The Great Google Goat Rodeo | Hacker News Reader

The Great Google Goat Rodeo

blog.markwunsch.com

60 pointsleonegresima51 comments

"Their design ability might be improving, but again and again they show a lack of editing — they lack the ability to be selective about their product portfolio." This statement seems strange to me, being as the the prior paragraphs were about Google shuttering many of their products.

Google may not have historically had great "editing" but they seem to be getting there. They're discontinuing products that they don't think will succeed, exactly what "editing" sounds like to me.

Editing takes place before publishing, not after. A newspaper that prints a dozen retractions per day is not well edited.

A fair point, but as they learn to edit, they can't leave what they consider to be unsuccessful products in place either. Unlike publishing, product development isn't static.

It's a hard problem for them. In traditional industries there's some natural protection from the problems that google encounters with product management.

It would take Samsung forever to start up a factory to make a new kind of washing machine, for example. If the new washing machines don't sell, Samsung could discontinue the product line without pissing off very many customers because all of the washing machines they already sold would continue working.

Google has the opposite problem where it's easy to start a new product but discontinuing even a minor product pisses off thousands of people. If they cared about customer happiness and trust, they'd get better at choosing products to release and they'd move more quickly to killing off unsuccessful ones. (Honestly, I'm not sure they care about customers enough to change. They may place more value on flexibility than they do on customer happiness and trust.)

Two of the biggest data points for editing products - their popularity and growth rate - don't exist before you launch. I'm sure Google doesn't launch products it believes will be unpopular, so whatever launches and ends up unpopular, that data point was a surprise. It would be nice if you could tell which products will take off before you build them - it would save everyone a lot of trouble.

Google is attacked on one hand for having too many products and on the other hand for discontinuing products. I guess when you're as dominant as Google is now critics will always find something to criticize.

The only thing in this piece I agree with is that Google+ is creepy and I don't like having it forced on me when I want to use their other products. Google's made a Faustian bargain here in their panic over Facebook and it seems to be corrupting them from the inside.

Google doesn't force you to use Google+ as a social network, it forces you to create a profile so it can unify identity across Google accounts.

Who wants this? Are Google so hopeless in strategy that they have to borrow from Facebook?

Do you have a better solution for unifying identity across Google accounts? If your opinion is that separate products should have separate accounts and credentials then we will just have to agree to disagree. I can understand why that would be someone's preference, but I can't understand why someone would bash a company that has the desire to utilize a single profile/account for all of their products.

Many services do not require an "identity", and in fact are of less value when associated with an identity, or when using them while not so associated is more difficult. "Credentials" do not contribute to the act of reading a map. ("Location" might, but not in all circumstances, so that shouldn't be required either.)

I probably misunderstand you, but are you saying that a user should not let her own preferences guide her choices? If she is allowed that small concession, should she not share her preferences with others on HN? I'm not bashing Google, but I am bashing this "desire" that you've articulated more explicitly than most. This user doesn't want to use that sort of suite of services. That's one reason I'm not on Facebook. If there are important strategic reasons to ape Facebook in this fashion, I don't see them. If the reason is more a perception that they have to do something, that's sad.

I clicked a hackernews link yesterday and forgot about the tab for an hour. When I finally got to it I was somewhat shocked to see it was a google+ page that automatically signed me into hangouts, where several tried to chat with me. About half my google plus home screen area is devoted to chat or attempts at convincing me to upload a profile picture or attempts at convincing me to find more friends.

I'm sure if I was a regular user of google+ I'd turn off many of its social features, but by default it's at least as social as facebook. I agree ultimately its "lowest common denominator" purpose is a unifying platform for google, but as a heavy google user who isn't looking for another social network (which describes a lot of people out there) google+ is way too social. It's simply something I want to avoid, yet I feel like I'm forced to interact with it too much.

