5 ms·

Google Philosophy

40 points by niyazpk 16y ago

aaronsw 16y ago
I found the old version more amusing: "Google does search. Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat. ... Google's entire staff is dedicated to creating the perfect search engine and work tirelessly toward that goal." http://web.archive.org/web/20040603020634/http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html http://web.archive.org/web/20040603020634/http://www.google.... Oops!
- TotlolRon 16y ago
  I found an old version myself smoking a cigarette. We all change. That's a given. The question is - do we change for the better?
  - jiganti 16y ago
    I think the criticism would be that if their philosophy used to be focusing solely on search, and now they are doing other things, these side projects were never part of the "endgame". Perhaps they suffered from this.
    - TotlolRon 16y ago
      There is no "endgame". Things just go on and on. That's a given. The question is - each of these side projects - useful? needed? makes things better? Lack of single-minded focus is NOT Google's problem. They have others. [sent from my Chrome Browser]
      - macrael 16y ago
        Do you really think it isn't a problem that Google is building and brining to market two different competing operating systems? Google is pretty great at most things they do, but I think that they are straying from "It's best to do one thing really, really well." and that numbers among their problems.
        InclinedPlane 16y ago
        It's fantastic that Google is developing 2 different operating systems. Even more so that they might compete in the market with each other. That's healthy. That's a company that has refused to impose strategy tarrifs on itself, a company that doesn't view itself as an empire but as a bustling hive of talent and opportunity. Which is better: the market telling Google which (or both) of its two operating systems are viable or some VP making that decision? The empire complex ruins big companies. It's the biggest threat to google's ability to remain a vital, innovative company in the long-run. It's good to see they haven't succumbed to it yet.
      - jiganti 16y ago
        I was just implying that a lack of vision generally reduces a project's value. The more something seems to accurately predict the direction of the web, the better the vision. If a project looks spontaneous, it could indeed be a great idea, but often it can look like something created because it's what everyone else is doing.
zeynel1 16y ago
''Since the beginning, we've focused on providing the best user experience possible. Whether we're designing a new Internet browser or a new tweak to the look of the homepage, we take great care to ensure that they will ultimately serve you, rather than our own internal goal or bottom line.'' this may be true for search but not true for instance in the case of google news http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1528216 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1528216 - google news was changed to serve not the user but internal google goals - it was a change to display new technology - because they can they changed it
WalterGR 16y ago
Since the beginning, we've focused on providing the best user experience possible. Whether we're designing a new Internet browser or a new tweak to the look of the homepage, we take great care to ensure that they will ultimately serve you, rather than our own internal goal or bottom line. Google's support for their free products is terrible. While they may take great care to keep the user in mind while designing products, and take care to optimize for the variables they track, their claim above rings hollow in my experience.
andreyf 16y ago
"Having received a number of queries about our evil scale, we present an explanation here": http://www.lot49.com/evil_scale.html http://www.lot49.com/evil_scale.html
johnfn 16y ago
> It's best to do one thing really, really well. Really? True, Google does search really well, and it makes sense that this would have been their philosophy at some point in the past. But now it seems like they would be more for something like "Do one thing really well, and once people appreciate it, do a thousand other little things."
skurland78704 16y ago
Google's results for telephone number search used to be a lot better than they are now.

40 points by niyazpk 16y ago

I found the old version more amusing: "Google does search. Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat. ... Google's entire staff is dedicated to creating the perfect search engine and work tirelessly toward that goal." http://web.archive.org/web/20040603020634/http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html http://web.archive.org/web/20040603020634/http://www.google.... Oops!

TotlolRon 16y ago
I found an old version myself smoking a cigarette. We all change. That's a given. The question is - do we change for the better?
- jiganti 16y ago
  I think the criticism would be that if their philosophy used to be focusing solely on search, and now they are doing other things, these side projects were never part of the "endgame". Perhaps they suffered from this.
  - TotlolRon 16y ago
    There is no "endgame". Things just go on and on. That's a given. The question is - each of these side projects - useful? needed? makes things better? Lack of single-minded focus is NOT Google's problem. They have others. [sent from my Chrome Browser]
    - macrael 16y ago
      Do you really think it isn't a problem that Google is building and brining to market two different competing operating systems? Google is pretty great at most things they do, but I think that they are straying from "It's best to do one thing really, really well." and that numbers among their problems.
      - InclinedPlane 16y ago
        It's fantastic that Google is developing 2 different operating systems. Even more so that they might compete in the market with each other. That's healthy. That's a company that has refused to impose strategy tarrifs on itself, a company that doesn't view itself as an empire but as a bustling hive of talent and opportunity. Which is better: the market telling Google which (or both) of its two operating systems are viable or some VP making that decision? The empire complex ruins big companies. It's the biggest threat to google's ability to remain a vital, innovative company in the long-run. It's good to see they haven't succumbed to it yet.
    - jiganti 16y ago
      I was just implying that a lack of vision generally reduces a project's value. The more something seems to accurately predict the direction of the web, the better the vision. If a project looks spontaneous, it could indeed be a great idea, but often it can look like something created because it's what everyone else is doing.

zeynel1 16y ago

''Since the beginning, we've focused on providing the best user experience possible. Whether we're designing a new Internet browser or a new tweak to the look of the homepage, we take great care to ensure that they will ultimately serve you, rather than our own internal goal or bottom line.'' this may be true for search but not true for instance in the case of google news http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1528216 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1528216 - google news was changed to serve not the user but internal google goals - it was a change to display new technology - because they can they changed it

WalterGR 16y ago

Since the beginning, we've focused on providing the best user experience possible. Whether we're designing a new Internet browser or a new tweak to the look of the homepage, we take great care to ensure that they will ultimately serve you, rather than our own internal goal or bottom line. Google's support for their free products is terrible. While they may take great care to keep the user in mind while designing products, and take care to optimize for the variables they track, their claim above rings hollow in my experience.

andreyf 16y ago

"Having received a number of queries about our evil scale, we present an explanation here": http://www.lot49.com/evil_scale.html http://www.lot49.com/evil_scale.html

johnfn 16y ago

> It's best to do one thing really, really well. Really? True, Google does search really well, and it makes sense that this would have been their philosophy at some point in the past. But now it seems like they would be more for something like "Do one thing really well, and once people appreciate it, do a thousand other little things."

skurland78704 16y ago

Google's results for telephone number search used to be a lot better than they are now.