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Google and Ambient Computing

stratechery.com

1–10 of 106 posts

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#3
It seems like google has the unfortunate culture of just releasing a bunch of new services, not maintaining them, and allowing them to die. (Remember all of their chat apps?) I think I’ve read it’s due to google’s promotion process and needing to “release” something to move upward. I expect the majority of these service to no longer be around in 5 years.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#5

It seems like google has the unfortunate culture of just releasing a bunch of new services, not maintaining them, and allowing them to die. (Remember all of their chat apps?) I think I’ve read it’s due to google’s promotion process and needing to “release” something to move upward. I expect the majority of these service to no longer be around in 5 years.

https://killedbygoogle.com/

I am rather curious about Stradia's longevity.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#6

It seems like google has the unfortunate culture of just releasing a bunch of new services, not maintaining them, and allowing them to die. (Remember all of their chat apps?) I think I’ve read it’s due to google’s promotion process and needing to “release” something to move upward. I expect the majority of these service to no longer be around in 5 years.

They can't innovate, despite all of their "talent"

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#7

It seems like google has the unfortunate culture of just releasing a bunch of new services, not maintaining them, and allowing them to die. (Remember all of their chat apps?) I think I’ve read it’s due to google’s promotion process and needing to “release” something to move upward. I expect the majority of these service to no longer be around in 5 years.

They can't innovate, despite all of their "talent"

Innovation usually takes a much longer timeline than just launching something and killing it with a year or two when it’s not sufficiently Google scale.

The world would have a lot less great products if this is how it was always done.

This is why startups continue to be the primary innovation source. They are willing to go through the hard grind to find product/market fit over multiple years.

Most of the products purchased by the big guys are at least 5-7yrs old (WhatsApp, YouTube, Waze, Looker, etc). There are some rare exceptions like Instagram and Android which were both 2yrs old at acquisition.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#8

It seems like google has the unfortunate culture of just releasing a bunch of new services, not maintaining them, and allowing them to die. (Remember all of their chat apps?) I think I’ve read it’s due to google’s promotion process and needing to “release” something to move upward. I expect the majority of these service to no longer be around in 5 years.

I like that they have a "take the flag, but dont hold the ground if it isn't worth it" approach. Learn lots and fail fast. Smaller companies can find a niche for themselves in "we are basically X that google used to do". Let someone else make the market and create your marketing, right?

Maximizing profits (and innovation) over time may mean closing something profitable now, and focusing on new potential profits. Thats great.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#9
Google is failing to organize the world's information in a way that is useful to me. I wanted to look up how to split a NURBS surface in half. You know, the math behind computing the new point and weights. All I got was a bunch of stuff from CAD vendors talking about how to manipulate NURBS in their own tools.

Since then, I've seen more of this trend. It's hard to find information about how anything works now because most the results are commercial - SEOed to be high in the rankings.

I'd like an option to screen out commercial results in favor of more informational ones. They're supposed to be helping me find information right? But in reality they've shifted to feeding me marketing information.

Re: Google and Ambient Computing

#10
post #8

It seems like google has the unfortunate culture of just releasing a bunch of new services, not maintaining them, and allowing them to die. (Remember all of their chat apps?) I think I’ve read it’s due to google’s promotion process and needing to “release” something to move upward. I expect the majority of these service to no longer be around in 5 years.

I like that they have a "take the flag, but dont hold the ground if it isn't worth it" approach. Learn lots and fail fast. Smaller companies can find a niche for themselves in "we are basically X that google used to do". Let someone else make the market and create your marketing, right? Maximizing profits (and innovation) over time may mean closing something profitable now, and focusing on new potential profits. That…

Yeah, great. Except for the users who Google got hooked on a given service, who then have troubles finding alternatives as Google tends to suck the oxygen out from the room whenever they release something.
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