Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Buzz

google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 176 posts

Re: Google Buzz

#131

Post by nostrademons »

sfk wrote: post #127
nostrademons wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. GMail was fundamentally innovative - do you remember what webmail was like before it launched? GMail gave us a gig of storage and Google search over your inbox and threaded conversation view and keyboard shortcuts and a UI that didn't require page refreshes between each message. Similarly, Maps was fundamentally innovative. If you went to GMaps c. 2005 and then went to MapQuest, there was absolutely no compa…

I'm afraid I don't agree with your use of the term "innovative". Regarding Gmail, I'd rather say they managed to clone mutt+procmail for the web in a reasonable manner. Regarding Maps, the fundamental operations had been in place since at least 2002 at e.g. http://www.nl.map24.com/ . Actually I haven't been there for quite some time, and I think in 2002 their interface was actually better than now.

We'll just have to agree to disagree then, because I don't see how anyone could look at mutt+procmail vs. GMail and say GMail wasn't innovative, or at nl.map24.com and say GMaps wasn't innovative. Both of those seem ridiculously hard to use by today's standards.

Re: Google Buzz

#133

Post by sketerpot »

yungchin wrote: post #110
fnid2 wrote: post #90

I wonder if, when a company crosses a threshold we all think violates a Nash equilibrium, we start to oppose the company. With this move, Google is declaring war on a host of web companies that are heretofore thriving and collaborating and making tons of money. Every dollar of advertising that Facebook makes is a dollar or even more from Google. Every minute that facebookers facebook, google isn't showing them ads an…

> I wonder if, when a company crosses a threshold we all think violates a Nash equilibrium, we start to oppose the company. Do you mean "we, the people" or "we, the people who think in terms of Nash equilibria"? ;) More seriously: I don't think I care about how big the company is. Rather, I care about the quality of the product, and whether I am free to leave it for a competitor's product. Google is actually trying t…

> Do you mean "we, the people" or "we, the people who think in terms of Nash equilibria"? ;)

The latter, of course. WE ARE A NEW PEOPLE! WE WILL PREVAIL!

More seriously, I don't care about how big the company is either, as such -- but I do worry about a company that gets so big and so diversified that it may become anticompetitive and stifle innovation. Remember when Microsoft had the power to hold back innovation, and we were stuck with IE6 for years and years? Didn't that just suck?

Google is being a lot better about this, mind you. They seem to genuinely care about interoperability and making it possible for competitors to beat them by being better. And they've got good products and smart people and a non-broken management structure. I feel good about Google. Nevertheless, a Google-dominated web is something to worry about. I hope that there are always viable alternatives. Not because I think Google is evil and corrupt, but because I worry that they could become so.

Re: Google Buzz

#134

Post by sketerpot »

JohnHarnett wrote: post #111
jfno67 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing consulting in insurance companies, I can tell you Facebook have been banned for a long time, and twitter more recently. As an outside consultant I have gmail, but the employees sometimes don't have it.

I work in a big insurance corp, Facebook not banned there, but twitter and friendfeed were blocked after they appeared on tv or made the news by getting bought for millions. Blocking remains arbitrary and ineffective as about 2/3rds have iphones or similar. RSS remains the way round all the muscle flexing of IT depts, I'm amazed it hasn't been understood mor

I'm guessing the reason RSS isn't cracked down on more is because not enough people are using it. That makes cracking down on it not worth the trouble.

Re: Google Buzz

#135

Post by drats »

roc wrote: post #65
yungchin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I never got about Wave - that they didn't somehow integrate it with Gmail, not even loosely. After I got a Wave account I invited a couple of friends, and they checked it out - signing in once, and forgetting about the whole service after that. So I tried including them in a few "waves", but there was no option to get email notifications of new waves! Of course they never returned, and the next time 'roun…

I've been thinking that they should initially roll WAVE out as plumbing. They could transplant GMail/Buzz/Google Talk/etc to run on Wave without forcing people to learn the interface up-front. Users would be building up content 'in' Wave and Google would be slowly integrating the features that Wave makes easy. Then the Wave interface (the biggest stumbling block for most) can be introduced as an optional power-user i…

I presume that integration will be what they are aiming at with their operating system.

Re: Google Buzz

#136

Post by Lazlo_Nibble »

gxs wrote: post #95
alexandros wrote: post #67

One thing that just struck me, is that google/gmail will not be banned from workplace computers as often as fb/twitter have been. This alone will be a significant advantage.

I've been fortunate enough to never have been employed at a company where the employer things its good practice to ban certain websites. How common is this? What field do you work in?

In financial services there are excellent regulatory and operational reasons for blocking a wide variety of web sites.

Re: Google Buzz

#137

Post by enneff »

jsz0 wrote: post #129

I'm going to reserve final judgement until I actually get a chance to use the service and see the direction Google wants to take it. My first reaction is not positive. This feels like Google's Microsoft Money moment Go into a market with an established leader, use your size and dominance to undermine the competition just because you're the 800lbs gorilla and you need to be fed at any cost. There doesn't appear to be…

Have you looked at the Geo features? The integration with several existing services? Of course it is not a new idea, but to say "just a Google logo" does a great disservice to the team who've been working hard on this project.

Re: Google Buzz

#138

Post by Teulon »

gxs wrote: post #95
alexandros wrote: post #67

One thing that just struck me, is that google/gmail will not be banned from workplace computers as often as fb/twitter have been. This alone will be a significant advantage.

I've been fortunate enough to never have been employed at a company where the employer things its good practice to ban certain websites. How common is this? What field do you work in?

I've worked in Healthcare, Law Enforcement and the Military; the only time it wasn't blocked was when I had my own company.

Re: Google Buzz

#139

Post by Teulon »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #97
cantastoria wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has always been this way as far as I can tell. They're basically using Microsoft's old strategy of "clone it and give it away so we can sell more of Windows" only with Google it's ads. The difference is everyone still loves them. Microsoft was seen as ruthlessly destroying their competition. Google is seen as innovative. Bizarre.

What did Microsoft ever give away to sell more Windows? (Serious question.)

They used to give away free copies of MS Office at Military conventions to senior personnel. The idea was that those people would start using the new default formats and others would be required to buy upgrades. It worked quite frequently that I know of.

Re: Google Buzz

#140

Post by andreyf »

sketerpot wrote: post #133
yungchin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if, when a company crosses a threshold we all think violates a Nash equilibrium, we start to oppose the company. Do you mean "we, the people" or "we, the people who think in terms of Nash equilibria"? ;) More seriously: I don't think I care about how big the company is. Rather, I care about the quality of the product, and whether I am free to leave it for a competitor's product. Google is actually trying t…

> Do you mean "we, the people" or "we, the people who think in terms of Nash equilibria"? ;) The latter, of course. WE ARE A NEW PEOPLE! WE WILL PREVAIL! More seriously, I don't care about how big the company is either, as such -- but I do worry about a company that gets so big and so diversified that it may become anticompetitive and stifle innovation. Remember when Microsoft had the power to hold back innovation, a…

Seriously, what does this have to do with Nash equilibria, and how is Google "violating" one?
Post reply on HN