Google - A company in mid Life Crises... really?
nainomics.blogspot.com
nainomics.blogspot.com
Why do you have to copy the entire article on your blog word for word and then give us a link to your blog? Adsense-greedy?
I asked you the same question in a different thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3283447 but you simply deleted your thread instead of giving a proper response and attribution to the proper article.
Moreover I was trying to put my counter point on that article.
Yes, this post does have attribution but I still doubt whether you have the permission from the original author to copy entire content word for word in your blog. You usually need a license from the original author to do that kind of a thing.
A better way to do this could be to quote only some interesting parts or only those parts from the original post against which you want to present a counterpoint. That might be reasonable as per "fair use".
Google+ is not just about another social network, I believe it will be the soul of all the services that Google offers. Most of the services that Google offers worked pretty much independently. Except the Google logo at some corner of the site, there was n't much of a similarity in any of those services. The result is a mess. Google+ unifies all these services like never before. Social networking comes much later, I believe. Google is at an advantage over other companies, if it plays well. Facebook/twitter can let users share with their friends. Google can let users share, work and collaborate with their friends. Sharing in every form conceivable - sms, voice, image, blog, book, document, presentation, video, music, app, you-name-it.
Now for the problems that it faces, the biggest problem was with the platform that they were betting on. For long, Google's motto was - anything good for internet is good for google. That's no longer the case, and it won't be going forward. They were pretty successful for the most parts because they bet on open platform, and the reason for present crisis also seems to be because of the same. Google is no longer the internet [they never were but don't take it literally], and not everything that happens on internet benefits google. Facebook has an advantage here given all the businesses that they have signed up to use FB OpenGraph. However, they still have their own issues. If Google acts smart, Google+ has pretty good chance of being successful.
They're having problems with execution, too. The Google Talk/Google Voice rollout/rollback/merger/turfwar/clusterf*ck is a classic display of big-company ineptitude. It's like something you'd expect from the online services of a Japanese consumer-electronics giant.
Except search I have lost faith in Google to solve my problems with new services. Google's main aim seems to be to serve ads. All the services they have launched for free is to serve more ads. They copy popular services to serve more ads, make it free, and kill competition.
What do you think of the Google+ strategy?
The problem is not other search engines, but disruptive innovation that makes search engines obsolete. And this disruptive innovation seems to decrease its cycle time by about 50% each generation. So after Google has been the leader for <10 years, they are already worried about something new coming along and knocking them off their perch. And I think that fear is justified.
Can you elaborate on what these innovations are? I cannot think of any. Or are you talking about a theoretical future problem?
Can you give an example?
What Google is trying to do with Google+ is take hold of the information market that resides within social media and use this information in combination with adwords. Google wants to integrate Google+ into all of it's products, starting with Youtube and give all the Google products a uniform experience. I'm flabbergasted that you have a problem with this since this is the main goal for Apple. (I assume that you have Apple products, since you talk in such lengths and positive manner of Siri) Google+ is also not about a social graph, it's about doing social media the right, natural way.
You also don't understand how Adwords works when you talk about Siri. A 'click' is a hit to the page, be it a click, enter, wget, or voice search of Siri. So searches in Google with Siri will earn Google money. Also iOS uses Google Maps as it's map application so Siri uses Google Maps, you just don't see it.
A last inaccuracy: “Don’t try to do something in everything. Rather focus on doing everything in something.” This would be exactly why Google has been stopping so many of it's products.
Next to these points there is a whole lot of stuff that you are simply wrong about.
Edit: changed positivism to a correct use of words
Which part of the article gives you the impression that the author doesn't understand that? He specifically calls this integration, and his problem is that it is done badly.
"""I'm flabbergasted that you have a problem with this since this is the main goal for Apple."""
Wait what? Apple goal is to "take hold of the information market that resides within social media and use this information in combination with adwords."????
Even if you replace adwords with something else, like iAds, this doesn't make sense.
"""(I assume that you have Apple products, since you talk in such lengths and positivism of Siri) Google+ is also not about a social graph, it's about doing social media the right, natural way."""
In what way is Google+ more "natural" than Facebook?
Also, "positivism": you keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
"""You also don't understand how Adwords works when you talk about Siri. A 'click' is a hit to the page, be it a click, enter, wget, or voice search of Siri. So searches in Google with Siri will earn Google money."""
