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Why I Left Google

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Re: Why I Left Google

#101

Post by pragmatic »

nextparadigms wrote: post #75
CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #56

As a Microsoft employee, I wish this hadn't been posted to a Microsoft-branded website. Other than that, I thought it was an interesting perspective and I loved the money quote: "I couldn’t even get my own teenage daughter to look at Google+ twice, “social isn’t a product,” she told me after I gave her a demo, “social is people and the people are on Facebook.”"

But "the people" were on Myspace, Hi5, Friendster and other social networks before Facebook - hundreds of millions of them. So clearly it's something about the product, too.

Yes, those services were cool (at the time).

Google+ is only cool for geeks, if even that. I'm not sure what to do with Google+. The technical folks I work with aren't sure. The non-technical people barely know it exists.

Re: Why I Left Google

#102

Post by ryanmolden »

cromwellian wrote: post #87

http://www.quora.com/Who-is-the-Bing-Director-of-Test-that-l... Maybe the third time will stick?

Is that the same guy (I honestly don't know)? There is no answer on Quora that I saw. If so, then yeah that post would be viewed in a very skeptical light. If not, well then unrelated.

Edit: Looking at other responses about his history I doubt it, it sounds like he previously worked in DevDiv (my home), not OSD (the home of Bing).

Re: Why I Left Google

#103

Post by ChuckMcM »

jf wrote: post #76
ChuckMcM wrote: post #67

Ouch. Not enough people think about year 10. You know, that's when you're 10 years old as a company and you've got a lot of huge successes behind you. Kind of like teenagers when they realize that finding a job is suddenly not an 'optional' thing in their lives. James' rant here reminded me of a similar rant I read (internally) at Sun on its 10 year anniversary. They had published a book all about Sun's first decade,…

> Ten years on, ask yourself, "What value do you bring to the table?" if you don't know, that is a big problem. Is there a reason you shouldn't be asking yourself that after every year you spent at a company?

Oh absolutely but if you've ever gone hiking without a compass you may have experienced the 'many straight segments run you in a circle' kind of effect. Generally for a 'huge' success the first 10 years are just developing potential, there aren't a lot of questions because its 'obvious' where you need to be.

But once you get to the top of that mountain, you really need to think long and hard about the next mountain you are going to go for. I've always been a big fan of a 1yr, 3yr, 5yr planning system where every year you think about those three time frames, yet as a core value perspective you need a different scale to think about things. Ten years seems to be a reasonable tech scale.

Re: Why I Left Google

#104

Post by nirvdrum »

nextparadigms wrote: post #75
CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #56

As a Microsoft employee, I wish this hadn't been posted to a Microsoft-branded website. Other than that, I thought it was an interesting perspective and I loved the money quote: "I couldn’t even get my own teenage daughter to look at Google+ twice, “social isn’t a product,” she told me after I gave her a demo, “social is people and the people are on Facebook.”"

But "the people" were on Myspace, Hi5, Friendster and other social networks before Facebook - hundreds of millions of them. So clearly it's something about the product, too.

While that's true, I don't think any of them really had critical mass. Of those you mentioned, I had precisely one friend on Myspace, none on Hi5 or Friendster. I had two friends on Orkut. I think Facebook played it smart by making it an exclusive network on college campuses at first, then opening it up.

Re: Why I Left Google

#105

Post by iamgilesbowkett »

Steko wrote: post #96
iamgilesbowkett wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an automated filter site at http://hacker-newspaper.gilesb.com/ -- "don't click on what doesn't interest you" is way inferior to "don't see what doesn't interest you."

That's interesting but I'm not sure what your asking of us to solve your inability to filter the things you don't want to see. Site would cease to exist if everything one user wasn't interested in was removed. Your filters will always turn up some things you want to just like they'll always filter some things you wish they wouldn't. You'll have to live with that degraded experience the rest of us have and not click o…

Actually I made minor progress on it by just banning the msdn domain.

