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Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

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Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#101

Post by joebadmo »

shadowfiend wrote: post #93
joebadmo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your premise. The two previous "compromises" you cite are both examples of giving you what you want, instead of what you said you want. While your anecdotal data says that you are annoyingly misled by that, I'm sure there's a measure of selection bias there, and I'm sure Google has a lot more than anecdotal data. I'm a bit confused by the recent outcry about relevance. Do people disagree that social s…

The thing about social relevance is it has to still be relevant. Some of the examples out there, like linking to Google+ profiles that aren't updated vs twitter profiles that are, throw relevance right out the window in the favor of a “social” link. In essence, if they can't get those social signals via fb or twitter, they simply shouldn't use them. Trying to build your own social network that is getting questionable…

I agree that the social relevancy stuff is clearly not very good yet. But 1. I expect it to get better; and 2. Google faces a chicken-and-egg problem of not being able to extract meaningful signal from an unused social network, and a social network that no one will use, especially if it has no meaningful impact on search.

Bootstrapping the social product by funneling your actually successful product's users into it seems like a fairly obvious and reasonable approach to me. (I'd rather not get into an antitrust argument here, since that's been done to death, and I find it pretty uninteresting to begin with.)

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#102

Post by RobertKohr »

I don't care much about google+ infiltrating search.

What I care most about is that searches are now more fuzzy.

If I want to search for terms : A B C D

The results will consist of things with any combination of those items, and sometimes things that are similar to those items.

There used to be a + operator to force things, but that has been removed in the last half year.

They supposedly added back something similar when you wrap things in quotes, but that doesn't work either.

Now when I go to bing and search for +A +B +C +D, it really does just return only the results I am looking for.

This is critical for searching for tech stuff.

Not convinced? Try: +trueskill +javascript In google, bing, and duckduckgo.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#103

Post by Aloisius »

HerraBRE wrote: post #79
Aloisius wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: have there been any success stories of ex-Googlers starting their own companies? I've been under the impression that the few that have had successful exits were bought by Google itself, mostly as talent acquisitions.

Wait, what? It sounds like you are defining success or failure solely in terms of whether there is a big-money exit or not. That seems so... sad. What ever happened to "provides employment" and "provides value to its customers"? Anyway, I'm an ex-Googler who started a company after leaving. It's still too early to say whether we'll be "successful" by any metric, but I'm really enjoying it so far, which is enough for…

No, it is just that exits are an easy to see measure of success. Any company that is no longer a startup or had significant traction would be a good measure of success as well.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#104

Post by Karunamon »

RobertKohr wrote: post #102

I don't care much about google+ infiltrating search. What I care most about is that searches are now more fuzzy. If I want to search for terms : A B C D The results will consist of things with any combination of those items, and sometimes things that are similar to those items. There used to be a + operator to force things, but that has been removed in the last half year. They supposedly added back something similar…

FWIW, you can enclose things in quotes to force strings to be searched verbatim. It's an extra character, true, but it does work.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#105

Post by [deleted] »

libraryatnight wrote: post #31
Kylekramer wrote: post #20

It is quite the jump from “This is the path we’re headed down – a single unified, ‘beautiful’ product across everything. If you don’t get that, then you should probably work somewhere else" to "Agree with SPYW or GTFO". One is an admirable goal for a whale of a company and the other is a stubborn denial of contrary opinions. I thought Pando Daily was suppose to be a "different" tech news site.

I don't think Sarah Lacy is capable of producing a "different" tech news site, really. The article read like a tabloid.

[deleted]

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#106

Post by Peaker »

rryan wrote: post #74
brador wrote: post #21

Leaders should lead with a unique style. Their way. Larry's playing catchup with Facebook while thinking he can be Steve Jobs, and that, together with guarding the cents by removing the little things that made life @Google awesome (bagels anyone?) has led to low morale among the workforce. Geeks with low morale don't get shit done. They don't innovate. They don't create. Google staff aren't code monkeys, they're not…

Bagels. Really? That's what it takes to make life at $COMPANY awesome? What about working with smart people on interesting problems?

