MG Siegler: Faith No More • Hacker News Board

Re: MG Siegler: Faith No More

#21

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 2:10 AM UTC

tobtoh wrote: post #13

Yhippa wrote: post #8

Did I miss something? Sounds like he got burned on a scoop. Did Google do anything bad to him? "MG: show me on this doll where Google touched you." If the application is that bad at least they retracted it. I don't know how much financial loss or other damage it did to the people who downloaded it. It probably doesn't help the overall perception of Google but I view it differently. I really appreciate their test-and-…

> I really appreciate their test-and-learn style of product releases. I do to - but don't you feel that lately they are just releasing far too early? Take the Gmail redesign - opened up to beta, they took onboard the early feedback about too much whitespace and when the fully released the new design, we had a 'compact' option - to me, that is test and learn style done well. But take the Gmail app - released into prod…

[deleted]

Re: MG Siegler: Faith No More

#22

Post by biot » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 2:24 AM UTC

Kylekramer wrote: post #17

We don't need more Apples. There is one right now, doing very well at being Apple. Google could take some cues from Apple, sure, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. The fact that MG thinks Android sucking at first and slowly iterating to a solid product is a negative is mind boggling. That is great! We are talking about a search company that in the span of few years became the dominant player in mobile oper…

It's not about being Apple, it's about solid execution. With consistently great execution, one develops faith that new products will hold up to the standards demonstrated in the past. When you release buggy, half-baked products people aren't going to get excited about what's coming out because they don't want to recommend a dud. They come to expect a low standard, rather than a consistently high standard.

Re: MG Siegler: Faith No More

#23

Post by danberger » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 2:25 AM UTC

Even though I see what MG is trying to do here, I don't agree that the botched release somehow reveals a bigger pattern at Google. It's a big company doing a lot of things and it's going to have flops along the way.

At least they're open and honest about their failures - I can respect that.

Re: MG Siegler: Faith No More

#24

Post by mikeryan » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 2:25 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #21

tobtoh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really appreciate their test-and-learn style of product releases. I do to - but don't you feel that lately they are just releasing far too early? Take the Gmail redesign - opened up to beta, they took onboard the early feedback about too much whitespace and when the fully released the new design, we had a 'compact' option - to me, that is test and learn style done well. But take the Gmail app - released into prod…

[deleted]

The bug wasn't a code defect, but a certificate signing issue, which may be masked during the certification process. More details:

http://www.tipb.com/2011/11/02/notification-error-valid-apse...

Re: MG Siegler: Faith No More

#25

Post by loso » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 2:31 AM UTC

Interesting that the main complaint is that Google does not know how to develop for a competitors platform very well. Have you taken a look at Apple's software on Windows machines? If I had to rely on the reputation of Apple simply by their software on Windows machines then they would be among the worst software companies ever.

Google+, Music, Voice, and Chrome have all been good releases but maybe not earth shattering. So Wave has given them a stench of failure? Really?

Re: MG Siegler: Faith No More

#26

Post by ryanwaggoner » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 2:43 AM UTC

Kylekramer wrote: post #17

We don't need more Apples. There is one right now, doing very well at being Apple. Google could take some cues from Apple, sure, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. The fact that MG thinks Android sucking at first and slowly iterating to a solid product is a negative is mind boggling. That is great! We are talking about a search company that in the span of few years became the dominant player in mobile oper…

There is a VAST difference between launching something simple and functional and then iterating to a solid, polished product, and launching something that sucks / is simply broken, and hoping people put up with it until you can get it right.

Apple does the former; features for v1 of their products are almost always quite limited, but what is there is polished. Increasingly, Google seems to do the latter.

It's not minimum product, it's minimum viable product. And if it doesn't even work, it's hardly viable.

Re: MG Siegler: Faith No More

#27

Post by kumarm » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 2:55 AM UTC

idle_processor wrote: post #11

It feels like the author is giving Apple an undue free pass. He mentions Microsoft and Yahoo as other companies who've failed him with bad releases, and the subtext seems to be that Apple hasn't done significant wrong. To do so conveniently ignores how bad Windows versions of QuickTime, Safari, and iTunes have been at early stages.

Early Stages? If MSFT Followed same standards as AAPL for software in their OS, AAPL would have been banned from writing software ever on Windows: http://javaswamy.blogspot.com/2010/03/hey-microsoft-how-abou...

Re: MG Siegler: Faith No More

#28

Post by MatthewPhillips » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 3:12 AM UTC

Agree with the general sentiment but Google Music is better than iCloud music.

Re: MG Siegler: Faith No More

#29

Post by nchuhoai » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 3:14 AM UTC

tobtoh wrote: post #6

I found this paragraph to be insightful: "When Jobs took the stage to unveil something, people got excited not just because he was a great showman but because it instilled an underlying belief that what he was going to unveil would be great. You know that whatever it was, he signed off on it. And the vast majority of the time, it was great. That built trust. Faith." I have to agree - whilst Apple had it's stumbles fr…

Move fast, break things. I dont mind it. That's what start ups do. I'm glad that after being a company of that size, sergey and larry still try to operate like a startup

Re: MG Siegler: Faith No More

#30

Post by MatthewPhillips » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 3:17 AM UTC

tobtoh wrote: post #13

Yhippa wrote: post #8

Did I miss something? Sounds like he got burned on a scoop. Did Google do anything bad to him? "MG: show me on this doll where Google touched you." If the application is that bad at least they retracted it. I don't know how much financial loss or other damage it did to the people who downloaded it. It probably doesn't help the overall perception of Google but I view it differently. I really appreciate their test-and-…

> I really appreciate their test-and-learn style of product releases. I do to - but don't you feel that lately they are just releasing far too early? Take the Gmail redesign - opened up to beta, they took onboard the early feedback about too much whitespace and when the fully released the new design, we had a 'compact' option - to me, that is test and learn style done well. But take the Gmail app - released into prod…

Google Wave is hardly recent though. It's easy to cherry pick bad products from a company that releases gobs of them. I could point to GameCenter. Or Ping. Or MobileMe or iBooks.