Google has started the final transition to the new Google Places Forums.
When Google says shut down, they mean shut down. They will be closing down the current Places forum and taking all of the existing material off line. All existing posts will be redirected to the home page of the new forum by Thursday of this week. All current and past posts (there are 39699 of them) will be taken down and will no longer be accessible.
This will effectively be the 5th move for the Place’s forum in 5 years. Originally part of the Maps forum on the GoogleGroups Platform, the Places Forum (then known as the Local Business Center) was moved with Maps to the current forum and then split from that forum into its own forum several times before this most recent move. Google transitioned most of their other products over to the new platform over the past 6 months with this being one of the last to move to the new platform.
This wouldn’t be an attempt to whitewash, would it? Nah, Google wouldn’t do that…
Comment by Brian Combs (31 comments) — March 12, 2012 @ 7:54 pm
They’ve showed some major improvement in support the last couple of months. Really looking forward to a more streamlined product. I have high hopes.
Comment by Tony Griego (2 comments) — March 12, 2012 @ 8:37 pm
@Brian
Whether that is the case or not, it will be perceived that way. For a company that claims to organize the world’s info they seem all too ready to remove their own history from the web. Hard not to be cynical about it.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — March 12, 2012 @ 8:58 pm
Oh Jesus, I hope we all don’t wake up Thursday to a new Branding of our beloved “Google Places”. We’re all due for a good pop from the Sledgehammer again.
Comment by Jeffrey (57 comments) — March 13, 2012 @ 4:11 am
I will be curious to see how they pass the authority of top contributor that they built with the help forums thus far. Will it be a smooth transition or bumpy road for the community?
Comment by Daniel Hollerung (15 comments) — March 13, 2012 @ 12:41 pm
What I truly love about Google is their unabashed ignorance of basic SEO procedures. If I had a client that wanted to simply redirect all their old pages to a “new” home page I would say they are nuts. Guess when you make the rules, control the rules, and set the procedures for enforcing those rules you can do whatever you want.
Comment by Mark (109 comments) — March 13, 2012 @ 1:23 pm
@Jeffrey
You never know… we are still waiting for the Google Plus + Places shoe to drop
@Daniel
They grandfathered all of the TCs in and have been very gracious about providing training.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — March 13, 2012 @ 1:24 pm
Mike: As you know all too well things have changed dramatically over time. Issues and problems from the past are sometimes not relevant now.
But sometimes they are and they could crop up again.
Still this removes a history that has some value. I’m going to try and make the time to copy some threads.
Its all their rules all the time. Such is life living with and off of the 400 pound gorilla. Alas.
Comment by earlpearl (784 comments) — March 13, 2012 @ 5:02 pm
I really wish Google would stop looking at their Google Places product as “free”. It’s the best gateway to Adwords they have and deserves all the pampering that comes with handling potential new clients.
Comment by Chris Gregory (17 comments) — March 14, 2012 @ 7:37 am
“They grandfathered all of the TCs in and have been very gracious about providing training.”
Ditto that!
I am really impressed with the relationship Google is building with the TCs. Often we extend beyond just helping users in the forum and are almost like a focus group – providing suggestions, critiquing features, challenging decisions, evaluating new updates, etc. AND they listen and amazingly often implement our feedback. (Except for the decision to kill the old forum. We all spoke out adamantly about that, to no avail.) But other than this issue, I’m extremely impressed at their responsiveness to most of our suggestions.
Comment by Linda Buquet (293 comments) — March 14, 2012 @ 11:05 am
I can’t understand removing the data and old threads at all. They have multiple values of a variety of sorts:
1. For Google, outside commentary ultimately was key to improving results and finding problems. There is historical, research, and insight value to those old threads, especially ones that instigated positive changes.
2. For research. People study this stuff. There is a lot of value for people going forward. Google, who has a monopoly position on eyeballs on the web is an open forum for interaction on the processes that reflect how people see local results.
It is as if 1,000 years of books are being burned. That is tragic. In fact sort of a crime toward learning.
3. For reference. For some who have worked on these issues over the years the references to older issues help frame current issues. What an incredible loss.
Its hard to understand in any context. Google said its there to chronicle the web. Then it wipes out access to its own contribution.
Tsk tsk tsk. Bad bad bad monopoly
Comment by earlpearl (784 comments) — March 14, 2012 @ 3:07 pm
Hi Mike – any idea how to get RSS feed for new group? I don’t see it.
Comment by Keenan (13 comments) — March 15, 2012 @ 1:41 pm
I don’t think there is an RSS feed. You can subscribe to emails
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — March 15, 2012 @ 1:42 pm
Mike, you’re the man!
Comment by Keenan (13 comments) — March 15, 2012 @ 2:26 pm
All Topics in Google and Your Business Forum
Topics in Need advice?
Topics in Technical issue?
And these feeds should work in Google Reader only – probably wont elsewhere. Right click and ‘Copy shortcut’ then paste into the new subscription box in GReader:
New Messages New Topics
Comment by Barry Hunter (21 comments) — March 15, 2012 @ 3:04 pm
What is a “TC” as the (apparent) abbreviation is used in comments 7 and 10?
Again, please pardon my ignorance.
Comment by Peter Egan (10 comments) — March 15, 2012 @ 9:59 pm
Barry you rock SO hard! Was struggling without my forum feed.
@Peter TC = Google Top Contributor. Mike and I and several others are. Here is info explaining it with all our bios.
http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2449544&topic=1656871&ctx=topic
Comment by Linda Buquet (293 comments) — March 15, 2012 @ 10:36 pm
Oh and FYI the old forum already closed this afternoon and everything is being re-directed to the new forum.
I’m in mourning over the loss of the old forum. But we just get over it and move on I guess.
Comment by Linda Buquet (293 comments) — March 15, 2012 @ 10:41 pm