Monday, May 20, 2013

"Offline?" What's That?



Man ever since +Google+ introduced the new Hangouts app, I've never seen so much whining about a paradigm that no longer is relevant.  People just can't seem to move on, get past it, and wake up to the year 2013!

What am I talking about?  The old "online/offline" thing.  Here's the situation: in Google Talk there was a little dot indicator to show you someone's status.  Green meant online, orange meant away, and red meant offline.  In Google Hangouts, the app that replaces Talk, that indicator is no longer there...and people are freaking the hell out.  If you doubt me, allow me to share a few choice comments I've snagged from the Google+ Discuss community and a few from the comments in the posts of the peanut butter powered CM of Hangouts, +Dori Storbeck:


  • "I want to see who is online... not second guess if they are or not." 
  • "On desktop at least we have "green" for online people, but yeah I'd hope that basic features like "green" and "orange" would be on mobile as well."
  • "Any chance you can add the ability to change status (Busy/Online/Away) in Hangouts? There is a bug (maybe a feature?) where if I use Hangouts strictly, people who are using Gtalk view me as offline."
  • "hate that my contacts are no longer grouped online. I used to see friends online and just say hello. Now I have to search for individuals. Not crazy about the Gtalk replacement."
  • "I WANT to see who is online..  ...... I don't want to look in Gmail to see my list of people"
  • "It does matter who's online and offline.  If i want to contact someone offline, I'll send them an sms.  Sometimes I go offline so I don't have to receive IM's.  I don't want to come back online with a bunch of IM's waiting for me."
  • "I don't need to chat with people who are offline.  I don't want to see a long, convoluted list.  I just want to see those of my contacts who are online, plain and simple."
I could probably go on, but I think I've made my point.  Bottom line is that people don't want this to change, but here's the thing: the way we use the internet has changed enough so that this very simply doesn't matter anymore.  

Think back to when Instant Messaging first came about and really got pushed into the limelight.  E-mail was the best way of getting in contact with people that were far away, long distance calling was expensive, but with IM you could have a conversation with anyone on the globe if they used the same IM service you did and were in front of their computer.  That last bit was the most important; they had to be in front of their computer and they had to be online (remember that dial-up was the standard back then, and people usually only connected when they had to).  Back then, you needed an indicator telling you what their status was.

Now let's fast forward to today.  Broadband internet is the standard; our computers are always online.  We carry around internet connected phones that are more powerful than the computers we used when we first sent men to the freaking moon.  You can have a live video conversation with someone on the other side of the world and it costs you just as much as it would if you were in a video call with your next door neighbor - and that cost is normally free.  Quick question for you, dear readers: are you ever actually offline?  Think about it.  You might not be sitting at your computer 24/7, but I'm willing to wager that your lovely internet-connected smartphone isn't more than 10 feet away from you right now.  Hell, for the majority of you it's very likely either in arms reach or you're reading this very article on one right now.

Online/offline is a bygone product of an internet era that is over, and has been for a long time.  You don't need to know if a person has their cell phone in their hand before you send them a text message, so why in the world would it matter for an instant message?  The world has changed.  The way we use the internet has changed.  I'd suggest that you all change with it.


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