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Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them

gcemetery.co

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Re: Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them

#71

Post by erik_seaberg »

ethbro wrote: post #8
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #2

Does no one at Google HQ ever have the guts to raise their hand and bring this up? It's a meme by now.

There have been some comments on here about how career advancement optimization at Google involves hopping between projects, staying long enough to launch, and then moving on. Whereas doing good work on product maintenance or evolution is much less rewarding. True or not, it would explain a lot about how Google (as a whole) behaves towards products.

While I was there, we used to joke that the claimed strategy was “launch and iterate” but the career strategy was “launch and leave”.

It’s made worse by internal churn. An unstaffed service will blow up pretty quickly (because someone in infra wanted to go for promo) so you either have to justify staffing a project indefinitely or kill it gracefully.

Re: Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them

#72

Post by codyogden »

steren wrote: post #43
jedberg wrote: post #22

I wonder what this is the average of? It is the average of just things that were killed, or the average of all products, including living ones like Search? And is it really average or is it median? > based on discontinued products listed on our website This makes me think it is only dead products, which seems like it would skew things a bit. If anything this tells me it takes them a long time to make a decision to ki…

Exactly. This website is either making a very basic mistake or is just plain misleading.

This is part of the reason why I decided not to include stats at killedbygoogle.com . When you included flagship products things like Gmail, Maps, Drive, Docs, etc the 'average lifespan of a Google product' rises significantly.

Re: Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them

#73

Post by openmosix »

ThatPlayer wrote: post #50

Like always, I have issues with these lists. Project Ara is there despite never actually launching a product. Or Google Glass is on there despite a new Google Glass hardware that was released this year. They also list Google Sky Map ( https://gcemetery.co/google-sky-map/ ) which they call discontinued because Google released it as open source and handed over reigns to another group of developers, but looking at the g…

As an owner of a $1,500 Google Glass - which now is pretty much a brick, as the companion app doesn't work anymore - knowing there is a new version in the market isn't very helpful.

Re: Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them

#75

Post by gwern »

steren wrote: post #40

Nobody is pointing the massive flaw in the headline ? This count does not consider products that have not been killed (e.g. Gmail) It's only the average lifespan of killed products.

If you'd like a formal survival analysis which takes into account that right-censoring, I did one a while ago at https://www.gwern.net/Google-shutdowns

Re: Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them

#76

Post by codyogden »

Okay, so the page/statement is inaccurate, and not just because it's been spammed to HN three times before today (seven months ago).

Since I run Killed by Google, I feel it's important to clarify that the average Google product lifespan is much longer than four years thanks to flagship products like Gmail, Maps, Docs, etc. I can't actually get a solid number despite a lovely spreadsheet of products that I actively track because I haven't even compiled them all yet. Anyway, I made a choice not to draw stats in killedbygoogle.com for a reason, and it's because they're misleading to most people. When I'm asked about it, I say, "The products listed lasted an average of about four years." KBG is cynical view of Google's product strategy by any measure, but at least it's not drawing empty and misleading conclusions.

Re: Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them

#77

Post by nontoxyc »

sct202 wrote: post #23
jedberg wrote: post #15

I noticed in the "recent deaths" section, YouTube for 3DS. This made me laugh, because at Netflix, supporting the 3DS was always a big pain. Regardless, Netflix still supports it to this day. In fact, as far as I know, Netflix has only ever killed support for one platform -- The PS2. And that was only because there were only about 10 people left using it. So we sent them all Rokus and told them we're discontinuing PS…

Netflix is the last app that works on my Sony Google TV from 2011. The YouTube app shut off after like 2015, but 8 years later Netflix is still trucking.

Ahhh my 40" google TV was too big to haul across the country the most recent time I moved. Ended up in a dumpster. Really too bad.... That was a nice TV. Good picture quality.

On the bright side I bought a new TV and found, to my surprise, digital antenna works much much better now. I have two TVs, the flat screen from ~2010 gets 3 channels, the new one gets 30. They're connected to the same source.

Re: Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them

#78

Post by alteria »

ladberg wrote: post #67
plumeria wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter example would be Google Maps. They really care about this product. I think they even support Palm OS.

I mean, they purposefully kept features off Google Maps on iOS to make Android look better, then brought them in once Apple made Apple Maps.

Do you know any articles about this? Would like to learn more.

Re: Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them

#79

Post by journalctl »

sct202 wrote: post #28
_ea1k wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but some are exceptionally bad. Why did Allo exist at all for example? And the merging, demerging involved with Messages, Hangouts, and Voice have been a complete mess. There's more there than just trying some ideas, as some of the ideas actively damaged older ideas.

I don't understand why they announced that Google Hangouts (classic) is closing to move to Google Hangouts Chat, like it's a chat app am I going to notice a difference, but now you just made me think that the whole service is shutting down?

This is what happens when companies are disorganized and don’t communicate internally.

Re: Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them

#80

Post by leoh »

heavymark wrote: post #3

I imagine Google views this as a positive thing, trying a million ideas, so that hopefully it increases the chances of having at least one good and popular idea. The downside is, a lot of products they killed were good ideas, but its sink or swim and they don't get the products the needed love and attention so they don't take off and thus they kill them. And now even when releasing a good idea or good piece of hardwa…

I find it amusing that, in a comments section that is generally irritated with Google about product shutdowns, there are also complaints that some of the products _suck_.
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