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Expunging Google

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Re: Expunging Google

#101

Post by lobster_johnson »

gnur wrote: post #96
lobster_johnson wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm saying that Google is innovating very little. Indeed, it's primarily innovating in areas not related to the web (which the article is about). Search, Maps,YouTube have not evolved much the last few years; the last true innovation was Street View, and the last truly useful addition to Search was the fact database integration. Android is basically just following in Apple's footsteps. Wallet I don't know anythin…

Too bad you are so hard trying to make your point you lose connection with reality. Android, in its core, is so entirely different then iOS that saying "following in Apple's footsteps" is just wrong. What has changed in recent major (!!) iOS updates? Twitter & Facebook integration.. Seriously? While Android 4 revamped the entire user interface, streamlined ui & ux and allowed for buttonless phones (apart from power).…

Those are not innovations, those are incremental improvements. (If you want to call all minor improvements innovation then, well, everyone's innovative.) Innovations are new products and new ideas.

Of course Android is following in Apple's footsteps; Apple came first, after all, and established everything that Android has since also implemented. Whatever Google is doing, it's an incremental improvement on that revolutionary approach to smartphones. Google Glass is innovative, possibly even revolutionary; but Android isn't.

> Google Maps recently added vector based maps

I doubt users notice that. (I'm a developer and I haven't noticed.) (Also, didn't Apple do this first, with the Maps app?) I'm sure there is lots of technical, low-visibility innovation happening at Google, but that's not what we are talking about here.

> Search has added countless quick results

Again, miniscule, evolutionary improvements.

> Gmail has litteraly changed web based mail and still continues to do so.

Gmail launched in 2004 and has hardly changed since then. Sure, it got priority inbox (a minor feature, hardly the revolutionary feature they claimed), GTalk and themes. Not really innovations in any meaningful sense. Gmail is possibly the worst example of all, since everything after 2004 has essentially been polish.

> Also, [Go] isn't an offcial Google product, so stomping Go to the ground really shows how you are just bashing away.

The parent was the one who mentioned Go, I merely responded.

Re: Expunging Google

#102

Post by mtgx »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #36
felipelalli wrote: post #30

exagerado.

Nah, farsighted :) Seriously, you just wait. If you're a user on a commercial system you didn't pay for (Google, Facebook, etc.) then you're not a customer, you're cattle. Your value is directly proportional to how much the company running the system knows about you. I don't like where Facebook is going, and I think Google is following in their footsteps, albeit helped along by an excellent reputation for quality and…

99% of websites make money from ads. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Imagine if everyone even asked for $1 per month to sustain themselves. That would be unfeasible. Ads are here to stay.

Re: Expunging Google

#103

Post by gurkendoktor »

RWeaver wrote: post #75

People want their news curated, either through hacker news, reddit, Google plus or something else. For a minority RSS was their preference, but for everyone else Google correctly shifted their resources to the future. RIP RSS, you had your day in the sun and lead the way for better products.

That's a false dichotomy - I can consume curated news through RSS just fine. Trivium is one of my favourite feeds, for example.

The only difference between using RSS and following the author on FB/G+/Twitter is that I can use any client I want, and neither of us has to use yet another web service.

Re: Expunging Google

#104

Post by dalks »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #93
rattray wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd have to disagree on the innovation point. Google continues to make dramatic improvements (imo) to many of their apps and services. As a developer building on Docs/Drive, I've seen that service continuously grow and expand, though much of the work remains below the waterline. Similarly, Maps, Now, Voice Search, Chrome, App Engine continue to be improved at a rate that outstrips what I'm used to at most other compa…

Google does iterate their products, but I don't see much innovation. Granted, I haven't tried Now, as I don't have an Android phone, but it does sound like real innovation. I just don't see much happening with other products. Chrome? Just getting slower and more bloated. App Engine? Does nothing for me that Heroku doesn't. Docs, while impressive, came out years ago, and Drive is basically a Dropbox/iCloud clone. Goog…

So as you suggested, lets simply want to ignore Now, Android, Maps, Glasses and Self Driving cars:

Chrome: A hell lot of features that are pushing web forward, arguably the best development tools, significant contribution to Webkit (now to Blink), becoming platform for Chrome OS, v8 engine that serves as basis for NodeJs.

App Engine/Drive: So when Heroku/Dropbox does it, it can be called innovation but when GAE/Drive does it, it is just iteration? That's an insane standard to work against.

> doesn't even support formatting other than bold and italic, how's that for retrograde.

There is no way you could argue that supporting lists and headings will suddenly make Google+ an innovative product out of nowhere. What I find awesome are Hangouts and circles. They work very nicely for me, YMMV. You can set the entire profile to be hidden and no one will be smearing contents of your private life anywhere. I am not sure exactly is this complaint coming from.

Re: Expunging Google

#105

Post by dalks »

mtgx wrote: post #100
dalks wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> de-factory monopoly Not really: - Video: Till Oct '12, youtube's market share peaked at ~52%. [1] - Email: Gmail surpassed Outlook in market share only in Oct '12. [2] - Search: Google Search 67.5% as of March 15, 2013. [3] > many of these services have stagnated And when they attempt to get out of markets so that other new companies can perform better, we get Reader like response. > Google does not seem to care mu…

>Email: Gmail surpassed Outlook in market share only in Oct '12. Sorry, you can't say "Outlook" when it's actually "Hotmail". Just because Hotmail had 400 million accounts, doesn't mean Outlook will have, too. Outlook only had 10 million accounts last I checked.

