1, 2 -> 8, 3 -> 7, 4 -> 4, 5 -> 5, 6 -> 6, 7 -> 3, 8 -> 2, 9 -> 9, 0 -> 0

(basically, each digit maps to itself, except (2, 8) and (3, 7) which map to the other one in the pair).

So, the last digit of the cubic root of 148877 is therefore 3.

Now, erase the last 3 digits. You are left with 148. To figure out the first digit of the answer, you have to memorize the cubes of 1 to 10, you probably already know most of them:

1, 8, 27, 64, 125, 216, 343, 512, 729, 1000. (You probably know 343 from Halo series, and 729 is 1729 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_%28number%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_%28number%29)) without one, so the only hard thing here is 216).

So, 148 is between 125 and 216. Take the lesser one, 125 is 5^3. So the first digit is 5.

The answer is therefore 53. It only works with two-digit numbers, but with some practice you can do it in seconds.

Now go impress someone.

<comment><USER3> > _So, the last digit of the cubic root of 148877 is therefore 3._

So your algorithm only works for numbers that are cubes of an integer, right?

<comment><USER4> I believe the first digit trick still works with off-numbers, but the second digit trick definitely fails, as it depends on tricks of cubics.

1=>[1], 2=>[8], 3=>2[7], 4=>6[4], 5=>12[5], 6=>21[6], 7=>34[3], 8=>51[2], 9=>72[9], 10=>100[0] (or 0=>[0])

Basically, if you memorize the first 10 cubics, then you can do the next 10 cubics (and actually, there's probably a trick for doing all the integer ones recursively)

If you're really good at this trick, I'm sure you can bound non-integer numbers with referenced cubics and then do something like Newtonian descent.

Its kinds of like building a lookup table of lookup tables in your head for integer cubics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "he carried into adulthood the concomitant problems in relating to others—and very pertinently to women—ensuring the prerequisite internal pool of frustrations essential for lateral thinking"

I don't think this follows at all, honestly. Frustration begets more frustration, not lateral thinking.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. Richard Feynman is the classic lateral thinker but he didn't exactly have a problem relating to women.

<comment><USER7> This comment was screaming for an xkcd: [http://xkcd.com/182/](http://xkcd.com/182/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> <<There are several categories of scientists in the world; those of second or third rank do their best but never get very far. Then there is the first rank, those who make important discoveries, fundamental to scientific progress. But then there are the geniuses, like Galilei and Newton. Majorana was one of these.>> —(Enrico Fermi about Majorana, Rome 1938)

quoted in Wikipedia

<comment><USER9> The story is just begging for a Dan Brown style book: a missing genius, a Majorana codex containing the secrets of the Universe, the power that goes with knowing those secrets, a secret Illuminati with connections to Galilei and Newton, a connection to the Cosa Nostra, throw in a Roman/Vatican connection, a WWII connection... A rip roaring novel (with screen rights) is in there somewhere!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best book on selling? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> For reference, a related question from Quora: [http://www.quora.com/What-are- good-or-classic-books-on-selli...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-good-or- classic-books-on-selling-and-the-sales-process)

I asked around the sales crew here at my $DAYJOB about this a few days ago, and heard good things about _SPIN Selling_ and _The New Solution Selling_ , FWIW.

Sales people also always seem to cite Cialdini's _Influence_.

<comment><USER3> Also there's an older thread on HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=568556>

<comment><USER4> I second the recommendation for "Selling the Wheel"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.trendsaction.com/product.php?product=The+Secret+o...](http://www.trendsaction.com/product.php?product=The+Secret+of+Selling++~+Anything)

This ebook is fantastic. That's all I can say about it.

</comment><comment><USER6> You can't go wrong with SPIN Selling, especially for products.</comment>


Keurig sold for $14B to private-equity firm - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/keurig-green-mountain-agrees-to-get-bought-for-13-9-billion-1449493939 <comment><USER2> Seems like Starbucks good fortunes are tied to Keurig's bad ones. As disposable income creeps up again people are less interested in at home brewing. I'm a little relieved after all the environmental issues with Keurigs.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10678498](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10678498)</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn ASP.NET? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I generally avoid MSFT stuff, but honestly you can't beat their documentation. [https://www.asp.net/learn](https://www.asp.net/learn)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would do my best to not learn it, but rather anything else more open and cross platform by design.

<comment><USER4> asp.net is open source and runs on pretty much everything. What more do you want? [https://www.asp.net/open-source](https://www.asp.net/open-source)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pluralsight.com</comment>


What should the Winklevoss twins have done to protect their idea? - wh-uws http://www.quora.com/What-should-the-Winklevoss-twins-have-done-to-protect-their-idea/answer/John-Greathouse

<comment><AUTHOR> They should have done whatever they could to keep Zuckerberg. They had their rockstar who could execute, but they couldn't keep it together. Oh well, they still got a lot more money out of the deal than they would have had Zuckerberg never entered their life and had their app built by another developer.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'd say a standard well written NDA that specifies the role of Mr. Zuckenberg would be sufficient to take over a significantly greater role in FB. So, a standard NDA - very simple yet very effective in making sure your disclosure enjoys a good level of protection.</comment>


GitHub Continues to Face Evolving DDoS Attack - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/30/github-continues-to-face-evolving-ddos-attack/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder what kind of backlash would occur in China if GitHub decided to stop providing service to China (ie. block all known IP blocks allocated to China).

