7 ms·

Frankly, I can't understand how Google is so chaotic. Perhaps it's the organization, which looks more like a conglomerate than a cohesive corporation with a cle

by nextos 10y ago

Frankly, I can't understand how Google is so chaotic. Perhaps it's the organization, which looks more like a conglomerate than a cohesive corporation with a clear vision. They release products, only to abandon many of them without a clear reason (like Google Talk). Or they release two products that should be one instead (Android & ChromeOS, or Allo & Duo). The Google Talk fiasco got me particularly disenchanted. A beautiful, open, standards-compliant product (they even helped extending XMPP with Jingle!) gets replaced by a proprietary mess like Hangouts.

em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
This: "they release two products that should be one instead (Android & ChromeOS)"... I've been thinking the same exact thing. Google basically split the ecosystem in half...devs have to unnecessary build seperate apps for each (unless they are using a cross platform engine).
- ramses0 10y ago
  Not really... chromeos is the bare minimum linux environment to run a chrome browser on laptop hardware. Android is some frankenstein of java IDE to develop phone software. They might-should-be the same, but they're fundamentally very different roots.
  - em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
    Actually, I'm agreeing with you... Google never really should have done Android but rather skipped directly to making Chrome OS for phones.
    - Already__Taken 10y ago
      A major tenant of Chrome is the rolling update model, nobody has ever got the android vendors to do anything slightly like that. My Moto E gen2 got 1 year of updates that's it.
  - rdnt01 10y ago
    If chromeOS is the native eco, why is everyone talking about rolling chrome into Android and not the other way around?
    - xyzzy_plugh 10y ago
      Because Android is the big dog. Android can and very well may eat the world. It's a very easy distro to abuse. Chromeos on the other hand is a very well-thought-out distro that is extremely simple and low-level, enough that it could easily form the basis of a great OS like Android
  - mjevans 10y ago
    Back at the time phones hadn't scaled up enough. Remember how horrid early android (and iphones) were? I actually skipped the first generation entirely (and only got my first smart phone because it would be better than my existing phone and have GPS navigation as it's killer app).
  - xyzzy_plugh 10y ago
    I'm going to take a slightly controversial point of view and say: Android should have been ported to chromeos. Newer phones should've shipped with the ping-pong update system, and the secure permissions system that permeates Linux. Instead we're left with, what is really 75% a hack, Android. The update system sucks. The "recompiling" of app sucks. The permissions system sucks. The bloat really sucks. I am pretty sure my Nexus One was more responsive than my last Nexus phone, or any of the competition (which also, despite Google's best (awful) efforts have deviated in user experience greatly). Google, once a golden god of the entire computer/software industry has fallen so far. It's really depressing. I wonder if it is even possible for a business to succeed the way Google used to and be profitable. It's only a matter of time before someone eats their lunch, just the same as Microsoft. In 15 years $COMPANY will dominate and we'll be in the same spot.
WorldMaker 10y ago
The one-two punch of killing Google Talk and Google Reader in quick succession really hurt my confidence in Google. (Wave too, to a lesser extent.)
- Already__Taken 10y ago
  Wave I still miss. It was like it didn't go gangbusters straight away so google binned it off. Any it only didn't work because of the stupid JS hijacked chat scroller, where was its promise as a new chat protocol.
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    I've said before that there is probably an interesting alternate universe out there was G+ was built on top of Talk, Reader, and Wave instead of replacing those three. They really did throw out several babies in trying to throw out their over-silo-ed bathwater. One can only imagine the world in which the UX work applied to the G+ walled garden Facebook clone effort had instead been used to polish (a federation-capable) Wave and make it a consumer friendly product...
digi_owl 10y ago
Likely because of their "20% personal project time" policy. As best I recall, ChromeOS started as a personal project to see if one could build a OS around a web browser (and Google already had one handy). On top of this Android didn't start within Google. And Rubin ran it as his own fief. Supposedly he insisted that all Android devices come equipped with a mobile radio, and thus Google would not certify WiFi only tablet devices.
- hk__2 10y ago
  A lot of other companies have this policy (Google didn’t invent it) and aren’t in that kind of mess.
fh973 10y ago
It's the promotion system. People are incentivized to work 2y on a project, launch, get promoted, move on. Coupled with no clear strategy other than "we need the next toothbrush" you get what you see.
- will_pseudonym 10y ago
  "I think we could get them to brush their tongues." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brU_Pp-20g0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brU_Pp-20g0
blakesterz 10y ago
>> Frankly, I can't understand how Google is so chaotic. I'd love an open and honest answer from someone up high in the org chart at Google on that. Better yet, just an acknowledgement of it and how they're going to stop doing this in the future. If they were a startup with 200 employees under the age of 30 I'd understand it, but they're obviously waaaaay beyond that stage.
- saurik 10y ago
  Hell, at this point I would settle for some closure on "what the hell did you mean by 'more wood behind fewer arrows' in 2011 when you began the process of mass project shutdown?!... that's not really how arrows work :/".
  - Infernal 10y ago
    More wood = bigger bow. Shoot fewer arrows harder, i.e. more resources behind fewer projects, i.e. quality over quantity.
    - saurik 10y ago
      THANK YOU! All of the other explanations I'd come across have thought they meant to shoot fewer, but heavier, arrows :/.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - yborg 10y ago
    The real problem seems to be inability to aim. Google fired a ballista at Facebook with G+ and missed completely.
    - rosege 10y ago
      Yeah the smart thing would have been to acknowledge that you arent FB and dont need to be FB and to focus on areas that are underserved rather than trying to semi repeat what they have done
megablast 10y ago
Stupid theory: It is fun working on projects, it is not fun supporting projects.
- pokemongoaway 10y ago
  The problem with this idea is that once the project becomes a product or services of Google's, then it is supported by official paid working hours of its employees.
- taneq 10y ago
  Putting together what a bunch of different people have said, it's not just this (although it's this too). It's that you get promoted by producing a high profile, popular product. After which you've been promoted and you're working on something else, and so the product you got promoted for gets neglected, languishes for a bit and then dies.
prostoalex 10y ago
That is the bane of a large company. A product that would've been successful user-count-wise and revenue-wise for a smallish startup starts looking like a failure when you operate in billions of users and tens of billions of revenue. It's not that someone internally calls it out as a failure, but the constant pressure to compete for scarce resources (department budgets and developers in Google's case) encourages the internal politicking and resource wars. If YouTube or Search or Android is considered top priority at the moment, it's very unlikely some project like Google Voice or Google Talk have any kind of leverage in defending their budgets and/or teams.

