Why does Google think that users will like Google Currents instead of Google Reader?
Enough tears spilled , petitions signed, unkind words about “Google” said and alternatives suggested after the news about the imminent closure of Google Reader.
Therefore, we will not repeat them, but pay attention to the closing message. It says that Google concentrates energy on fewer products, and this focus will lead to an improvement in the quality of survivors:
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What is the focus of the company? On a thing called Google Currents!
For quite a long time, ads of Currents I saw in the main promo-placement of Play on Android. But the description and screenshots were somehow not impressed.
Then Alla Zabrovskaya, head of the Google Russian PR-direction, in answers to questions from Roem.ru by March 8, mentioned that she uses Currents:
This fueled interest enough to deliver and view the application.
In short, Currents is such a simpler and more glossy Reader with very limited content choices. Or not limited, but recommended by Google. After installation, the user is immediately subscribed to the "top" edition, divided into simple categories. Then the user can add other resources from the directory and remove uninteresting. News presented in the form of "cards", friends from Google Now. It looks beautiful, but when there are a lot of them, you can wipe the hole in the screen, because it will take a long time to flip through non-compact (in comparison with Google Reader headers) cards.
On the left is a menu with subscriptions. If you click on the group header, the application shows in full screen beautiful pictures from subscriptions. But to go to a specific news on them is impossible. For example, if you see a photo of Yuri Milner and want to find out what he is listening to there in headphones, then you will not succeed. Well, or you need to go to the Reuters tape and find there among the unimaginable amount of news exactly the one that about Milner. The task is non-trivial, I tried (and found). When you click on a particular edition, you can go to his tape. Some tapes are then divided into sections.
The Russian editions, for obvious reasons, are few and work worse than foreign ones. If the tape The Verge is all of attractive pictures and without technical flaws, then Kommersant is not so beautiful, there are duplicates of the same news and the like.
But the funny thing is in the description of the Currents application in Play (in Russian it is called Google Media):
Subscription to feeds there really is, although it works very badly. You cannot add completely new feeds, only those that you already read in Google Reader are available. New feed entries appear with a delay of several days. Grouping no.
In general, how the Currents application makes a rather strange impression. Of boredom in the queue, in the subway or traffic jam pozombit in beautiful pictures and random news, of course, you can. But because of too simple structure, it is difficult to plan work with a large amount of information in such an application.
At the same time, in the interface for “publishers”, the edition settings wizard suggests, first of all, to set an RSS feed for articles (there are a lot of screenshots here ). That is, of course you can bury RSS / Atom, but Google may not send a wreath. Other content delivery options are a YouTube channel and manual article creation in HTML.
But what, in fact, was the reason for writing this material, this update on my Android phone version to 4.2.1. After the update, Currents is put to everyone as a system application that can not be deleted.
Close the long-running and loved by many Reader, in order to do everything to promote raw Currents. How do you like that kind of focus?
Therefore, we will not repeat them, but pay attention to the closing message. It says that Google concentrates energy on fewer products, and this focus will lead to an improvement in the quality of survivors:
')
as a company we're pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We will make you a better user experience.
What is the focus of the company? On a thing called Google Currents!
For quite a long time, ads of Currents I saw in the main promo-placement of Play on Android. But the description and screenshots were somehow not impressed.
Then Alla Zabrovskaya, head of the Google Russian PR-direction, in answers to questions from Roem.ru by March 8, mentioned that she uses Currents:
I read articles from both Russian and foreign media. I like its interface - you can watch specific editions and top news.
This fueled interest enough to deliver and view the application.
In short, Currents is such a simpler and more glossy Reader with very limited content choices. Or not limited, but recommended by Google. After installation, the user is immediately subscribed to the "top" edition, divided into simple categories. Then the user can add other resources from the directory and remove uninteresting. News presented in the form of "cards", friends from Google Now. It looks beautiful, but when there are a lot of them, you can wipe the hole in the screen, because it will take a long time to flip through non-compact (in comparison with Google Reader headers) cards.
On the left is a menu with subscriptions. If you click on the group header, the application shows in full screen beautiful pictures from subscriptions. But to go to a specific news on them is impossible. For example, if you see a photo of Yuri Milner and want to find out what he is listening to there in headphones, then you will not succeed. Well, or you need to go to the Reuters tape and find there among the unimaginable amount of news exactly the one that about Milner. The task is non-trivial, I tried (and found). When you click on a particular edition, you can go to his tape. Some tapes are then divided into sections.
The Russian editions, for obvious reasons, are few and work worse than foreign ones. If the tape The Verge is all of attractive pictures and without technical flaws, then Kommersant is not so beautiful, there are duplicates of the same news and the like.
But the funny thing is in the description of the Currents application in Play (in Russian it is called Google Media):
- Blogs and feeds. Combine all your subscriptions in Google Reader, as well as your favorite blogs and feeds in a beautiful collection that will look like a real magazine.
Subscription to feeds there really is, although it works very badly. You cannot add completely new feeds, only those that you already read in Google Reader are available. New feed entries appear with a delay of several days. Grouping no.
In general, how the Currents application makes a rather strange impression. Of boredom in the queue, in the subway or traffic jam pozombit in beautiful pictures and random news, of course, you can. But because of too simple structure, it is difficult to plan work with a large amount of information in such an application.
(I personally ( sinodov ) were generally interested in the approach to the formation of recommended content: the only thing I signed up for in Google Currents was the Roem.ru feeds. It would be logical to expect something appropriate as recommendations, but no - Google advises reading Rap news Up. Required and by all means)
At the same time, in the interface for “publishers”, the edition settings wizard suggests, first of all, to set an RSS feed for articles (there are a lot of screenshots here ). That is, of course you can bury RSS / Atom, but Google may not send a wreath. Other content delivery options are a YouTube channel and manual article creation in HTML.
But what, in fact, was the reason for writing this material, this update on my Android phone version to 4.2.1. After the update, Currents is put to everyone as a system application that can not be deleted.
Close the long-running and loved by many Reader, in order to do everything to promote raw Currents. How do you like that kind of focus?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/173309/
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