<comment><USER2> Isn't that what China wants anyways ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps that's true. But I think it's a valid strategy to pit China against itself instead of trying to fend off the attacks. GitHub (in my mind) is so important these days to the open source movement that my hunch is there would be substantial backlash in China if their best programmers could no longer participate.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you not ruin your back (as an engineer)? - <AUTHOR> Working as a software engineer, I'm sitting/standing (==> not moving!) for ~8 hours a day. Six years into the profession, I'm starting to feel the negative effects this has on my body, especially my back.
I eat healthy food and I do sports ~2x a week, but still I feel I need to go beyond this to avoid a physical breakdown before I turn 40 (or even 35).
So my question is: How do you not ruin your back/body (as an engineer)? <comment><USER2> Back pain started for me in my late 20s, I'm now early 30s and no longer have back pain. I did 2 things that seemed to help.

1: Start lifting heavy weights, focusing on primary lifts, especially Deadlifts and Squats. Start out with no weight on the bar, and add 1 or 2 KG, 3x per week. I used the Stronglifts 5x5 program as a guide. The Deadlifts seem to be key for me, as they exercise my lower back. I also do a lot of situps to increase core strength.

2: Stop sitting for long periods. I use a pomodoro system to break my work up into 25 minute shifts. Of course sometimes I'm deep into something and work for longer, but I always get up and go for a walk after a work sessions of 25 mins or more. This doesn't actually affect my productivity as much as I thought since I'm usually thinking about work stuff while I walk anyway. If anything I am better for the short breaks and thinking time.

Doing those 2 things solved my back issues, hopefully they help you as well.

<comment><USER3> I second every comment on heavy lifting and do it myself on regular basis. But please, if you have never "lifted" before don't just waltz into a gym and start yanking on barbells. This can kill your back for good.

OP's Stronglift 5x5 is based on another program, "Starting Strength". Invest the money into the "Starting Strength" book by Mark Rippetoe. This book is "standart" in the powerlifting community and it's a treasure trove on body mechanics and "strength science". It will help you understand how to perform the basic barbell moves, based on body mechanics. For example, a lot of people struggle with mobility during squats. Don't push your depth with poor form, but ease into it, until you can go "ass to grass".

Edit: Record your lifts on a regular basis, to check your form. If you are unsure, /r/fitness provides form-checks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Being an engineer probably ruins your back less than being a furniture mover or a ditch digger.

That said, you're starting to have problems. Now what?

First, pay attention. When you're sitting, listen to your back (and neck). If it's a bit off, _do something_. Change your position (posture matters a lot). Stretch. Get up and walk around for a few minutes.

Second, I stretch every morning, both my legs and my back. (I should stretch my neck, too, but I don't.)

Third, I go to a chiropractor every other week. I know chiropractors have a bad reputation on HN, and I don't buy the whole thing. Chiropractors are going to cure cancer? No thanks, I'll try an oncologist. I'll even skip the nutritional supplements they recommend. But for straightening out my spine? Yeah, they do all right at that.

</comment><comment><USER5> I was in a similar position. I started to train with Ido Portal and my problems quickly went away. Here are the basics:

* Every day is a spine day. Do 10 minutes of spine waves every day to increase vertebrae mobility - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tlMntE1WzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tlMntE1WzQ)

* Change positions when working. Learn to squat in a relaxed position. - [http://placeofpersistence.com/30-30-squat-challenge-by-ido-p...](http://placeofpersistence.com/30-30-squat-challenge-by-ido-portal/)

* Learn to hang passively - [http://placeofpersistence.com/30-day-hanging-challenge-by-id...](http://placeofpersistence.com/30-day-hanging-challenge-by-ido-portal-shoulder-forearm-strength/)

* Learn a handstand. This had tremendous advantages to my wrists, elbows, shoulders, spine, core.

My spine is healthy, flexible and strong as never before.

BTW, I wholeheartedly recommend Ido Portal's approach for movement. It was a game changer for me.

</comment><comment><USER6> Some previous discussions that I recommend:

* Ask HN: How do you keep a good posture when you spend most of your type sitting? (82 comments) [0]

* Ask HN: Posture – what do you do during work to avoid back pain? (69 comments) [1]

* Ask HN: How do I fix my posture after years at the computer? (20 comments) [2]

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16529054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16529054)

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12652368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12652368)

[2]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12652368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12652368)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Deadlifts and yoga are key.

Deadlifts strengthen the exact muscles a developer lifestyle neglect: back, wrist/forearms, and legs. They're easy to learn too via Youtube videos.

Yoga, on the other hand, will stretch said muscles out.

