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Why I Left Google

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Re: Why I Left Google

#291

Post by guyzero »

nostrademons wrote: post #288
guyzero wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"cooler people" - classist much? Perhaps have a look at dynah boyd's research on the class divisions between Facebook and MySpace. http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html Additionally, MySpace killed itself by pursuing the wrong objectives. Facebook didn't kill MySpace, MySpace killed MySpace.

It's absolutely classist. I saw the research when it came out and found it quite interesting. Thing is, class divisions are a fact of life. If your goal is to pursue a more just society, it's worth trying to minimize them (though even then, you need to acknowledge them before you can do anything productive). But if your goal is to get maximal user uptake for your new social network, it's worth exploiting them. They a…

Regardless of whether exploiting class divisions makes good sense for increasing product adoption, I'll reiterate that it was not class divisions that killed MySpace but bad product divisions.

MySpace's ad deal with Google encouraged a site design that was anti-user. Facebook developed their own ad platform that allowed them to extract value from data that only Facebook has and that third-party networks couldn't get value from because it's so specific (like where you went to university).

But as much as the movies would have you believe Facebook won on "coolness", it won on old-fashioned better product decisions.

Re: Why I Left Google

#292

Post by jrockway »

poglet wrote: post #278
grabastic wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a nitpick... but is there a particular link in these results that you want us to view? There's probably ample evidence to support your claim, but linking to search results doesn't seem all that helpful. (If Google is still personalizing web searches or if someone has blocked a domain from their results we could be looking at different lists.)

He just means that there is no reference to 'Google does not share personal information with advertisers' on the internet.

Which Internet were you using for research? My Internet contained 128,000,000 results (or thereabout) for the provided link.

Re: Why I Left Google

#293

Post by jrockway »

revorad wrote: post #159
jrockway wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are my thoughts as an engineer at Google. These are my own thoughts, not Google's :) I don't think Google is fighting for its life; people are not defecting away from search to use Facebook's search or Bing or whatever. Right now, Google+ is something like, "let's see what happens if we build a social component and integrate it with our products". It doesn't seem like much right now and it's certainly not killin…

Personally, I'm working on a new product at Google that will make computers do something that they've never done before, something that many people have wanted for a long time. There are 2 things I've wanted for a long time: A search engine for stuff in my house, so that I never have to sift through drawers for hours ever again. A cheap robot for cleaning dishes, washing clothes, cleaning the house. The current solut…

A cheap robot for cleaning dishes, washing clothes

I think we have these, right: dishwashers and washing machines. The problem is emptying the dishwasher and folding clothes. (I live in New York so I drop off laundry before work and pick it up after work, cleaned and folded, for about $9 a week. Yay.)

Re: Why I Left Google

#294

Post by Drbble »

luriel wrote: post #240
michaelochurch wrote: post #165

To understand why Google isn't what it used to be, one has to understand what happened in 2009-2011. This is the era when Google decided to get "real managers" and they hired a bunch of executives from places like Oracle, IBM, and Intel. If Google had told them to wipe their fucking feet off before tracking shitty culture into the place, it might have survived. It didn't. Google has an immense amount of talent "under…

> * Google is resistant to any change that might improve engineer productivity beyond the rather plodding rate it has now. C++ and Java are the real house languages; Scala's not even on the table. Python is listed as a house language so Google can still hire people but it's rarely used and nearly deprecated in production. Google is developing Go precisely to improve engineer productivity, so this claim is rather susp…

Google developing Go as a research project, and Google using Go in a non-trivial number of production systems, are two very different scenarios.

Re: Why I Left Google

#295

Post by Drbble »

jrockway wrote: post #139
6ren wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" was motivated by DEC getting killed. He claims that DEC was a victim of a disruption: a new technology that offered something that didn't seem to be a threat, become successful in other markets and eventually improved enough that it was threat - then it was too late. There, the old technology was minicomputers; the new technology was workstations. The new technology isn…

Here are my thoughts as an engineer at Google. These are my own thoughts, not Google's :) I don't think Google is fighting for its life; people are not defecting away from search to use Facebook's search or Bing or whatever. Right now, Google+ is something like, "let's see what happens if we build a social component and integrate it with our products". It doesn't seem like much right now and it's certainly not killin…

Google needs to pick Picasa of the gutter where it dropped and make it a good photo app before shoving it down everyone's throat as a social app. And online editing from that startup they bought is not the answer.

