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Tables: Tracking work for teams

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Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams

#191

Post by siphor »

myth_drannon wrote: post #165
cptskippy wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps use to be a hell of a tool for exploration, navigation and travel. We used it on a tablet as we drove across Scotland in 2013 and it was fantastic. It provided tons of data about your routes and allowed you to easily manage your trip. Since then they've gradually removed useful features, cluttered the UI with crap, and dumbed everything down to the point where it's almost useless. At one point they even r…

Isn't that with all the products? New teams that own the legacy code base, new PMs that need to show they are doing something... That's how all software products rot. It's normal lifecycle of products that we need to accept.

it shouldn't have to be that way

Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams

#192

Post by FirstLvR »

samblr wrote: post #171

Strangely, why does a company like Google, wakes up so late when Airtable hits Series-D and not Series-A/B/C ? Looks like its straight forward product for somebody who makes google spreadsheets.

BTW Airtable is an amazing product, if this work then google will eat their customers

Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams

#193

Post by crazygringo »

As a product, this looks super-cool.

However, I've got to be honest: while I'd play around with it while it's part of Area 120, there's no way I'd use it in a business until it officially became part of G Suite, as a core service. If Keep and Tasks are core services, then this needs to be too.

That becomes a guarantee that it'll stick around basically forever. So it's very exciting to see Google launch something like this -- but I hope they can align their internal politics and business goals here.

(Also, separate nitpick, but they're launching this as "beta", but with a paid plan. Since when is beta software charged for? What does "beta" even mean anymore then?)

Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams

#194

Post by ErrantX »

user_501238901 wrote: post #186
ErrantX wrote: post #185

Like, why? I wonder sometimes why large corporations bother with stuff like this. OK I understand Gmail was a fantastic unicorn for Google and so might this be - but given that why risk using it? I have a wider question too; large organisations spend millions building internal tools like this (and for a plethora of other things technical and project related). None of which are market leading and all of which progress…

Diversifying. Simplified: If you spend $1 million each on ten projects, each of which have a 90% chance to fail and 10% chance to bring in $100m in profits, then it is absolutely worth it

Which makes somewhat sense for Google (I mean, Gmail is the titular example right?). But Gmail is 16 years old, Gsuite is 14. Where is the next unicorn vs. the much more than twenty failed products to offset this?

And more to the point; are these projects "failing" because savvy companies are working out that the play is short term seeking either high growth or death...

EDIT: 205 https://killedbygoogle.com/

Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams

#195

Post by ipsum2 »

xwdv wrote: post #175
alasdair_ wrote: post #164

My gut reaction: it looks great! Also, there is no way I’d use it unless Google committed to not killing it off for at least five years. I don’t mind trying experimental personal tools, but I really don’t want to get a whole team of people reliant on this thing, just to see it get cancelled like the hundreds of other projects Google has killed over the years. A paid support option would be nice too - I think I saw so…

One easy way to make a successful startup is to copy something Google is doing completely, and then wait for them to kill it off because it doesn't make enough profit for them to be worthwhile. Then you soak up all the customers who still wanted it. Works damn near every time.

How many successful startups have you made from this plan?

Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams

#196

Post by the-dude »

xwdv wrote: post #175
alasdair_ wrote: post #164

My gut reaction: it looks great! Also, there is no way I’d use it unless Google committed to not killing it off for at least five years. I don’t mind trying experimental personal tools, but I really don’t want to get a whole team of people reliant on this thing, just to see it get cancelled like the hundreds of other projects Google has killed over the years. A paid support option would be nice too - I think I saw so…

One easy way to make a successful startup is to copy something Google is doing completely, and then wait for them to kill it off because it doesn't make enough profit for them to be worthwhile. Then you soak up all the customers who still wanted it. Works damn near every time.

Do you have a handful of examples?

Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams

#197

Post by mh- »

prlambert wrote: post #173
gerash wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an experimental project obviously and has that Area120 tag but I think there should be a uniform experimental logo/icon across all of Google products for any projects which is provided as is with no upfront commitment to long term support or sustainability. Once the distinction between products with long-term commitment and experimental products is super clear with a uniform icon/logo then there'll be less di…

Just to confirm, the Area 120 labelling is meant to do exactly that. Area 120 projects do not have long-term commitments, explicitly. But the goal is for the successful ones to graduate to be a fully supported Google product and gain those commitments at that time (we have a number of examples of that happening).

I think sharing some of those examples might be helpful.

Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams

#198

Post by andrewprock »

ashtonkem wrote: post #37
Just1689 wrote: post #15

What a useful app. Reminds me of Airtable in some ways. I enjoy a good flexible table app any day. We're all tired of the obligatory "I wonder how long before Google deprecates this...;)" but I wonder if Google would get better adoption if they explicitly published what would be needed for them not to drop the product... 1M monthly users? 3M? ...xM? or that when a project actually reaches that point.

The only way to rebuild credibility is to do the right thing repeatedly for a long period of time. Google saying “if we get X users we won’t cancel it” both sounds like a hostage note, and doesn’t matter because we fundamentally don’t trust Google . Without that trust, it doesn’t matter why they say, since it won’t be believed.

If they could just commit to maintaining Hangouts, they would go a long way to rebuilding trust. I know many school aged kids who joined Hangouts (though Google classroom IIRC) as a painless way to collaborate with classmates and friends. It's literally a gold mine for "next generation" social networking, but the fact that they are killing Hangouts means those kids are all finding their way to other feature rich platforms, like Discord.

Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams

#199

Post by [deleted] »

tmd83 wrote: post #73

Does anyone feels looking at Google's products lately that there's something tremendously wrong with the organization. I'm not talking about just dropping features but just quality of implementation and missing things that people should get fed up and do something during development. Like hangout > chat, let's drop the existing feature of read receipt that is even more important in the remote/work world in a product…

[deleted]

Re: Tables: Tracking work for teams

#200

Post by benjaminjackman »

the-dude wrote: post #196
xwdv wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One easy way to make a successful startup is to copy something Google is doing completely, and then wait for them to kill it off because it doesn't make enough profit for them to be worthwhile. Then you soak up all the customers who still wanted it. Works damn near every time.

Do you have a handful of examples?

Maybe RSS readers?
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