Comments on: Can Google Save Itself From Google?

By: PXLated

PXLated — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:58:11 +0000

Google’s about “openness” – Ya, right
Tell me about their search algorithm – Oooops, that’s not open.
Have you downloaded the latest development build of android – Ooops, you can’t.
And, tell me about Google and change – Ooops, not much to talk about there either.

By: infini

infini — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:58:25 +0000

yes empires collapse because of stretched human resources (over-expansion), revolt (social changes), or disasters (Mayan empire).

do the math…how many people are not on twitter or facebook? minus that with those with no access to the internet and that is the number that still use google.

google is about openness and change. apple is about iX1, iX2, iX3, iX4g etc. playing consumers for fools and locking them into their closed system (itunes etc). now they want to take a commission of all sales that is made from one of their products.

this is called corporate greed. soon they will pick media partners and become a tool of propaganda (The Daily iPad newspaper).

eventually in ‘phase 4′ they will decide to consolidate their business and decide to work only with the largest corporations for control of all their various revenue steams.

funny…sounds like what wall street did and is doing regarding the global financial market.

stop being an apple drone.

it may look good but you all are no different from the Borg

By: Alan Wilensky

Alan Wilensky — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:43:27 +0000

I would say that Microsoft knows “how” to go to market, they just bring shit to market. Well, not really, their tools and servers are stellar, the Kinect was a coup, and who knows what else?

The Goole man I referred to was their in the capacity of BIG NETWORK business model man. He was one man that came away from the ‘plex after a three year stint of head banging. Not a case study, let’s just say I though he was worth hearing.

Meanwhile, hack at the ranch, I am editing everything on Google docs, indexing with Greplin (thanks guys) using dropbox for things the developers never thought of, and making the cloud my toolbox. We run our 12 year young advanced API driven EDI Network on MS server products in a data center(s) run by consumate fanatics (Sungard and Los Nettos).

We are in a time of immense power and opportunity, and Google is no doubt one of the prime movers of “thinking and infrastructure sciences” that move the ball forward.

Not everything that Google does will be blessed as a profit center, but all of their projects will enter the corpus of tools and applied sciences that those in the vanguard of services delivery will leverage.

By: Atul Mehta

Atul Mehta — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:22:39 +0000

“Facebook cannot threaten Google’s revenue stream, and it cannot eventually pose challenges to Google’s way of the web: search.” Why? Because it is not into search and won’t be. Microsoft is — bingo, you get the picture. And Google still rules ://search bigtime if Om had studied the stats upfront. Even Apple (with a #1 market cap) is wary of getting into search and for a good reason. So why would Facebook eventually pose a challenge to Google’s search? Extending his vision of social search, why would anyone want to advertise to some ancient social friend from 8th grade (even inadvertently) that you just did a search on a specific keyword? Makes no sense. With all the love it has gotten, has facebook managed to even cross the great Chinese firewall? And it’s as if getting into the search business was so easy just ‘cos you own some popular social networking website! Analysis paralysis?! Anybody remember the heydays of altavista? How many times has search being tried and how many survived? Beating google’s search algos is no child’s play like plugging in a find my classmates algo. Perhaps high-flying technorati overwhelmed with the latest gizmos and sites have totally lost their touch in separating wheat from chaff. This only leads to mass confusion.

BTW, an educational must read on facebook (the new Geocities?) reality check:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2381827,00.asp

By: eyeamImran

eyeamImran — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 06:07:38 +0000

a peek in to the future, no, the present itself says, a lot of people look to their twitter friends and facebook buddies before they try to search for something on google. reason – the results are a lot more specific. so, for sure, it would have lost on the “search” part of the web, starting in the near future.

all empires collapse – referring history

By: PXLated

PXLated — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:51:35 +0000

“Human intuition probably may only works well when there isn’t enough data”
Humans are complex – If it was all data, most focus groups wouldn’t fail, most products would succeed, and you wouldn’t need both right & left brains.

By: PXLated

PXLated — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:39:11 +0000

Bob – More hits than misses? Really? I could be wrong but I’m betting that if you count, it’s the opposite. Certainly they haven’t had a monetary hit beyond their original search brainstorm.

By: PXLated

PXLated — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:34:40 +0000

Yes, I’m aware of that phase but to me it was more Apple had standard business managers – left-brained – with standard management practices. Jobs brought “vision” and his right brain and saved the company. It wasn’t just a better management structure.

By: Michal Bohanes

Michal Bohanes — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:59:08 +0000

Om, I usually highly value your articles but with this one is way off. If the NY times does an interview with Google’s HR boss, what else should he talk about than HR at Google? You take the fact that Google tries to sprinkle its data magic on traditionally vague subjects such as HR and provide this as the evidence for the company becoming introspective and middle-aged? Huh? With nearly 25k employees, every company needs to have some HR processes and structures in place. It is a testimony to the ingenuity of Google that the data driven approach is also attempted in finding best managers and fostering good corporate behaviour.
This is not the Om quality of reasoning I got used to over the past months I’ve been reading you.

By: ronald

ronald — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 13:59:05 +0000

Google seems to create products to see where to go. Strategy should set products and know where to go, also known as Leadership.

Apple is a big company more diversified than Google, but doesn’t seem have to have that problem or not anymore. Apple seems to have a strategy, followed byproduct teams, then management picks the products which fit the strategy best at this point in time and drives it. Case in point the tablet was developed before the iPhone, but was not build[1]. My guess Google would just have released it.

So far Apple has 35k(?) employees. If anything I would look at Apple on how to scale a business, management. Seems to me numerical models, for design and creation or human interaction, are always short term forward looking since it’s the easiest to be measured. Basically commonality and as long as there is no competitor going for/with human creativity it might work.

Google went from:

Page said, “I’m glad you think Google is great, but I think it sucks.”[2]

at 10 years old with no real progress after the initial system[3]:

Q: What do the next 10 years hold for Google?
A: I think there will be a continued focus on innovation, particularly in search. Search is an unsolved problem. We have a good 90 to 95% of the solution, but there is a lot to go in the remaining 10%. How do we monetize new forms of content as they come online such as video, maps and books. How do we help content providers transition their businesses online and build healthy businesses.

to[4]:

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4, or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions…

In other words from humble understanding its limitations, to we are the smartest and everything has to be justified by a number. Even in its early days Google knew it’s not that simple. They shouldn’t worry about tweaking management, they should worry about advances in Computing driven by new insides in Neurology and Psychology.
For example, humans start learning from negative feedback at around 15mnth, shortly thereafter they can recognize self, after which they can learn “all”. Which is an interesting sequence of events, since there are cultures which have the concept of “many” but can not count more than 2-3. So “all” seems to be an easier concept than counting. Now “all” can be shown as the basics of math, no statistics necessary. At least if one teaches numbers and basic math to a system.
Is this important for search, sure. Suddenly one can compare what on reads to what one knows. Since every social or animal with cognitive problem solving skills seems to have some form of self I would start looking there on how to have some fun with Apple.

Think different.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad

2.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/03/richard-j-tofel-someday-the-sun-will-set-on-seo-%E2%80%94-and-the-business-of-news-will-be-better-for-it/

3. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/09/marissa-mayer-t.html

4. http://news.cnet.com/google-designer-leaves-blaming-data-centrism/