Similar for Market/Play. I will never buy a POP culture book or video from Play, so stop flooding me with ads for them when I want to look for apps.

Thanks.

Re: Why I Left Google

#296

Post by Drbble »

danmaz74 wrote: post #158
jrockway wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are my thoughts as an engineer at Google. These are my own thoughts, not Google's :) I don't think Google is fighting for its life; people are not defecting away from search to use Facebook's search or Bing or whatever. Right now, Google+ is something like, "let's see what happens if we build a social component and integrate it with our products". It doesn't seem like much right now and it's certainly not killin…

But it is Google itself that is creating the impression that Google+ is critical to its future, just look how much you're pushing it everywhere. By the way, I use G+ and like it more than facebook, but I also think that there is only one serious way for Google to differentiate it enough from Facebook to make it a compelling alternative in the long run: Make G+ the open alternative to Facebook; ie, make it THE platfor…

Haha! I told Vic Gundotra to do exactly what you say (and I am surely not the only one), he said "maybe later".

Google used to be about the open web, but with Chrome. Experiments and now the way they built G+ (need a Google account to view shared photo link?!), it is clear they have fallen in line with the walled garden "a little evil is OK" contingent.

Re: Why I Left Google

#297

Post by Drbble »

jrockway wrote: post #293
revorad wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'm working on a new product at Google that will make computers do something that they've never done before, something that many people have wanted for a long time. There are 2 things I've wanted for a long time: A search engine for stuff in my house, so that I never have to sift through drawers for hours ever again. A cheap robot for cleaning dishes, washing clothes, cleaning the house. The current solut…

A cheap robot for cleaning dishes, washing clothes I think we have these, right: dishwashers and washing machines. The problem is emptying the dishwasher and folding clothes. (I live in New York so I drop off laundry before work and pick it up after work, cleaned and folded, for about $9 a week. Yay.)

And for sorting clean dishes you have the Google kitchen staff. (But you still have to sort your own dirty dishes for some reason... )

Re: Why I Left Google

#298

Post by Drbble »

vibrunazo wrote: post #156
danielhunt wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, speaking as an android user who LOVES that I can auto upload my pics to the GOOG, I absolutely hate that Google has any social platform at all. Because G+ exists it makes Facebook a competitor. Can I easily share my auto uploaded pics with my Facebook friends? Not at all. Can I change where I upload my pics to? (Ie : not picasa) not at all. Picasa is about lock in. Not about user experience.

You can upload all your pics from your phone to facebook with a couple of clicks from the Android Gallery app. A lock in would be if you were not allowed to, or at least if they went out of their way to make that harder for you. But instead they go out of their way to put the share button and inter-app communication (intents) to allow you to easily share your pics with third parties. I understand your frustration, an…

Can facebook or flickr or whatever poll the pictures directory to support auto upload, if they (app writers) want too?

Re: Why I Left Google

#299

Post by Drbble »

Karunamon wrote: post #185
danielhunt wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, speaking as an android user who LOVES that I can auto upload my pics to the GOOG, I absolutely hate that Google has any social platform at all. Because G+ exists it makes Facebook a competitor. Can I easily share my auto uploaded pics with my Facebook friends? Not at all. Can I change where I upload my pics to? (Ie : not picasa) not at all. Picasa is about lock in. Not about user experience.

>Picasa is about lock in. Really now? http://www.dataliberation.org/takeout-products/picasa-web-al...

Being able to leave once an for all is different from open interoperability with other systems. Both are a form of lock in protection, and Picasa only supports the former.

Re: Why I Left Google

#300

Post by Drbble »

jrockway wrote: post #286
danielhunt wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By not allowing users to share directly from their plus.google.com interface, to twitter/facebook.

That's passively preventing. (YouTube lets you share to Facebook and Twitter, so the lack of this ability from G+ is a lack of a feature, not one of Google's design goals. Code takes a long time to write and everyone wants a different feature. Eventually we will have them all, but right now, not enough code has been written :)

Prioritizing G+ over an open API (and a "Chinese wall" between the apps and the platform) is still preferential treatment, and is the sort of thing that got Microsoft consent-decreed.

I am not saying Facebook is better, but you can't say Google is better, either.

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