Disclaimer: I work for the big G

Exactly. Google needs a way to identify and canonicalize people and organizations. I think they've tried various automated and smart techniques to limited success, and it's much easier to say that if you create a profile so that you tell us what your identity is and what your websites are, then we can attribute your work in searches much better. You don't ever have to use G+ the web site after that.

I think that there's a basic misunderstanding of what G+ is, even inside Google, and it's our fault for not making it more clear. Maybe things needed different names.

Google+ is really three main things:

At it's core G+ is an identity service. It knows who you are because you have a profile. Authorship requires this I guess.

Then it's a sharing service. Google needed a way to enable sharing in all it's products.

Finally, it's a web site with a social stream.

It's possible they should have stuck with "Google Profile" for the first part, and then the author might not be so upset that Google needs some information to attribute correctly.

Also, it'd be ideal if there were standards for these things. Google definitely used to go more that route, like Open Social, but those attempts failed against proprietary systems like Facebook. I think things are just moving to fast right now for the slow process of standardization to be competitive. I hope that when certain _features_ of identity, sharing, messaging, etc. standardize again, then new protocols can be standardized around those features. New XMPP extensions, or an entirely new protocol, to support the features of Hangouts would be great for example. A system for securely asserting identity and profile information (not log-ins) in the way that people use Twitter, Facebook and G+ would be wonderful too.

Feature request: Open up google search (API access). Create a marketplace around that index, that no one else on the planet has any hope of duplicating.

https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview

unbelievably pathetic compared to resources directed at android, youtube, social network du jour, chrome etc.

especially when the mission is supposed to be - organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

what the mission seems to have degenerated to is, enable people to generate shit loads of photos, videos and messages that no one looks at more than a day after it is produced.

> Google needs a way to identify and canonicalize people and organizations

No. Wants. Google wants to have a way to identify and canonicalize people and organizations. It is an understood desire. But it is not a need.

Well, if you're going to be that pedantic, every thing Google does not required by law is a want. When talking products the line between needs and wants gets blurry. The inability to consistently link content to authors is a pretty big problem for search and search quality. Solving a big problem in your product usually falls on the "need" side of the spectrum.

This is probably an unpopular point of view, but:

I actually agree with author (despite his going into a rant in the latter part of the article) about the horribleness of needing a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days (I'm wondering if any clueless fool in their marketing/sales dept. has suggested G+ login for search yet...), but I actually quite like Google+ .

It's, IMHO, miles in front of the competition in regards to large communities, but, admittedly, fails on the actual social stuff (friends, family etc.). But, as I see it, the only reason they fail at this is due to the overwhelming dominance of Facebook.

I now only use FB for communication with overseas (and far away, easy if you're in Australia) friends. Most of my other online community social behaviour is done through G+

Just my 2 cents (with inflation)

It astonishes me that people don't have an issue with this:

> I need a Google account to interact with most of Google's services these days.

but seem to have major issues with this:

> I need a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days.

Why do people have such a hard time accepting that Google+ accounts are a natural progression of Google's account management (and eventually will replace the old, fragmented Google, Youtube, whatever account system)? Sure, it has a companion social networking site, and requires a real name (or what that looks like one), but that requirement could have been applied to regular Google accounts as well and I highly doubt we would still see the amount of complaining we see today about Google+ accounts.

Whatever you say, Mr. Lawdawg. What a great last name; I wish I could have one like that.

This is exactly my confusion about this parade of complaints. Google Account --> Google+ Account. Nothing about that says that you ever have to use a single aspect of Google+ the Facebook-competitor, and your empty profile can sit doing nothing. I do not understand the outrage simply that it exists.

I have a hard time accepting it, because it's not a 'natural progression' at all, it's forcing me into a headache I don't want.

Gmail is the best free email, and GTalk was convenient instant messaging. Both great, I used them daily. Using these services doesn't imply that I want a public profile, that I want a social network, that I want to share anything or that I want the constant hassle of setting privacy settings, then resetting them every month when they change or new features are added which I'm auto-enrolled into.

