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Google to shut down Keen, its experimental Pinterest-like social media platform
(alternativeto.net)
I've literally never heard of Keen until this article.
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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The traditional way to learn about Google services is from the shutdown announcement.
No surprise. Nobody talks about new Google projects any more, since the assumption is they'll be gone in a year.
Edit: Not even hyperbole. This very article states Keen was launched in 2020 and stopped receiving updates in 2021. They shelved it in literally a year.
At least they didnt intigrate it with Gmail or some other insane bloat they like to do.
I'd have appreciated them integrating Google reader with Gmail instead of killing it off
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My ass is still a little chapped from Google Plus integration with Youtube.
Cursed with multiple accounts to this day for a stupid service they could barely force me to use.
My understanding is that Google "rates" its leaders by the number and types of projects they develop. Ergo there are a lot of people working on disparate items that often overlap, because it's "their" project. Once the project completes, they get their credit, stop caring, and move on to the next. It is said this is why google creates then kills so much. It's by design, essentially. The products they keep are the ones that make the most ad revenue.
Yup. Even if Google came out with a really cool service tomorrow that I found far better than alternatives, I still wouldn't use it, because unless I'm very lucky, it'll be axed at some point. And Google has only themselves to blame.
I'll happily shout from the rooftops about my dislike of Apple (their philosophy, faux environmentalism, price-gouging, anti-competitive, anti-repair BS, I could go on for a while), but when was the last time they did this? The fucking Newton? Sure the iPod was axed, but I think it's fairer to say the market axed MP3 players, rather than Apple axed the iPod.
If Apple announces something, you can be almost certain it'll still be around in a decade.
Look at Apple Maps. It was an absolute joke when it came out and people mocked and memed it relentlessly.
If Google were in that position, they'd have just scrapped it and moved on to their next project that'd probably be scrapped too.
Fuck Google's dumb businesses practices, and fuck them for making me say something to Apple's credit. Makes me feel dirty.
The iPod was axed after what, 15 years?
I know they make shoes.
The only Keen I know of (and acknowledge) is the Commander:
Throwing together a service, telling no one, then promptly cancelling it (often because no one used it) is truly the Googlest thing.
why do they even do that when it's just gonna waste their resources?
They invest in a project thinking they can make money off it but forgot to advertise that it exists
So experimental I didn't even know Google had a Pinterest-like social media platform.
Literally never heard of it, which is probably the reason and kinda makes it a good call?
It's just self-fulfilling prophecy at this point. No one trust Google to keep anything around for more than a couple years so they don't use it. Then it gets scrapped as a failure and everyone is proven correct.
yep. I don't go near Google products anymore because I know I'm gonna have to migrate a short while later. I don't understand how they're not seeing this
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An unrelated thing killed by Google that just makes me giggle.
So they upgraded phones once and then said, "fuck that."
Lol
Almost 2 years, so they didn't upgrade even once.
Right. Some people believed that they would somehow get a free phone after two years, so were extra pissed over it.
But all it really was was that you could start the program again and get another phone that you would pay off over the next two years.
293 products and counting.
Someone stop this bloodthirsty maniac!
I guess they weren't so keen on it.....
Yet another Google platform I never heard of that is shutting down
Never even heard of it
Me neither but I'm sure the Google program manager who proposed it got promoted for that long ago.
"The decision to shut down Keen is in line with Google's shift away from social media and follows a trend of ~~Area 120 projects closing due to company restructuring and layoffs in 2023~~them killing everything they build."
Shut down what?
I also never heard of this product, so the first thing I thought of was Keen Software House (makers of the game Space Engineers).
I thought they made shoes
Or Keen Games, the makers of Enshrouded (and as far as I know, unrelated to Keen Software House)
... First time I've heard of it. Maybe that's why it's shutting down.
Read about it and more in this month’s riveting issue of 
.
Norm!
This was one of my favorite bits that he did. I use it all the time!
Never heard of it, ever.
I know Google has a terrible reputation for killing their projects but this one is just an experiment from Area 120 so it's not surprising or terrible that they're killing it or weren't advertising it.
Another one bites the dust
No way!
Why stop there? Shut it all down. Pull the plug.
I'm still waiting for Android to be deprecated
How is Google the top advertiser and yet nobody knows about their other products??
I have seen dead social media or social media approaching its dead, but I ve never seen this. Keen looks like it had zero activity for a long, long time.
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