Google has done this so many times now (Hangouts/Allo/Messenger, anyone?) that I wonder if there is anyone behind the wheel any more.
MMD keeps managers, marketers, product teams, and engineering leads busy, and makes executives believe progress is being made since all the metrics look good: there are tech blog articles, Twitter mentions, Hacker News threads, maybe a mainstream media hit or two; all the teams have finite task lists that are getting done; and there's an initial jump in brand awareness and new user engagement. The actual damage to the brand doesn't happen until long enough down the road that the brilliant minds who came up with the idea have collected their bonus checks, awards, and promotions, and moved onto better things.
And now the executives start talking up the need for a new marketing strategy... lather, rinse, repeat.
Microsoft was exactly my first thought when I read this. "Are they pulling a SkyDrive here, and it's just rebranded Google Wallet?" And I use SkyDrive as an example because I lost count of how many times Microsoft renamed their online storage, to the point that I just gave up and used Dropbox.
It must work, or companies wouldn't do it. But it just alienates me. Is this the new boss, same as the old boss? Or a new product with new things I should take a look at? Does it work better than when I tried to use Google Wallet when I had Android? Aww, fuck it, I'll just keep using Apple Pay.
https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/28/uks-bskyb-wins-judgement-a...
Google likes taking successful products and then rebranding them out of the blue for no real reason other than to seem "integrated". Things like splitting off messaging from Hangouts, which was already an amalgamation of features and other products like Google Talk and the old messaging app. Or like Google Pay, which is an amalgamation of a bunch of other successful products like Android Pay (which was itself an amalgamation of other products like Google Wallet and Google Checkout along with certain acquisitions). With Google, it just seems like they constantly have FOMO of being on the "hot new brand".
I wish they’d put some of the renaming energy into improving the reliability of their Mac and iOS apps....
hotmail.com -> Windows Live Mail -> hotmail -> outlook.com
I'm surprised the name Bing is still around and not replaced with something else.
iTools => mobileMe => iCloud.
I was thinking, isn't this just Google's standard competition with Apple Pay and PayPal/Vinmo?
Because these are unavailable for >95% of Android phones, I have not and will not use these services.
I'm (currently) on LineageOS with the December security update - Android Pay doesn't work there, not that I ever wanted it anyway.
https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/photos/9so7okdj1ZA/2k...
When it comes to organization beyond shoving photos at it and hoping for the AI's best, Photos is deeply disappointing. Competitors like Fotki has nested albums 10 years ago. Photos doesn't show your device folders on the web, and can't move files locally without crashing or duplicating them.
I found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live, which has a list of various online products that have been renamed or killed off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_Shopping is the most ridiculous one, which has gone through every possible name except for "MSDOS Shopping". I had no idea it even existed.
Yes. I built a gaming PC last year and had to buy Windows 10 since I wasn't upgrading any existing computer. It's not cheap either—it was one of the high cost components of the system.
The only difference is that now they don't charge for upgrades. Which is extremely smart because the cost of supporting people on decade old OSes probably significantly exceeds the revenues earned from consumers who are buying Windows upgrades to their existing PCs.
Oh, and enterprise licenses are the same, if I am not mistaken.
Frankly, MS not making updates free earlier was them shooting themselves in their foot.
IIRC MS enterprise licensees are charged for "software assurance", which is an annualized fee they pay for regular updates and upgrades. This looks like it's continuing with Windows 10.
On the consumer side, Microsoft would really like you to not buy a Mac. Since Mac's OS updates are free, it just makes sense that Windows is free anyway - they made very little on retail Windows sales anyway. I guess they figure they'll make their money when people upgrade laptops/desktops or buy other form-factors, e.g. 2-in-1s or tablets.
It’s almost as bad as Ker-burr-os vs Ker-bear-os or OS 10 vs OS Ex.
Or products made from aluminium.