by nextos 10y ago

em3rgent0rdr 10y ago

This: "they release two products that should be one instead (Android & ChromeOS)"... I've been thinking the same exact thing. Google basically split the ecosystem in half...devs have to unnecessary build seperate apps for each (unless they are using a cross platform engine).

ramses0 10y ago
Not really... chromeos is the bare minimum linux environment to run a chrome browser on laptop hardware. Android is some frankenstein of java IDE to develop phone software. They might-should-be the same, but they're fundamentally very different roots.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
  Actually, I'm agreeing with you... Google never really should have done Android but rather skipped directly to making Chrome OS for phones.
  - Already__Taken 10y ago
    A major tenant of Chrome is the rolling update model, nobody has ever got the android vendors to do anything slightly like that. My Moto E gen2 got 1 year of updates that's it.
- rdnt01 10y ago
  If chromeOS is the native eco, why is everyone talking about rolling chrome into Android and not the other way around?
  - xyzzy_plugh 10y ago
    Because Android is the big dog. Android can and very well may eat the world. It's a very easy distro to abuse. Chromeos on the other hand is a very well-thought-out distro that is extremely simple and low-level, enough that it could easily form the basis of a great OS like Android
- mjevans 10y ago
  Back at the time phones hadn't scaled up enough. Remember how horrid early android (and iphones) were? I actually skipped the first generation entirely (and only got my first smart phone because it would be better than my existing phone and have GPS navigation as it's killer app).
- xyzzy_plugh 10y ago
  I'm going to take a slightly controversial point of view and say: Android should have been ported to chromeos. Newer phones should've shipped with the ping-pong update system, and the secure permissions system that permeates Linux. Instead we're left with, what is really 75% a hack, Android. The update system sucks. The "recompiling" of app sucks. The permissions system sucks. The bloat really sucks. I am pretty sure my Nexus One was more responsive than my last Nexus phone, or any of the competition (which also, despite Google's best (awful) efforts have deviated in user experience greatly). Google, once a golden god of the entire computer/software industry has fallen so far. It's really depressing. I wonder if it is even possible for a business to succeed the way Google used to and be profitable. It's only a matter of time before someone eats their lunch, just the same as Microsoft. In 15 years $COMPANY will dominate and we'll be in the same spot.

