Provides a good reason to downplay having a fancy interface - avoid tipping off the competition.
What were the key decisions that Page and Brin made in the early days of Google
21–30 of 57 posts
Re: What were the key decisions that Page and Brin made in the early days of Google
#22The highest ranked answer on that thread, though it contains some interesting details, is way off. Managing VCs well was not what made Google successful-- or what makes any startup successful. The real key decisions were things like realizing search itself was important, at a time when all the other search engines thought it was unsexy, and were trying to get people to start calling them "portals" instead; designing…
There are really only TWO decisions that google made that made them successful. When something works, people like to go back and look at complicated things and say that those are the reasons it worked. The reason that google beat the others were really very simple and they had to do with the front-end only: 1. They were the simplest to use at the time. All the other search engine things had a lot of frills and pages…
I beg to differ.
First, it is simply not true that Google "included ALL the words you typed in". Google ignored "common" words like conjunctions and certain pronouns for a very long time.
Second, I think it's fair to say that Google's speed and quality of results were significant contributors as well.
Third, Larry's decision to make AdWords ads live immediately was, I think, one of the key factors in drawing users to AdWords.
Fourth, ad syndication through AdSense was a significant contributor to Google's revenues.
I could go on. I think it's nowhere near as simple as you say.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page and Brin made in the early days of Google
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are really only TWO decisions that google made that made them successful. When something works, people like to go back and look at complicated things and say that those are the reasons it worked. The reason that google beat the others were really very simple and they had to do with the front-end only: 1. They were the simplest to use at the time. All the other search engine things had a lot of frills and pages…
I beg to differ. First, it is simply not true that Google "included ALL the words you typed in". Google ignored "common" words like conjunctions and certain pronouns for a very long time. Second, I think it's fair to say that Google's speed and quality of results were significant contributors as well. Third, Larry's decision to make AdWords ads live immediately was, I think, one of the key factors in drawing users to…
Adwords came MUCH MUCH later, when Google dominated the landscape. Of course, by all words, I don't mean useless words like conjunctions.
When people think back, they blur factors (like you are blurring adwords with googles initial success). I was there when Google took over, and it WAS as simple as I said.
They first had a popular search engine, and they built a good business on top of that. The business building part was complex, probably, but getting the search engine to be popular was just a front-end thing.
Googles speed was not relevant, Altavista and many other search engines prominently displayed how fast they were. There was a sort of speed competition at the time, so Google was not significantly faster than the others. Those other engines (like altavista) did not even have websites with lots of images or so, so it loaded just as fast as google.
Picking the right user-interface has been the reason for success for many companies. People will come and overcomplicate it later, but in the end, it was just the user-interface that made them win.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page and Brin made in the early days of Google
#24The highest ranked answer on that thread, though it contains some interesting details, is way off. Managing VCs well was not what made Google successful-- or what makes any startup successful. The real key decisions were things like realizing search itself was important, at a time when all the other search engines thought it was unsexy, and were trying to get people to start calling them "portals" instead; designing…
It's also full of inaccuracies. The "interesting details" are largely wrong. Unfortunately it's written in an authoratative style, so people assume it's true and upvote, demonstrating one of the major flaws in vote based systems.
Agreed re voting systems.
I believe that a good Q&A site should use "voting" to recursively find smart people who are similar to you and can provide you with good answers....as opposed to showing the most popular/well-written/pithiest answer. "PeopleRank", maybe.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page and Brin made in the early days of Google
#25Lots of entrepreneurial navel gazing going on both in the linked site and in these comments. Everybody has their own theory about the reasons x y z why company a b c is successful, be it Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. The problem is every opinion is partially correct, no one can disprove anything, and there is no right answer.
The stories of successful companies are inspirational to some degree, but as a way to vicariously learn how to be successful they fall woefully short of the mark.
The best thing for entrepreneurs to do, is simply to make something happen. Build something people want, and if you fail, learn what you can and try again.
You never know and can't know which decisions are the ones that matter, so forge ahead.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page and Brin made in the early days of Google
#26The highest ranked answer on that thread, though it contains some interesting details, is way off. Managing VCs well was not what made Google successful-- or what makes any startup successful. The real key decisions were things like realizing search itself was important, at a time when all the other search engines thought it was unsexy, and were trying to get people to start calling them "portals" instead; designing…
Yup. At a time when everyone else had given up on search, mainly because they thought that was as good as it could possibly get and thus the future was in other "value add" areas such as portals and directories, Google's founders saw a way to do it better. They married multiple revolutionary innovations (page rank, commodity PCs as servers, sharded computation / "datacenter as a system") and combined with a little bit of usability sense they provided higher quality search results which rendered faster and at lower per result costs.
What they did was enter an existing market with a lot of competition and do something that the competition was absolutely incapable of matching without going back to the drawing board (there are a few other companies who do this too, the list is left as an exercise for the reader). They followed it up with new ways of advertising online that made search a money maker.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page and Brin made in the early days of Google
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I beg to differ. First, it is simply not true that Google "included ALL the words you typed in". Google ignored "common" words like conjunctions and certain pronouns for a very long time. Second, I think it's fair to say that Google's speed and quality of results were significant contributors as well. Third, Larry's decision to make AdWords ads live immediately was, I think, one of the key factors in drawing users to…
Adwords came MUCH MUCH later, when Google dominated the landscape. Of course, by all words, I don't mean useless words like conjunctions. When people think back, they blur factors (like you are blurring adwords with googles initial success). I was there when Google took over, and it WAS as simple as I said. They first had a popular search engine, and they built a good business on top of that. The business building pa…
> Adwards came MUCH MUCH later
It's AdWords, not Adwards. And it launched in September of 2000, when Google absolutely did not "dominate the landscape."
Do you even bother to check your facts, or do you just make shit up?
Re: What were the key decisions that Page and Brin made in the early days of Google
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Adwords came MUCH MUCH later, when Google dominated the landscape. Of course, by all words, I don't mean useless words like conjunctions. When people think back, they blur factors (like you are blurring adwords with googles initial success). I was there when Google took over, and it WAS as simple as I said. They first had a popular search engine, and they built a good business on top of that. The business building pa…
> Adwards came MUCH MUCH later It's AdWords, not Adwards. And it launched in September of 2000, when Google absolutely did not "dominate the landscape." Do you even bother to check your facts, or do you just make shit up?
In September 2000, Google was already the most important search engine out there. It was already successful, and adwords had nothing to do with its success. It had 20million in the bank already.
Please avoid the personal attacks, it's not good form.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page and Brin made in the early days of Google
#29The highest ranked answer on that thread, though it contains some interesting details, is way off. Managing VCs well was not what made Google successful-- or what makes any startup successful. The real key decisions were things like realizing search itself was important, at a time when all the other search engines thought it was unsexy, and were trying to get people to start calling them "portals" instead; designing…
It's also full of inaccuracies. The "interesting details" are largely wrong. Unfortunately it's written in an authoratative style, so people assume it's true and upvote, demonstrating one of the major flaws in vote based systems.
hey paul! why don't you write an answer there, instead of commenting here? the quoran community could benefit too :)