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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

#171

Post by amstr »

yanw wrote: post #58

So instead of commending the CEO on articulating a vision and being determined about it the author somehow spins the words to fit the Google bashing theme of her previous posts. To be clear: "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" != “Fuck off”. There is plenty that could be said about the sad s…

The disturbing thing is that people here at news.yc -- hopefully a fairly informed bunch -- seemingly aren't able to see past the infuriatingly self-serving nature of a "Don't Be Evil Toolbar" created by "Facebook & Twitter" employees. And, Facebook, which happily used its dominance in social to lock out users from bulk-exporting contacts during the Google+ launch now complains that Google is leveraging its dominance in search?

OP: I'd be really interested to hear your take on why tech blogging is so pro-Apple/Twitter/FB and anti-Google. I have no connection to Google but it seems to me that Google is by far doing the most good in the world compared to the other 3 (Although Twitter has also done good things during e.g. the Arab Spring).

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

#172

Post by jrockway »

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…

Is this referring to Google?

If so, I am confused as to where this sentiment is coming from. We still get our three free meals a day, 30" monitors, standing desks, microkitchens no more than 100 feet away, and many other perks. I'm certainly encouraged to work hard, not only because the compensation is good, but because writing software at Google is so fun.

I think the media is getting the wrong impression of what internal problems Google has. Most don't say anything publicly because the internal discussion fora are much nicer than ones on the "real Internet", and because it's hard to speak publicly about Google without speaking for Google and accidentally revealing something confidential. Anyone saying "Larry Page said XXX in an internal meeting" is leaking confidential information, and as a result, all that information is going to be used for is sensational source-less tabloid articles.

Yes, people leave Google, but it's probably not due to cutbacks in perks or Search Plus Your World. It's probably, "I want to do something new!"

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

#173

Post by Stormbringer »

While I agree with the premises that

(a) doctoring the search results is killing the golden goose

and

(b) Google is essentially just a big advertising company

The reality is that even with watered down results they are still better than their competitors.

If I want to search MSDN then Google gives better results than Bing.

Think about that for a moment. How can Bing be a serious competitor to Google when they can't even search their own site properly???

So I think that there is some wriggle room for Google here. They can water the beer down... but it is still better than the cow piss the pub down the road is serving.

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

#174

Post by Stormbringer »

nazar wrote: post #60

Meta: Throwing the new terms as SPYW around as if they have been around for at least for decade I believe is wrong. At first I thought its some kind of certificate, or even some kind of vaccination.

SPYW

...sounds like spyware... ...looks like spyware...

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

#175

Post by Stormbringer »

redthrowaway wrote: post #120
flyt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand: one click opt-out is ok for Google but not for Facebook's product launches?

Facebook's ongoing record is one of introducing opt-out products that harm user privacy. This is just a matter of preference. Nobody is hurt by SPYW, and it's far easier to disable than many of facebook's updates. The issue with Facebook's changes to privacy was not that they are opt-out, but that they were opt-out and significantly impacted user privacy. Opt-out services on their own may be annoying, but they aren't…

Google also has an ongoing PR problem with regard to privacy, with Eric Schmidt (sp? the recently ex-ceo dude) going on record as saying he doesn't believe in privacy.

Facebook at least pretends to care about privacy and then screws the user, whereas Google just skips to step B

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

#177

Post by stock_toaster »

bjdixon wrote: post #38
ComputerGuru wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Talk is plain vanilla XMPP (except the audio/video extensions), and any XMPP server can chat to any Google Talk user. The Google Talk client itself is shit and hasn't been updated in years, you won't be missing out on anything there . I use Mail.app w/ GMail over IMAP and have no problems. I could switch to any other provider of course, but see no reason to do so as accessing GMail over IMAP doesn't have any o…

I agree with the google talk. The most replaceable item on the list. It's just so easy though with it being there next to my email... I'll give ddg a go. See what's up there.

I think fastmail.fm provides[1] email as well as xmpp. I have been considering a switch from gmail to fastmail (also looking at rackspace email), and planning to use my own domain again.

I had previously self hosted (a pain), and then used google apps with my own domain. That was when google apps had no google groups or other integration at all, and it was cumbersome to have two google accounts (no multiple login then either). So I switched to plain gmail. Certainly less work and the bonus of being able to tell people 'blah blah at gmail dot com' and not having to spell it out every time someone asked for it cannot be understated.

My needs have changed a bit though, and being able to retain my email/domain should I choose to change providers again has become more important. In addition, I no longer use the gmail web interface, opting instead to use sparrow over imap. An unlikely shift back to client centric computing even while more and more of my other services are shifting away!

[1]: http://fastmail.fm/help/overview_features.html

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

#178

Post by danilocampos »

babblefrog wrote: post #167
danilocampos wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mean…

You can't go back. 2007-era Google would be unusable with all the SEO-hacks that people have discovered since then. Google has to keep tuning their algorithms to stay ahead of the "optimizers" and spammers.

I'm sensible of the challenges Google faces algorithmically. I was speaking solely of user experience – how the product interprets my input.

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

#179

Post by Stormbringer »

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…

I think Digg is an excellent comparison. Putting paid ads in the stream of Diggs basically killed them dead.

Then they had to start pretending that things had more upvotes than they really did, which made it worse.

The place ghetto-ised in a scarily quick fashion.

I'm not sure though how much the earlier 'Digg-revolts' over senselessly mucking around with the UI contributed. Had they already destroyed or eroded a lot of the goodwill of their users?

Personally I believe the problem started back when they decided to boot Apple stories off the front page, and twiddled their algorithm to achieve it. Yes, Windows fanboys hated seeing those stories popping up all the time, and would go in and troll the Apple fans something chronic (and then complain that it was justified because the Apple users were doing the same thing - even though they weren't)... but doctoring the results like that just meant that what was (at that time) basically one of the few IT companies doing new and interesting things, instead of just being a "me too" copycat.

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

#180

Post by jrockway »

amstr wrote: post #171
yanw wrote: post #58

So instead of commending the CEO on articulating a vision and being determined about it the author somehow spins the words to fit the Google bashing theme of her previous posts. To be clear: "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" != “Fuck off”. There is plenty that could be said about the sad s…

The disturbing thing is that people here at news.yc -- hopefully a fairly informed bunch -- seemingly aren't able to see past the infuriatingly self-serving nature of a "Don't Be Evil Toolbar" created by "Facebook & Twitter" employees. And, Facebook, which happily used its dominance in social to lock out users from bulk-exporting contacts during the Google+ launch now complains that Google is leveraging its dominance…

I think the problem is that people feel forced into agreeing with Google's decisions when they don't, and people don't like being forced into doing something. As an example, say you won't use Google+ because you don't like their account naming policies. That's fine, don't visit plus.google.com, don't use it, and it doesn't exist to you. But when Plus results start appearing in search, a product that you like, you are reminded of a community you can't participate in. This leads to resentment for search, because it is reminding you that you aren't getting the same service that everyone else is.

Facebook, on the other hand, is very easy to ignore. I killed my account there several years ago and haven't really thought about Facebook since, since Facebook is nothing but a social network and I'm not really a big social networking guy.

I think that's what's going on here.

(I would say, "people are worried that there will only be one provider for XXX", where XXX is mail or search or chat or whatever, but I know that's not true. People did not mind AOL or Windows or the three big banks, so I doubt they really care that Google is "the only game". Slashdot users hate monopolies, but I'm not sure the average consumer cares.)

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