I don't want searching for my name to show a Google+ profile. I don't want videos I've watched, articles I've read or links I've clicked to appear in a stream/wall/circle/feed. I've had to go through facebook's privacy settings a dozen times because they keep changing or adding features which default all users to maximum-sharing. Google is too important for me to have to worry about accidentally broadcasting all my interactions with various google services to the world or my contacts.

Wait. But that's what innovation cycle looks like. You try a bunch of stuff, and most of it fails.

Seriously, name me one successful company that doesn't have a host of failures and cancelled products attached to their name.

I much prefer Google launch a ton of products and only focuses on the one's that "stick" because I know they will generally create an incredibly good product once they are fully invested in it (see Android, Chrome, GMail, Docs, Analytics, etc).

Well then I certainly hope that "Plus" will be recognized as a failure sooner rather than later, because as TFA states that crap is getting spread over all the good stuff Google does. When normal people start using other search engines and maps to avoid the Plus hassles, Google should know they are damaging the franchise.

What exactly are these "Plus hassles" you refer to?

In my own direct experience Plus business pages just flat out don't work most of the time. Our business moved back in February and I went to change the address on our Plus account since that's now what appears in search results (it seems to override whatever is in Google Places). I've been locked out of the account ever since with an error 500 and the address in search results is still the old one. Zero help in any form from Google via the product support forum.

This is actually a really well-written and balanced piece, and not just a mindless "Google is Evil" rant.

Don't you know you get down voted for agreeing with the author?

I downvoted him because it's so unclear whether he was being sarcastic that the comment adds no value.

Thanks, I was NOT being sarcastic, sorry for not being clear on this. Most anti-Google articles that make it to HN are completely off-base, this one was quite rational.

Oh, well then, I totally disagree with you; I think the article was totally incoherent. But I don't downvote just for disagreement on HN.

His comment was not sarcastic and did add some value. The article didn't come off as incoherent to me, the author made a very clear point early in the article ("their products for users [the ones that collect information to inform advertising] are becoming confused, inarticulate, and increasingly malicious"), and he spent the rest of the article backing up the point.

I believe that as a googler you have an obligation to be somewhat objective when google comes up. Googlers have been accused in the past of coming into discussions about google and downvoting critical comments, and I believe that happened here. There are enough employees at google that it can really affect the ordering of comments in these threads.

Why do you think I wasn't being objective? Or by "objective" do you actually mean the opposite (i.e. that I always have to be critical of Google, which is precisely as objective as never being critical of Google)?

We are very critical internally, and I have done my share of criticizing (any Googler can verify this). And if it will make you feel better, personally I do agree with the author's point that Google+ is "getting on" everything. But this article, overall, is rambling and internally inconsistent, to the extent that I genuinely wasn't sure if the OP was being sarcastic by calling it "well-written".

>Or by "objective" do you actually mean the opposite

You're being very snarky and assuming the worst in people's comments. Both samspenc and I meant what we said, as most people generally do. Seriously, you've been less civil than you may realize.

What do I mean by objective? You downvoted a comment that is actually pretty standard/common here ("I liked this article because X"). I can only imagine you acted this way because you are biased towards the topic; it's easy to deny you aren't, but you broke downvoting protocol either way. You're contributing to the stereotype of googlers acting badly in threads about google (my comments in this thread have been downvoted, something that virtually never happens to me on hackernews).

>I can only imagine you acted this way because you are biased towards the topic

This is exactly what I'm objecting to.

>you broke downvoting protocol either way

How did I break protocol if I am not (as you claim) lying?

Based on the title, I assumed this was referring to Google's ACTUAL goat rodeo: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/mowing-with-goats.htm...

Or the goat teleporter: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=31482

Google+ = Single Sign On across Google Products

Plus

Single Access-Control-List/Rolodex/Address Book Across Google Products

Plus

A social stream site that you can decide to use or not.

