I honestly never used it, and am completely unaffected by this.
What was the most successful product that emerged out of google labs?
Google Labs no more
11–20 of 82 posts
Re: Google Labs no more
#12I get the feeling that the bean counters are taking over Google and slashing off everything that doesn't have obvious monetization potential. I mean, I know great people who work there, but overall it seems like they're turning into Microsoft circa 2000 - they own the industry, they buy startups and kill the products made by about half of them. Some of their products are great, but a lot of it is just an obvious mono…
You would never seen something like "Labs" from Apple, and everyone applauds them for "focus".
Anyone who has been to WWDC and seen their engineering staff present will know that they're given a bit of leeway in the design of the products they work on.
Real artists ship - the expansion and creation of new API's in their software shows this.
Just because they can't work on whatever with 20% of their time doesn't mean it's a no-creativity nose to the grindstone environment.
Re: Google Labs no more
#13I get the feeling that the bean counters are taking over Google and slashing off everything that doesn't have obvious monetization potential. I mean, I know great people who work there, but overall it seems like they're turning into Microsoft circa 2000 - they own the industry, they buy startups and kill the products made by about half of them. Some of their products are great, but a lot of it is just an obvious mono…
Yeah, I always thought Labs was a part of Google's identity. What next, no doodles because it's a waste of time? :-(
Re: Google Labs no more
#14I get the feeling that the bean counters are taking over Google and slashing off everything that doesn't have obvious monetization potential. I mean, I know great people who work there, but overall it seems like they're turning into Microsoft circa 2000 - they own the industry, they buy startups and kill the products made by about half of them. Some of their products are great, but a lot of it is just an obvious mono…
You would never seen something like "Labs" from Apple, and everyone applauds them for "focus".
I'm about as much of a Google fanboy as you can be and unfortunately zdw's words ring true.
Also, in spite of Apple's success I'm not sure Google would do well to emulate them. I (and I would guess many others) have loved Google because they aren't Apple, though unfortunately they do seem to be inching that way at an increasing rate.
Re: Google Labs no more
#15I honestly never used it, and am completely unaffected by this. What was the most successful product that emerged out of google labs?
Maps, reader, docs
Re: Google Labs no more
#16I honestly never used it, and am completely unaffected by this. What was the most successful product that emerged out of google labs?
Google suggest which later got integrated in main page is one, I guess.
Re: Google Labs no more
#17Does anything remotely like Bell Labs exist today? Is it simply not possible with everyone tightening their belts?
If you're unfamiliar with what came out of Bell Labs, check out this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_labs#Discoveries_and_devel...
Or is it the fate of software innovation that it is to be decentralized and happen in our spare time now?
Re: Google Labs no more
#18I honestly never used it, and am completely unaffected by this. What was the most successful product that emerged out of google labs?
Not sure if this includes other services like Gmail Labs, but I relied on "attachment reminder" throughout college. It has saved me multiple times, including now in my professional career.
Re: Google Labs no more
#19RIP Google Sets :(
The logic behind Sets actually lives on, at least for now, within the autofill feature of Google Spreadsheets. Fill a cell or two with sample data, then option-drag (control-drag on Windows) the square autofill handle.
Re: Google Labs no more
#20The whole domain would redirect back to google.com.
Last night when I went to Googlelabs.com via the newest announcement of retirement of services from google [1] was indeed the last time I visited it.
The fact that many of the labs projects are still active made it much uneasy to find those products anymore.
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