Apparently, “Area 120” is the Google Unit for products that launch without any textual explanation of what they are or how to use them, just low-information-density YouTube walkthroughs.
So basically, ‘where ideas go to die’.
Tables: Tracking work for teams
181–190 of 375 posts
Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams
#182Strangely, why does a company like Google, wakes up so late when Airtable hits Series-D and not Series-A/B/C ? Looks like its straight forward product for somebody who makes google spreadsheets.
I wonder that too. Their gSuite products evolve soo slowly (when was the last time diagrams changed?).
Ironically, unlike desktop software when you had to convince people to purchase a new copy each year, it seems like the Cloud distribution model allows google to basically put their products in maintenance mode indefinitely since people will still be paying for the subscription each month and switching cost is high.
Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams
#183What a useful app. Reminds me of Airtable in some ways. I enjoy a good flexible table app any day. We're all tired of the obligatory "I wonder how long before Google deprecates this...;)" but I wonder if Google would get better adoption if they explicitly published what would be needed for them not to drop the product... 1M monthly users? 3M? ...xM? or that when a project actually reaches that point.
nothing will lead to better adoption, because, as others have pointed out, google has trashed its brand (at least among techies) because of structural issues like promotion-hopping and big game hunting (where, for example, a $50M business is just way beneath them).
further, we're never going to get sustainable businesses out of google because they don't have the patience relative to their search and advertising behemoths. these kinds of projects are designed to keep the more adventurous developers in the fold with golden handcuffs, to both reduce existential threats to google and as a held front in the developer wars against other tech companies. lastly, constraints spur ingenuity (business and technical), and google engineers are just too comfortable for that.
all that (and more) means that google is simply not in the business of creating new businesses, no matter the rhetoric. unless something drastic changes, there's no reason to invest in any new google development.
Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams
#184My gut reaction: it looks great! Also, there is no way I’d use it unless Google committed to not killing it off for at least five years. I don’t mind trying experimental personal tools, but I really don’t want to get a whole team of people reliant on this thing, just to see it get cancelled like the hundreds of other projects Google has killed over the years. A paid support option would be nice too - I think I saw so…
I believe it's "Google One" - https://one.google.com/about/support
Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams
#185Like, why? I wonder sometimes why large corporations bother with stuff like this. OK I understand Gmail was a fantastic unicorn for Google and so might this be - but given that why risk using it?
I have a wider question too; large organisations spend millions building internal tools like this (and for a plethora of other things technical and project related). None of which are market leading and all of which progress steadily to abondonware...
It feels like once a corporation has gotten to that point its just too large and lost its core focus. I've seen (recently) pivots from poor UI's and interfaces to integrating one great SAAS tool with another great SAAS tool - because both the SAAS figured out all that stuff ages ago for you... at 10% of the cost.
Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams
#186Like, why? I wonder sometimes why large corporations bother with stuff like this. OK I understand Gmail was a fantastic unicorn for Google and so might this be - but given that why risk using it? I have a wider question too; large organisations spend millions building internal tools like this (and for a plethora of other things technical and project related). None of which are market leading and all of which progress…
Diversifying.
Simplified: If you spend $1 million each on ten projects, each of which have a 90% chance to fail and 10% chance to bring in $100m in profits, then it is absolutely worth it
Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams
#187My gut reaction: it looks great! Also, there is no way I’d use it unless Google committed to not killing it off for at least five years. I don’t mind trying experimental personal tools, but I really don’t want to get a whole team of people reliant on this thing, just to see it get cancelled like the hundreds of other projects Google has killed over the years. A paid support option would be nice too - I think I saw so…
Is it even remotely possible that Google would sell discontinued products to other entities, e.g. raise money to buy Wave as a separate company or something like that?
Google products are generally dependent on a whole lot of services which only exist within Google, so it'd probably have to be rebuilt after a sale.
Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams
#188My gut reaction: it looks great! Also, there is no way I’d use it unless Google committed to not killing it off for at least five years. I don’t mind trying experimental personal tools, but I really don’t want to get a whole team of people reliant on this thing, just to see it get cancelled like the hundreds of other projects Google has killed over the years. A paid support option would be nice too - I think I saw so…
Is it even remotely possible that Google would sell discontinued products to other entities, e.g. raise money to buy Wave as a separate company or something like that?
I would guess the monorepo makes this very difficult to do
Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams
#189Any idea when or if this will be available outside the US?
Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams
#190My gut reaction: it looks great! Also, there is no way I’d use it unless Google committed to not killing it off for at least five years. I don’t mind trying experimental personal tools, but I really don’t want to get a whole team of people reliant on this thing, just to see it get cancelled like the hundreds of other projects Google has killed over the years. A paid support option would be nice too - I think I saw so…
Is it even remotely possible that Google would sell discontinued products to other entities, e.g. raise money to buy Wave as a separate company or something like that?
Not as long as products are built on top of proprietary internal SDKs such as google3, borg etc. Google started to open source some of the internal projects (e.g. bazel), which, among other things, would make it easier to just donate / spin off a project they are no longer interested supporting.