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Why would this damage their brand? They tried an experiment, if didn't work out, they're moving on. What's wrong with that?

by moxious 10y ago

moonshinefe 10y ago
I think the original comment was getting at the fact Google often starts, massively trumpets services, and then abandons them in the night. I never recall them saying a single time in the several if not dozens of services they've started / ditched in the last several years where they've explicitly said "yeah, this might go away at a moments' notice." It tends to chip away at your confidence if you're looking at investing in their services.
- pimlottc 10y ago
  You left out one step, which is they first neglect it for a few years, and then they abruptly close it.
nothrabannosir 10y ago
Brands are not about logic but about image. What is Google's image with their services? That they shut them down. What are they doing here? They're shutting down a service. This does not help.
tyingq 10y ago
Perhaps if the announcement had some couched language that explained it was a trial balloon, and could go away at any time that would be fine. It did not: https://blog.google/products/spaces/introducing-spaces-tool-for-small-group/ https://blog.google/products/spaces/introducing-spaces-tool-... The issue is that it's an established pattern, so it may limit adoption on other new services they launch.
ori_b 10y ago
I tried an experiment, integrated into my workflow, and now I have to migrate everything to a competitor. If that happens often enough, I may just start off with the competitor.
ajmurmann 10y ago
The top comment on this story right now is someone saying they don't want to use new Google products anymore because they too frequently get shut down. I think Reader really lost them a lot of trust and they continue to reinforce that reputation. That being said, I cannot help but wonder how what Google is doing is different than any startup working on a product. The differences might be that Google never tries to substantially change, improve or even market a product once it has been released. They throw it at the wall and that's it. If it sticks they keep it and it might get some love, but if it doesn't the entire thing gets axed. Another difference is that sometimes products seem to get cancelled for larger strategic reasons that the consumer doesn't care about. G+ seems to have lead to some of those. All this can cause the user to feel like they might care more about a service than Google does. I think that's really the crux of the matter here. People don't want to commit in Google services anymore because Googled themselves doesn't seem all that committed. Startups are usually super committed to their product. Edit: what makes this worse is that many services they've shut down could have easily supported a small to medium sized startup, especially a self funded one. It might not make sense at Google scale to run something like that, but it seriously damages consumer trust.
- danmaz74 10y ago
  > I cannot help but wonder how what Google is doing is different than any startup working on a product From a marketing point of view, the big difference is that a startup isn't labeling their product with a very well known brand. The downside for the startup is that they need to build their brand recognition and image from scratch. The downside for the big brand is that they have a lot to lose if they tarnish their own reputation.
  - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
    Also, the big brand is expected to have the resources to keep the product alive (even if only on life support), so killing it feels unnecessary and callous. Everyone understands startups don't have that luxury.
- saurik 10y ago
  Even when a product is successful at first, a very typically Google thing to do at this point is to not make substantial improvements to it for years until suddenly deciding to deprecate and replace it with something entirely different that has no migration strategy, might not have kept all the good parts of the old service, and even uses a new random brand name :/.
danmaz74 10y ago
This damages their brand because it creates an expectation that you can't build anything important on their services. Who wants to spend time and effort in learning and building on a service, if you can't trust it will be there in a year?

Why would this damage their brand? They tried an experiment, if didn't work out, they're moving on. What's wrong with that?

by moxious 10y ago

Why would this damage their brand? They tried an experiment, if didn't work out, they're moving on. What's wrong with that?

moonshinefe 10y ago

I think the original comment was getting at the fact Google often starts, massively trumpets services, and then abandons them in the night. I never recall them saying a single time in the several if not dozens of services they've started / ditched in the last several years where they've explicitly said "yeah, this might go away at a moments' notice." It tends to chip away at your confidence if you're looking at investing in their services.

pimlottc 10y ago
You left out one step, which is they first neglect it for a few years, and then they abruptly close it.

nothrabannosir 10y ago

Brands are not about logic but about image. What is Google's image with their services? That they shut them down. What are they doing here? They're shutting down a service. This does not help.

tyingq 10y ago

Perhaps if the announcement had some couched language that explained it was a trial balloon, and could go away at any time that would be fine. It did not: https://blog.google/products/spaces/introducing-spaces-tool-for-small-group/ https://blog.google/products/spaces/introducing-spaces-tool-... The issue is that it's an established pattern, so it may limit adoption on other new services they launch.

ori_b 10y ago

I tried an experiment, integrated into my workflow, and now I have to migrate everything to a competitor. If that happens often enough, I may just start off with the competitor.

ajmurmann 10y ago

The top comment on this story right now is someone saying they don't want to use new Google products anymore because they too frequently get shut down. I think Reader really lost them a lot of trust and they continue to reinforce that reputation. That being said, I cannot help but wonder how what Google is doing is different than any startup working on a product. The differences might be that Google never tries to substantially change, improve or even market a product once it has been released. They throw it at the wall and that's it. If it sticks they keep it and it might get some love, but if it doesn't the entire thing gets axed. Another difference is that sometimes products seem to get cancelled for larger strategic reasons that the consumer doesn't care about. G+ seems to have lead to some of those. All this can cause the user to feel like they might care more about a service than Google does. I think that's really the crux of the matter here. People don't want to commit in Google services anymore because Googled themselves doesn't seem all that committed. Startups are usually super committed to their product. Edit: what makes this worse is that many services they've shut down could have easily supported a small to medium sized startup, especially a self funded one. It might not make sense at Google scale to run something like that, but it seriously damages consumer trust.

danmaz74 10y ago
> I cannot help but wonder how what Google is doing is different than any startup working on a product From a marketing point of view, the big difference is that a startup isn't labeling their product with a very well known brand. The downside for the startup is that they need to build their brand recognition and image from scratch. The downside for the big brand is that they have a lot to lose if they tarnish their own reputation.
- DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  Also, the big brand is expected to have the resources to keep the product alive (even if only on life support), so killing it feels unnecessary and callous. Everyone understands startups don't have that luxury.
saurik 10y ago
Even when a product is successful at first, a very typically Google thing to do at this point is to not make substantial improvements to it for years until suddenly deciding to deprecate and replace it with something entirely different that has no migration strategy, might not have kept all the good parts of the old service, and even uses a new random brand name :/.

danmaz74 10y ago

This damages their brand because it creates an expectation that you can't build anything important on their services. Who wants to spend time and effort in learning and building on a service, if you can't trust it will be there in a year?