MG Siegler: Faith No More

We don't need more Apples. There is one right now, doing very well at being Apple. Google could take some cues from Apple, sure, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. The fact that MG thinks Android sucking at first and slowly iterating to a solid product is a negative is mind boggling. That is great! We are talking about a search company that in the span of few years became the dominant player in mobile operating systems. And that never would have happened if Google took years and years to create one "perfect" phone.

Coming out of the gate with a great product is overrated. It can work. But more likely, cause you aren't Apple, you will flop. By starting with the basics instead of a complete product, you also give yourself a much more interesting place to grow (the iPhone 4S could be mistaken for the original iPhone; no one could mistake the Galaxy Nexus for the G1).

I found this paragraph to be insightful: "When Jobs took the stage to unveil something, people got excited not just because he was a great showman but because it instilled an underlying belief that what he was going to unveil would be great. You know that whatever it was, he signed off on it. And the vast majority of the time, it was great. That built trust. Faith."

I have to agree - whilst Apple had it's stumbles from time to time, on the balance of things, they consistently released good products. You always got the feeling that there was attention to detail and care was put into whatever Apple sold.

Google on the other hand - particular in the last few months has really stumbled. To me, they are coming across as sloppy and with poor product management. I don't really have confidence that their products will work reliably or consistently unless it's been in production for years.

Slapping the 'beta' tag on their products used to feel exciting that Google was rushing new developments out the door to us, but lately it's feeling more like it's an excuse for covering up sloppy work habits.

It feels like the author is giving Apple an undue free pass.

He mentions Microsoft and Yahoo as other companies who've failed him with bad releases, and the subtext seems to be that Apple hasn't done significant wrong.

To do so conveniently ignores how bad Windows versions of QuickTime, Safari, and iTunes have been at early stages.

Did I miss something? Sounds like he got burned on a scoop. Did Google do anything bad to him?

"MG: show me on this doll where Google touched you."

If the application is that bad at least they retracted it. I don't know how much financial loss or other damage it did to the people who downloaded it. It probably doesn't help the overall perception of Google but I view it differently.

I really appreciate their test-and-learn style of product releases. Don't get me wrong; I was very upset to learn the demise of Notebook and removal of social from Reader. I like the concept of making lots of small bets and seeing what works. That can be a cheap path to innovation sometimes.

Seth Godin warned Google about this 5 years ago...

"But I can give you a warning. This is a key moment of the life cycle of the company. As the stakes keep getting higher and higher and the opportunities keep getting bigger and bigger and the number of smart people keeps increasing, so does the competition, so does the stakes, so does the opportunity to pay a $200 fine. And what I want to do today is really place a steak in the ground about a key conceptual underpinning that I want to sell you on and then try to outline why I think Google has succeeded to date and how repeating that could really help you moving forward.

People care about Google. What happened is you made an audacious promise to people. You changed the way the interacted all day long when they are supposed to be working, all day long when they are surfing, you changed their interaction. And that interaction made them care about your brand. And that means you have a platform to do some spectacular things. But if you blow it just a few times in a row they won't care about your brand any more."

Google Tech Talk: "All Marketers Are Liars" (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909078385965257294)

Interesting that the main complaint is that Google does not know how to develop for a competitors platform very well. Have you taken a look at Apple's software on Windows machines? If I had to rely on the reputation of Apple simply by their software on Windows machines then they would be among the worst software companies ever.

Google+, Music, Voice, and Chrome have all been good releases but maybe not earth shattering. So Wave has given them a stench of failure? Really?

Even though I see what MG is trying to do here, I don't agree that the botched release somehow reveals a bigger pattern at Google. It's a big company doing a lot of things and it's going to have flops along the way.

At least they're open and honest about their failures - I can respect that.

The great thing about the headline to this piece is that it started with MG Siegler, which meant I could ignore it.

Matt Siegler is simply following the modern trend amongst Apple People in viewing Google negatively. Has Matt posted anything negative about Apple re iCloud? Because I've heard bad things about it from other Applists. In summary: if I want this kind of stuff I'll go to the master: Gruber.

Some words to the people comparing the GMail app with Ping, MobileMe, Final Cut, Antenna problem, Battery time etc. (and please start to make precise distinctions here, not everything is that bad, like the GMail app).

These are not Apples core products. Apples core product is the hardware and the OS on either platform. Googles core product is creating software.

So it's sad to see, they have no capable software developers knowing how to code for iOS (or willing?). They don't use any native components from iOS, even the navigation bar is a web element, how strange is that?

It's the same with Apple and iTunes for Windows. They take no native elements, because they use some wrapper to get the OS X code to Win. When the rumors are true and only five people do iTunes, then I understand why they do no decent Windows app, but why not get some good Win developers?

Same for Google, why get no decent iOS devs? And the Google+ app is an awful app too. It's such a shitty app, it's sad too.

But after thinking some time about it, I guess, they have no usable APIs for the mail service, so they have to rely on web views.

how about a post on Apple 4S release with bugs causing battery drain. Or does MG believe apple can do no wrong.

Agree with the general sentiment but Google Music is better than iCloud music.

I think Google's bigger problem is that they have a hard time keeping people's attention. They throw products over the fence with a lot of fanfare and then they just languish and eventually get killed. I haven't heard a peep about Google Music or TV for months now, for example. Most of the buzz about G+ lately has been the backlash for their ham-fisted and disingenuous handling of the real names issue.

I think they have a lot to learn about product marketing.

Google has jumped the shark. Though it will take a while to sort out, they are bound for one of two destinations: The next MS (IBM, etc.), or death.

When you stop supporting and responding to your most technical users, you divorce yourself from that edge.

And when you ignore and blow off user issues and complaints, you divorce yourself from broader good will.

The Panda exercise was an improvement. Plus was appealing in concept but is failing in execution. (We don't need another Facebook -- especially not the Big Brother aspect.) The rest of recent developments have mostly sucked (where products are not simply languishing).

Google Apps remains somewhat interesting, but it's becoming apparent that you only count if you're the Feds, GM, or similar.

They released a buggy app they didn't go about punching orphans. Their webapp is excellent and the native one will be fixed and re-released, let's get things in prospective and try to complain less about free stuff.

Glad he basically addressed the point I made here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3188980

Let's stick to this instead of all the hyping and hyperbole please.

Google is good at algorithms, not software used by humans.

Search is better than anyone else because the algorithms are better, Bing is much prettier.

Same thing with AdSense no one can touch the CTR of adsense. Would anyone ever WANT to use the AdSense interface? No.

Gmail was great because they figured out how to do giant inboxes at scale for cheap (and had awesome spam filtering), again, the strength was algorithms. Not because "OMG this is the best interface for email evar."

Google could beat Apple on the iPhone if there was some algorithm that just 'knew' who you wanted to call and whether you wanted to call. Imagine a phone where you just opened it and it pulled up magically whatever you wanted to do. That or some other great algorithmic feature could overcome the horrid interface.

Google wins on algorithms and loses everywhere else.