I think I've also figured out a pretty cool product idea from this as well. However I'm not going to get into it here because people have taken my product ideas and turned them into products twice now (actually one of them was a Hacker Newspaper iOS app which looks very, very, very similar to my http://hacker-newspaper.gilesb.com/).

In terms of what I want, well, any ideas on how to improve signal/noise on HN, whether via automated filtering or some other method.

Re: Why I Left Google

#106

Post by pragmatic »

paul wrote: post #50

I also miss the old Google. I think it's a mistake to blame this on ads though. I don't believe that the G+ crusade is being driving by advertising (though I'm sure it looks that way to people who assume that everything is about ads).

Given your experiences/history, I for one would like to know what you think is driving the G+ crusade.

What disappoints me is how much it has failed. I used to love Google products, but lately...not so much.

Re: Why I Left Google

#107

Post by davemel37 »

cpeterso wrote: post #59
davemel37 wrote: post #33

I think Google+ 's mistake, like the author, has to do with a changing doctrine, but i think it has more to do with a branding issue than an innovation or technology issue. (it could be both, but i would argue perception comes before reality when it comes to success) I think "Google+ is a dud," has less to do with whether social is broken, but rather with human perception and branding. Much the way Google owned the c…

Sounds like you've read Ries and Trout's classic marketing books ( Marketing Warfare and Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind ). They should be required reading for startup hackers.

Indeed. My first Exposure was Laura Ries as a Guest on Fox Business. Since that point I have read all of their books and completely agree that Positioning by jack trout and al ries is a Must Read, as are their other books.

Re: Why I Left Google

#108

Post by MatthewPhillips »

vibrunazo wrote: post #71
rickmb wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Please enlighten me, what is Google+ (or Facebook for that matter) about if it isn't about advertising? Because as far as I know, every service that isn't about being so great people would pay for it is about advertising and nothing else.

It always seemed to me that social is the evolution of search. And google knows this very well. Social signals are very important for finding what you're looking for. The idea of g+ was always to implement something like the new "google + your world" on a larger scale on all google products. If they didn't do this, they would fall behind to the competition. They felt forced to. Erick Schmidt once said something like…

There's nothing evolutionary about "social signals". It's very, very old. Since the beginning of time advertising companies have used big data to better target their ads. Facebook obviously makes this easier, but it is not new. 20 years ago advertisers knew, within a margin of error, what type of car you drove, how much money you made, and whether your wife was pregnant.

Social signals are less valuable than search terms. Search terms very often lead to a direct purchase. Social is just another avenue, like TV, to build brand awareness. It's very valuable, but it's not search-valuable.

Re: Why I Left Google

#109

Post by natrius »

whiletruefork wrote: post #73

The author states that in his time at Google he realizes it was always a company funded by ads, but that he did not have to personally feel the need for Ads in all products. That's a fair point. Where I lost him is his connection of Google+ with Ads. I disagree that G+ is an Ads play. It's a play for staying relevant on the internet. When you think about it, Facebook is a closed system. They want CNN to post articles…

"When you think about it, Facebook is a closed system."

People say this all the time without any justification. As far as I know, all content within Facebook that has no privacy restrictions can be viewed without being a Facebook user. Facebook has an API that can be used to both read and write.

Facebook is stingy with phone numbers and email addresses, which is a significant failing in my opinion. Other than that, I can't imagine a more open social network that allows users to control who can see their content.

Re: Why I Left Google

#110

Post by pragmatic »

antirez wrote: post #41

IMHO what's sad is that Google+ is not better than Facebook for average people. Better is, for them, more warm, where you may express more about you in a simpler way, and so forth. Google+ is clearly designed by people not exactly in touch (mentally speaking) with the average person using Facebook, that's why nobody of the non tech guys want to switch to it. p.s. IMHO Google is going to lose in the email space soon a…

^ this.

G+ is a worse Facebook (and not in the worse is better sense).

Gmail is getting slow and the recent changes haven't been for the better. In fact it's hurt usability for common users for the (dubious) benefit of "power" users.

The unified google interface is rather crappy. I don't know which which i have to click/hover/etc to get to my account settings.

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