Chief Googler: "We need a payments product: Google Wallet"
time passes
Android Team: "Google Wallet does not fit mobile well and the Wallet team is in another building. Let's do our own thing: Android Pay"
time passes
Chief Googler: "WTF? Why do we have two payment solutions? Let us merge them."
Android Team: "We will not give away our control to Team Google Wallet! They have no clue about mobile."
Team Google Wallet: "We will not give away our control to Team Android! They have no clue about big business."
Chief Googler: "I just created a third new greenfield project. You will both cooperate there. Let's try if it works out."
Android Team: "Ok that works for us"
Team Google Wallet: "Ok that works for us"
time passes
Team Three: "Hey this actually works fine on mobile and big business."
Chief Googler: "Great. Now let's make this public. Oh, and ... Android Team and Team Google Wallet, you are terminated."
Essentially, it was a manager hack to make two teams cooperate. Names have a lot of power when groups of people interact.
(I have no clue what actually happens inside Google)
I don't think that's entirely accurate. There are efforts to reward Product Excellence, for example, which involved UX polish, performance tuning etc.
FYI, HN doesn't really have markdown, so that link doesn't work. Instead, generally we do something like this:
> It was probably via this Quora answer[1]
> I don't think that's entirely accurate. There are efforts to reward Product Excellence, for example, which involved UX polish, performance tuning etc.
>
> 1: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things...).
Reminds me of XKCD's "How standards proliferate" https://xkcd.com/927/
Google is known for attracting top engineers, but their product managers seems to be some of the worst in the industry. Where would they be without their ad cash cow? It's been years since I got exited about anything they released. I think I noticed it getting worse right around when Eric Schmidt got replaced as CEO.
[0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-07-01%202...
I made this as an example [0]. It's Google Maps, OpenStreetMaps, a local competitor (Hitta), and the official government map agency (Lantmäteriet) that Google used to buy their map data from according to their copyright info. Notice several features missing in Google's data, and how bland and low contrast it is in comparison. Speaking of which, try finding this road on Google Maps using your phone when the sun is shining: [1]
Google's aerial photos in the same area is from 2014 and is both lower resolution and older than the two alternatives I looked at.
I still use Google Maps quite a lot, but in my opinion they're slipping and doesn't seem to care about keeping data updated as much as having local guides reviewing restaurants and grocery stores.
The first is that non-technical people don't seem to know what is Android. They know their phone is a Samsung Galaxy, LG G series or a Motorola, but most of them don't know that their phone is an Android or that Google is making the OS. It doesn't help that Google renamed the Android Market to Google Play.
So in the eyes of the everyday man, Google is a better known brand than Android.
The second reason is Fuchsia, which I believe could be Android's successor. I think Google want this OS to be everywhere; on phones, tablets, laptops, servers, IoT devices, etc, and since it will be updated and maintained directly by them, version numbers will be irrelevant for most people. In other words, there won't be a Fuchsia 1, 2, 3. It will be updated constantly like Chrome and probably named something like "Google OS".
So having a payment solution that is named Google Pay make sense when there's a possibility that Android is not Google's future on mobile (and everywhere else).
[1] https://9to5google.com/2017/09/13/google-fuchsia-os-kernel-z...
In two years Google Pay and Samsung Pay will merge and the new service will be called Pays For Sure.
Mark your calendars.
http://www.tvnewscheck.com/playout/2014/07/npd-displaysearch...
Not exactly, as it includes things that were never part of Wallet.
> Then at some point Google Wallet was split out into Android Pay. And now it's Google Pay?
Android Pay was a renamed acquisition that was originally intended to be merged with Wallet but was kept apart (but Wallet’s NFC payment feature was retired as Android Pay was brought online, which made it look like Wallet was being split up.)
But Google Pay seems to merge in a number of other siloed app-specific Google payment features as well.as Wallet and Android Pay (these clearly have been integrated behind the scenes for a while, since their “pay with Google” feature leveraged payment methods you had registered through any of them or Wallet or Android Pay), so this looks like the UI and branding catching up with backend integration.