The first two are absolute needs. Having a separate set of credentials and identity for GMail, Drive, YouTube, Play, Maps, et al is anti-user and highly annoying. (you can still have multiple identities if you wish by creating separate accounts). When I share documents on Drive, or content from Play, or some other function that requires me to curate a list or group of people, why not have this span services as well?

Now, I sympathize a lot with the notion that these things should be open and federated and not siloed to Google or Facebook. But remember, Google tried OpenID/OAuth/WebFinger/ActivityStreams.ms/PuSH, et al early on, and got crushed by Facebook, and to some extent, all of that lost time on OpenSocial and Buzz allowed Facebook to get further entrenched as the Web's identity provider. Facebook connect is now on every site, and IMHO, it's a lot more onerous than G+ profiles when it comes to privacy.

Long long ago, we had a federated vision of stuff like LDAP + ACAP for distributed identity and profile configuration. If only we could get back to the days of IETF collaboration on fundamental features like this.

Google already has single sign-on between all Google products... you make it sound like they are just getting around to this with G+. They have always had a single set of credentials and identity for all of the services you call out, including YouTube (which is a little sketchier as they purchased it, with existing accounts, and so there is an account import and attachment process: but once you've done that, you've always been able to use your Google account to sign in to it).

They had single sign-on, but they did not have a unified data-model profile as the TOS/privacy policies made sharing data between services iffy.

My point is, part of G+ is simply a rebranding of functionality that existed before, but now people are all upset over having to have a G+ profile, whereas before, they had a Google Profile.

Creating a Google account should imply creating a G+ account, the same way it implies provisioning Gmail, Drive, et al. If you don't like the G+ news feed, don't use it, it's as simple as that, just like if you're a Dropbox user, don't bother using the free GDrive storage.

I agree: it's anticompetitive to give increased search prominence to sites willing to link to a Google+ profile.

What's the alternative? It's not like FB is going to open up their social graph data so Google can use it to improve search results. I believe that issue was discussed when G+ results first showed up in search. For what it's worth, Facebook is also out there trying to compete on search using its social graph information, which is what the recent Zuckerberg announcements talked about.

Oh, so this is about a "Gilt" employee being peeved about the presentation featuring the "Google+ Sign In" integration with "Fancy"(a competitor?)?

Well no, it's not anti competitive because when a user logs into a service she implicitly expresses interest in it, making it more relevant to her in a search scenario, and since it's personalised that "prominence" is unique to said user.

This article is kinda silly. Yes google owns everything but if they can afford to run a bunch of pilot projects that ultimately fail, what's the problem? These products can be re-imagined in more effective ways. Also allowing different teams to house their projects in various places (google code, github..) is awesome. Yes I agree things are a little bit all over the place, but I would possibly want to work at Google.

Maybe my perspective is skewed, as I don't use many google frameworks or resources to develop with...

So Google is a big diverse company, it is not one thing. People are still making the same mistake about e.g. Microsoft.

Needs more goats.

I'm not quite sure what the author is going on about in that post: 'google is good but they make money so they're not good', 'google makes lots of products, then kills some of them so they're evil', 'google design is not perfect so I don't like them'.

It seems like he started from the assumption that Google is evil then he went rambling around that without making a coherent argument.

And I think by "rodeo" he meant IO? it's gibberish.

"Goat rodeo" is slang for a particularly chaotic situation where nobody's in charge and everybody's going in different directions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_rodeo

I see, then no convincing case was made to support that unless if you count the lament about experimentation and their numerous products, and no reasonable connection was made between that and 'evilness'.

I'm convinced he makes what is at the very least an articulated argument for the first (but never specifically attempts the second) - although I'm forced to use capstone statements here. He specifically says:

> There is no unified Google that is “good” or “evil”. There is just an organizational clusterfuck that is unable to decide what it thinks is truly the best way to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”5. Is that by forcing web authors into a social network in order to improve directory results? Is that by dipping a toe into the music business? Is that by abandoning standards like RSS and XMPP/Jabber? I don’t think so.

and

> Google is not “evil”. Google is too big to be evil. At its worst, Google is banal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com