No, they wont. This doesn't even make sense. For one, Siri could bypass Google altogether --the user is using primarily Siri, not Google, so the results could come from anywhere.
Second, even if Google is queried, Siri hides the Google results page and just returns the appropriate result as a spoken list. Do you really believe people would pay if their ads are now shown to the end user?
"""Also iOS uses Google Maps as it's map application so Siri uses Google Maps, you just don't see it."""
I'd guess the author is well aware of this. Are you aware that Apple has bough a mapping company and is looking to integrate its own maps in a future iOS release?
He was talking about this "give all the Google products a uniform experience". Apple gives all their products a uniform experience as well.
"Which part of the article gives you the impression that the author doesn't understand that?" The writer does not see any advantages of the integration of the Google search engine in Google+. I'm sadly forced to understand that he fails to get the idea behind it. Searching in shared posts in Google+ is one of the key features that Google+ has over Facebook and other social networks since it will let you simply search for "that interesting site my friend shared with me last month" instead of going through his posts manually.
My second point was cleared up by true_religion, thanks for that.
Google+ is more natural because of it's Circle system. You don't broadcast all your interesting findings to everyone you know, you tell it to the select group of people who might be interested, just like in real-life. Next to that, as said before, you can search the posts and shares in Google+. You can also see your profile in the point of view of others on the web, in your circles. This makes setting up your profile a lot more natural and easy.
I have to admit that "positivism" is indeed the wrong word. I stand corrected and I'll change it.
"No, they wont. This doesn't even make sense. For one, Siri could bypass Google altogether" Then where will Siri get the results? Siri can't pull them out of thin air, they have to come out of a search engine and if Apple values the "magical" experience of it's users then they should use Google. The user is using Siri as a GUI that takes the Google results and speaks them out. But the results need to come from somewhere.
"I'd guess the author is well aware of this. Are you aware that Apple has bough a mapping company and is looking to integrate its own maps in a future iOS release?" I'm aware of the "3D"gimmick (it's nice to have 3D, but I would prefer to look where I'm driving/walking/cycling) that they bought and the mapping company they bought. But I think that is a bad move, since Apple would then be inventing the wheel again, only to disconnect themselves from Google maps. If Apple is willing to pump so much money into collecting data of roads and buildings all over the world, then they would have set up their own carrier. Since the cost of starting your own carrier is peanuts compared to photographing the entire world.
I hope this made things a bit more clear.
Yeah, much clearer. Here are my remarks:
"""Searching in shared posts in Google+ is one of the key features that Google+ has over Facebook and other social networks since it will let you simply search for "that interesting site my friend shared with me last month" instead of going through his posts manually."""
Maybe, but that would be trivial for Facebook to add. It's not like full-text search is rocket technology. And in this domain, PageRank is not even needed.
"""Google+ is more natural because of it's Circle system. You don't broadcast all your interesting findings to everyone you know, you tell it to the select group of people who might be interested, just like in real-life. """
Yeah, that's nice. But does it bother people using Facebook? I don't see it. Also Facebook added some similar features lately.
"""Then where will Siri get the results? Siri can't pull them out of thin air, they have to come out of a search engine and if Apple values the "magical" experience of it's users then they should use Google."""
Not necessarily. There are better sources than Google for a lot of stuff Siri caters for. For example, Siri already uses Wolfram Alpha for math, stock, general information related searches. Apple could provide its own dictionary searches, wikipedia searches, it's own map data for location searches, use the iTunes DB for music and lyrics searches, IMDB for movie times and movie/actor info, Amazon et al for shopping, travelocity of something for airplane tickets, etc covering a lot of ground query-wise. And they could also switch to Bing in a heartbeat. You get the idea.
"""But I think that is a bad move, since Apple would then be inventing the wheel again, only to disconnect themselves from Google maps."""
No, they won't invent the wheel, they bought a company that has already invented and made one. And it only makes sense to disconnected from Google Maps, a service by a competitor mobile OS vendor, that could even cut them off of it altogether when he wishes.
a) fail to see the "rants" in the byline of the article blog
b) fail to read the "Below are my views on what I believe are the 10 biggest challenges Google is facing" part on the article intro
c) confuse an blog post (and a fine one at that) with some research paper or encyclopedia article and ask for citations
d) cannot differentiate between (well presented) arguments (such as those in the article) and opinions.
Are you this stupid? Jersey Shore fans, please stop.