WorldMaker 10y ago

The one-two punch of killing Google Talk and Google Reader in quick succession really hurt my confidence in Google. (Wave too, to a lesser extent.)

Already__Taken 10y ago
Wave I still miss. It was like it didn't go gangbusters straight away so google binned it off. Any it only didn't work because of the stupid JS hijacked chat scroller, where was its promise as a new chat protocol.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  I've said before that there is probably an interesting alternate universe out there was G+ was built on top of Talk, Reader, and Wave instead of replacing those three. They really did throw out several babies in trying to throw out their over-silo-ed bathwater. One can only imagine the world in which the UX work applied to the G+ walled garden Facebook clone effort had instead been used to polish (a federation-capable) Wave and make it a consumer friendly product...

digi_owl 10y ago

Likely because of their "20% personal project time" policy. As best I recall, ChromeOS started as a personal project to see if one could build a OS around a web browser (and Google already had one handy). On top of this Android didn't start within Google. And Rubin ran it as his own fief. Supposedly he insisted that all Android devices come equipped with a mobile radio, and thus Google would not certify WiFi only tablet devices.

hk__2 10y ago
A lot of other companies have this policy (Google didn’t invent it) and aren’t in that kind of mess.

fh973 10y ago

It's the promotion system. People are incentivized to work 2y on a project, launch, get promoted, move on. Coupled with no clear strategy other than "we need the next toothbrush" you get what you see.

will_pseudonym 10y ago
"I think we could get them to brush their tongues." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brU_Pp-20g0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brU_Pp-20g0

blakesterz 10y ago

>> Frankly, I can't understand how Google is so chaotic. I'd love an open and honest answer from someone up high in the org chart at Google on that. Better yet, just an acknowledgement of it and how they're going to stop doing this in the future. If they were a startup with 200 employees under the age of 30 I'd understand it, but they're obviously waaaaay beyond that stage.

saurik 10y ago
Hell, at this point I would settle for some closure on "what the hell did you mean by 'more wood behind fewer arrows' in 2011 when you began the process of mass project shutdown?!... that's not really how arrows work :/".
- Infernal 10y ago
  More wood = bigger bow. Shoot fewer arrows harder, i.e. more resources behind fewer projects, i.e. quality over quantity.
  - saurik 10y ago
    THANK YOU! All of the other explanations I'd come across have thought they meant to shoot fewer, but heavier, arrows :/.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- yborg 10y ago
  The real problem seems to be inability to aim. Google fired a ballista at Facebook with G+ and missed completely.
  - rosege 10y ago
    Yeah the smart thing would have been to acknowledge that you arent FB and dont need to be FB and to focus on areas that are underserved rather than trying to semi repeat what they have done

megablast 10y ago

Stupid theory: It is fun working on projects, it is not fun supporting projects.

pokemongoaway 10y ago
The problem with this idea is that once the project becomes a product or services of Google's, then it is supported by official paid working hours of its employees.
taneq 10y ago
Putting together what a bunch of different people have said, it's not just this (although it's this too). It's that you get promoted by producing a high profile, popular product. After which you've been promoted and you're working on something else, and so the product you got promoted for gets neglected, languishes for a bit and then dies.

prostoalex 10y ago

That is the bane of a large company. A product that would've been successful user-count-wise and revenue-wise for a smallish startup starts looking like a failure when you operate in billions of users and tens of billions of revenue. It's not that someone internally calls it out as a failure, but the constant pressure to compete for scarce resources (department budgets and developers in Google's case) encourages the internal politicking and resource wars. If YouTube or Search or Android is considered top priority at the moment, it's very unlikely some project like Google Voice or Google Talk have any kind of leverage in defending their budgets and/or teams.