You can find a bit more about that at [https://algodaily.com/lessons/solving- the-health-problems-of...](https://algodaily.com/lessons/solving-the-health- problems-of-software-engineers)

</comment><comment><USER8> I use one of those kneeling chairs that increases the angle between the legs and torso and allows a proportion of my upper body weight to be transmitted down my legs and through my knees, instead of being transmitted through the pelvis on to a regular chair. In the year or so I've been using it, I very rarely experience any hip/glut pain and zero upper back pain. I also do 3 yoga classes a week...

</comment><comment><USER9> Start by finding a good physiotherapist and doing what they say. Don't confuse with chiropractors.

</comment><comment><USER10> Deadlifts.

</comment><comment><USER11> in addition to lifting: mobility exercises, foam rolling, physio

</comment><comment><USER12> Good form deadlifts.</comment>


Show HN: Lq – Alternative to Ls - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/madprops/lq <comment><USER2> What I liked:

\- Nice output layout.

\- Separated directories, files, directory links and file links.

\- Full path output.

\- Count of objects inside directories.

What would be good:

\- Accept filenames as arguments (just like directory is already supported).

\- Add an option --regex, for powerful filtering (like egrep)

\- Add an option --recursive and --ignore (or --exclude), allowing the user to make recursive listing while ignoring some directories.

Keep up the nice work. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure what you mean about filenames as arguments, how would a filename be listed?

Added regex support for --filter. For instance --filter=re:\\\d+

You mean something like what tree displays? Or just to count the items in the directory?

<comment><USER2> > Not sure what you mean about filenames as arguments, how would a filename be > listed?

Just the name of the file, like ls. Typing lq file.txt and display nothing looks like the file doesn't exist.

> Added regex support for --filter. For instance --filter=re:\\\d+

God, you are fast! Thank you!

> You mean something like what tree displays? Or just to count the items in > the directory?

Forget this silly thing. I tried using find and worked perfectly:

$ find . -type d -exec echo -e "\n$ lq {}" \; -exec lq {} \;

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks cool! Checking it out now. I have a growing interest in Nim, how do you like the language?

One suggestion I have is to output in justified columns for the non-list output, like how ls does.. gives me a headache to look at everything jumbled together.

And one final note, having short hand command flags is necessary if you want a useful command line tool. Like '-s' short for '\--salad' or '-c' for '\--count' etc

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems making the column view is a bit tricky right now. But if I manage to do it i'll release it as a nim library itself and use it in the program.

Added alt support. -s for --salad -c for --count etc. Not all commands have an alt right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The images in the repo should be accompanied by descriptions of what we can see. It is not obvious for most of them.

I say 'should', but that is pretty relative of course. The don't have to, but in order for most people, or at least me, to understand them, they should.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just added some short descriptions to each image to make it more clear.

<comment><USER4> Cool, thanks.

I must say though that 'This is a preset that turns on certain options to make it look like this.' is not much of an improvement.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Newly Remote Company Tracker - <AUTHOR> https://remote.lifeshack.io <comment><USER2> this is really cool. will you be adding a jobs board?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Add your companies!

</comment><comment><USER3> Sick tool! added.</comment>


Scots 'have 421 words' for snow - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-34323967 <comment><USER2> Of course it has no such thing, and the headline is misleading.

It has 421 words that to varying degrees are related to snow.

If you look at the actual online thesaurus [1], and expand the subcategories, you see that this includes e.g. specific types of clothing worn in snow or stormy weather.

[1] [http://scotsthesaurus.org/thescat/873/](http://scotsthesaurus.org/thescat/873/)

<comment><USER3> Feel free to write to them to complain. They might change their methodology if enough people do; as it stands, their metrics keep telling them these 'articles' are popular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are 'quotes and questions' the 'best clickbait'?

More seriously - is the headline supposed to be a statement of fact, i.e. "Scots have 421 words for snow"? The article would seem to indicate it is indeed a fact, and the 'quote' is not actually a quote.

I honestly 'hate' the use of these 'quotes'. Does anyone with any BBC knowledge know what the reasoning is behind these?

</comment><comment><USER4> If you are interested in the relationship between language and landscape/environment then I'd strongly recommend Robert Macfarlane's book _Landmarks_ [1][2]. Definitely one of my reading highlights of the last year.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/27/robert- macfarla...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/27/robert-macfarlane- word-hoard-rewilding-landscape)

[2] [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Landmarks-Robert- Macfarlane/dp/02411...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Landmarks-Robert- Macfarlane/dp/0241146534)

</comment><comment><USER5> Title is totally misleading.

At least in everyday use here, these are the only ones I know:

\- Snow (teuchters would say 'snaw')

\- Sleet

\- Snain (this is something inbetween sleet and rain, wetter than sleet)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Are there any other languages with similar things like this?

<comment><USER6> In English we probably have 421 words for "Penis"... Tells you where our priorities are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how many they have for whisky...

<comment><USER8> They have one: it's "drink (this)"</comment></comment>