You can turn it around and ask: Really? Is the morale of the employees not worth the cost of a bagel?

Removing the small benefits sends a message to the employees -- and it's the wrong message to send.

In my company, we've had lots of nice little luxuries in our kitchen. Slowly, they removed these, bit by bit. They save an astonishingly small amount, but morale did suffer because of that. Our extra happiness at the workplace is not worth the cents to the management -- is basically the message.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#107

Post by danilocampos »

joebadmo wrote: post #95
danilocampos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The two previous "compromises" you cite are both examples of giving you what you want, instead of what you said you want. While your anecdotal data says that you are annoyingly misled by that, I'm sure there's a measure of selection bias there, and I'm sure Google has a lot more than anecdotal data. You can wave your hands around in pretty patterns all you want – the fact remains I'm a user who used to enjoy the pr…

You can wave your hands around in pretty patterns all you want – the fact remains I'm a user who used to enjoy the product and now is frustrated by it. I'm not alone in this. Have they annoyed enough users for it to be a big problem? We'll see. But big or not – it's a problem. I'm not sure what you mean by "wave your hands around in pretty patterns." I'm not denying that these things annoy some or even many users. I'…

I think we disagree on Google's legendary omniscience. Minimizing the years-long frustration I, and many I've talked to, have experienced because Google knows best is a hollow argument to me.

The quality of their product degraded and they just kinda... did nothing about it for awhile. It got so bad it had to turn into a press thing before they did something about it. The press is damn lazy, so for my money, that means something.

As to the rest – I share you admiration for that kind of gumption. Money can so easily blind and poison progress. So the strategy to continue evolving is sound! The tactics, though, are dubious.

I'd say that any changes to search need to be made with relevance, convenience and user satisfaction as inviolable factors. Anything else is playing with fire in a library, if you're Google.

Or maybe not. We'll see.

I just really want my 2007-era Google search back.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#108

Post by CJWelle »

bjdixon wrote: post #2

So, what are people using as alternatives these days? I use gmail, google talk and google.com exclusively for email, chat and search. If (for arguments sake) I wanted to switch what is there of similar quality that still be around and relevant in 3 or 4 years?

I see many great suggestions here, but calendar replacement has not been suggested yet.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#109

Post by pshc »

danilocampos wrote: post #56

A few decades from now, when someone writes up an HBS case study on Google, how will it read? My suspicion is that Google is going to treat us to a very painful object lesson: what happens to your business when you compromise the values of a beloved core product. Here's the thing: having the most complete, most accurate, most relevant search results means never having to say you're sorry. You can add ads, you can do…

Regarding your first complaint, I find that 90% of the time the suggestion for a different spelling is in fact the search I wanted. The 10% of cases where I was searching for something obscure do stick out in my mind more, but I'm OK with that. They've optimized for the common case, typos, which is a win overall. I haven't noticed any extraordinary synonym replacements myself, though, the stem's always been the same...

I hope their search quality improves. I understand it's an arms race with spammers, and they do give a lot of value for free minus ads. I guess I'm so attuned to identifying bad results by now that I haven't noticed much variability in results quality. But echo-chamber curation doesn't feel right, and the feel is important.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#110

Post by marshray »

icebraining wrote: post #85
apg wrote: post #5

This all makes no never-mind to me, as I'm going to turn that right off (you can do that, right?). I prefer to evaluate on my own what information is relevant and what isn't. Happy accidents, you know. Did Google ever announce what the rationale for this is, from a revenue perspective? Is a link with content that a person is likely to recognize also likely to generate extra revenue?

I'm going to turn that right off (you can do that, right?) Yes. Settings icon ( ⚙ ), then Search Settings, then Do not use personal results.

What if you don't want to tell them who you are at all?

I.e., you block cookies.

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