Aah, I thought they just moved everyone from Hotmail to Outlook and that they are now the same thing. Unfortunately, I can't edit the post now.

Re: Expunging Google

#106

Post by lobster_johnson »

RestlessMind wrote: post #38
lobster_johnson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem with Google at the moment is the centralization of many popular services into one corporate entity. Video, search, email etc. are all now in the hands of, mostly, Google. With so few viable competitors, you get a de-factory monopoly as well as insane growth. The centralization itself is the problem. Success like this does not breed innovation. Aside from some novel extra-Internet projects like Glass…

> Aside from ..., Google does not innovate much, and many of these services have stagnated Can you please give a few examples of innovative companies these days? (And I am totally serious, no snark/sarcasm intended)

Good question. There aren't many. Most of the ones I can think of (Kickstarter, Github, Heroku) launched years ago and have since built on their success without really innovating much beyond the initial idea.

The YC portfolio has a lot of interesting, innovative startups. No products that I use myself at this point, though.

Right now, personally, the new idea I find the most exciting is crowd-funding computer games. Last year I spent a ton of money on Kickstarter to fund small indie developers such as Double Fine.

Re: Expunging Google

#107

Post by lobster_johnson »

dalks wrote: post #104
lobster_johnson wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does iterate their products, but I don't see much innovation. Granted, I haven't tried Now, as I don't have an Android phone, but it does sound like real innovation. I just don't see much happening with other products. Chrome? Just getting slower and more bloated. App Engine? Does nothing for me that Heroku doesn't. Docs, while impressive, came out years ago, and Drive is basically a Dropbox/iCloud clone. Goog…

So as you suggested, lets simply want to ignore Now, Android, Maps, Glasses and Self Driving cars: Chrome: A hell lot of features that are pushing web forward, arguably the best development tools, significant contribution to Webkit (now to Blink), becoming platform for Chrome OS, v8 engine that serves as basis for NodeJs. App Engine/Drive: So when Heroku/Dropbox does it, it can be called innovation but when GAE/Drive…

> Chrome: A hell lot of features that are pushing web forward …

There are technical innovations, but I thought we were talking about product innovations. Users don't care about WebGL or canvas or CSS3. Those things are not innovations to them.

The only significant user-facing innovation in Chrome is arguably the extension/app store. Maybe incognito browsing, although I believe Safari had that first.

> App Engine/Drive: So when Heroku/Dropbox does it, it can be called innovation

The word "innovate" derives from the Latin name for new. You don't innovate by copying. Heroku (as far as I know) launched a year before Google, and is clearly prior art. Dropbox launched years before.

> There is no way you could argue that supporting lists and headings will suddenly make Google+ an innovative product out of nowhere

I didn't say that. I said that the lack of support for formatting is old-fashioned (the opposite of innovative, really).

Re: Expunging Google

#108

Post by fpgeek »

chmike wrote: post #81

When I registered on Quora by using my GoogleId, I was very surprised to see Quora asking me to send an email invite to all my Android phone contacts. Google handed over all the emails of my Android phone contacts to Quora ! Is this what I get from using Android and synchronization ? I didn't see an opt out of that. I'm now waiting for Ubuntu phone, while hoping that they don't try to monetize it using similar abuse…

No, that's what you get when you don't read the permissions you are granting. Here is the permission request I saw:

  Quora is requesting permission to:

    View basic information about your account
    View your email address
    Manage your contacts
Given that, you shouldn't be at all surprised that Quora was able to figure out your phone contacts.

Re: Expunging Google

#109

Post by dalks »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #94
dalks wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> de-factory monopoly Not really: - Video: Till Oct '12, youtube's market share peaked at ~52%. [1] - Email: Gmail surpassed Outlook in market share only in Oct '12. [2] - Search: Google Search 67.5% as of March 15, 2013. [3] > many of these services have stagnated And when they attempt to get out of markets so that other new companies can perform better, we get Reader like response. > Google does not seem to care mu…

Would love to see some market-share breakdowns. Still, that's pretty huge. I expected them to bigger at video, but I guess there is a pretty long tail of smaller providers such as Vimeo and Liveleak and what not? > And when they attempt to get out of markets so that other new companies can perform better I really doubt that they canceled Reader for such altruistic reasons. > And how are you sure that FastMail and Vim…

> Still, that's pretty huge.

They are not monopolistic, like you said.

> they canceled Reader for such altruistic reasons

There is no evidence that it was done to bring more users to Reader (like the article suggested) either. They did allow you to takeout your reader content. So yes I do evidence that they hope that users find services that fit their needs.

Re: Expunging Google

#110

Post by peterclary »

tikhonj wrote: post #56

Even assuming Google is not being malicious--and I think that's a broadly safe assumption--I'm still concerned. I'm am significantly over-reliant on Google's serviced: my email, my calendar, my OpenID, my web search, my videos, my phone, my maps, my web browser... (Well, I do use Firefox now.) It's a single point of failure. A rather scary one at that. Some of these things do not have good alternatives. My phone? I c…

Could you explain how Apple is malicious? That's quite an assertion and not one I've previously heard.
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