back to article Fretting Googler retracts anti-Google+ rant

A Google engineer who accidentally published a long rant about the failings of Google+ has since issued an apologetic make-up piece, explaining why he has taken the piece down, how kind Google are for not immediately firing him and that really Steve Yegge is a lowly oompa-loompa who knows nothing and to whom nobody should pay …

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  1. twelvebore
    Headmaster

    So do you reckon that the Google "bulldog" enforcers got to him?!

  2. Jolyon

    What's the relevant level of cynicism?

    Can't work out if this is viral marketing or not.

    I know that even negative news stories always specify Facebook and Twitter if they can (even on the BBC where they shy away from specifying brands in other markets) so could this be a way of raising the profile of Google+ which might be better than others if anyone actually used it?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      All clear

      Not this time. To begin with, Steve Yegge's a well-known figure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Yegge who's been publishing similar rants internally and externally for years, back to his Amazon days.

  3. auburnman
    FAIL

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

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Lasting outcome?

      That diatribe won't last longer than a second in the collective memory of the Internet.

      in Facetard's minds it won't even register.

      You can also say Google became popular because it dumb-ified the search engine to its most basic interface: a single text box, using crowd sourced context to figure what you probably mean.

      When put this way they're both quite stupid really.

      1. Raz
        Meh

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

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

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No kidding

      At a previous job I posted a ranty rant about my boss on google+ when it was being trialled.

      I week later, a friend informed me that if you searched for my name ranty rant was the third hit on google.

  4. mraak
    Thumb Up

    +1

    Is his letter (post) indicating what G+ really is? Simple and honest WIP?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    tit

    lessons:

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

    but if you can't do that ...

    sleep on it before you click <send/>

    and if you do click ...

    stand by what you post...

  6. Rajiv Dhir

    Well his truth is an old truth to programmers. It isn't a proper language if you can't write the compiler in the language itself.

  7. Graham Marsden
    FAIL

    "he accidentally set the post to be available publicly"

    And thus neatly demonstrated how stupid it is to post anything like this on a "social network".

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    what's wrong with Google and the world ..

    .. is that Larry hasn't called this guy for a lunch already.

  9. TeeCee Gold badge
    Joke

    Slow news day?

    "Bloke shoots mouth off while pissed as a fart. Apologises next day."

    Other news: None.

  10. Rob Moir

    There's probably the makings of a snark about how google's privacy model for G+ is so complex they can't even understand it themselves in here somewhere.

  11. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    "Amazon is hell to work for but they understand computing as a peer service."

    Is the the thrust of the article.

    And that if you want Chrome to show web pages larger, hell is where you can go to. Apparently. Or, well, I use Opera.

    If he, as a developer interested in web services on intranet and internet, can't find any in the company he works for, it seems unlikely that they are there and he doesn't know it. Amaz†on has zillions, apparently. It also has a gazetteer service to find the other services.

    Accessibility for him is mainly about cleaning unnecessary junk off of Amazon's web site, if only you could, but also about users who for any reason find the twenty-first century audiovisual blitz, stereoscopic, haptic and kinesic interface that someone wants to offer them a challenge. Having to dance a special Microsoft dance to get into your Kinect network (BiIl Gates: "Yes! You shall all dance for me!") is the sort of thing that's going to exclude a lot of people. How -do- disabled users work that thing?

    Yours scratching this on a touchscreen because keyboards finally ruined my hands for keyboarding. Buy yourself a bendy ergonomic keyboard while there's still time.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Peoples' Republic of Google?

    Maybe they've taken on the Communist state values.

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