9 ms·
"Google One" suffers from designer in a box syndrome. It's probably a great internal name - hey, we've been providing storage for photos, email, docs, drive, a
by spyckie2 8y ago
"Google One" suffers from designer in a box syndrome.
It's probably a great internal name - hey, we've been providing storage for photos, email, docs, drive, and more, for over a decade, and we've finally integrated that storage into one space, so let's call it Google one! It's a great name - simple and powerful, symbolizes the effort and direction we've taken in the past 5-10 years of integrating our consumer, day to day products.
However, outside of the Google box, no one understands or cares what they've been doing. "Google one" sounds like... nothing. "What is it???" is an extremely appropriate response.
Maybe in the future it will come to symbolize all the services of Google, available in one centralized location, allowing for future consumers to easily access all of google services without separate pay schemes, storage, or
other infrastructure, and make it a 1 stop shop for your services needs, common or obscure.
But right now, the copy and landing page are way off the messaging mark.
- iKevinShah 8y agoMost probably they'll follow the path like other products have followed: Google Keep -> Keep -> Keep Notes -> Notes (In near future)
- powercf 8y agoGoogle One ⇒ One ⇒ One Two ⇒ Two?
- welly 8y agoThey must be using a roadie for their product naming.
- the_duke 8y agoMore like: Google One => One => Google => product canceled
- ewngzen 8y agoHaha more probably
- jillesvangurp 8y agoNo, they killed Google Plus ;-)
- tracker1 8y agoWhich would actually have been a GREAT name for this service... but they already used/burned the name.
- richrichardsson 8y agoSounds like something The Queen might enquire for looking herself up on Google, "How does one Google one?".
- fabricexpert 8y ago> How does one Google oneself
- richrichardsson 8y agoIndeed, but then the "joke" is lost!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- agildehaus 8y agoWaymo named their self-driving service "Waymo One", so it seems there's some force within Alphabet pushing for that name to be used everywhere? Besides it being a service you pay for, there aren't many similarities between Google One and Waymo One and I think it'll just be confusing.
- Rebelgecko 8y agoThere's also Android One (https://www.android.com/one/ https://www.android.com/one/)
- r3bl 8y agoAlso known as "pure Android" for the curious ones.
- arielserafini 8y agocurious Ones?
- vesinisa 8y agoDid someone say OneDrive?
- SamuelAdams 8y agoAgreed, when I read the title of the post, I thought this would be about self-driving cars.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ajmurmann 8y agoI guess someone there really liked the naming of their XBox.
- buriedMEnus 8y agoJust like Google Plus. “Plus.” Ugh. It’s a huckster hook word, engorged with talking points so that PowerPoint decks can prompt for easy segues during sales pitches.
- handzbagz 8y agoThe name Google Plus would have made more sense for this product in my opinion.
- dredds 8y agoAnd a G+ instant archiving button will be their 'killer' feature in a couple of months. KA-CHING!! Yes, it will even conveniently estimate the exact plan you'll need to purchase in order to store all of your posts, collections, and important communities.
- bmn__ 8y agoGrab your shit now, and also once every following month until you have fully migrated off. https://takeout.google.com https://takeout.google.com
- kowdermeister 8y agoA lot of Windows users probably know about OneDrive (https://onedrive.live.com/ https://onedrive.live.com/) since this is a similar service, I totally understand the naming choice here.
- pjc50 8y agoIronically OneDrive used to be SkyDrive until Sky sued them. I guess everyone's switching to numbers because words are all trademarked, apart from the phoneme strings generated by the pharma industry.
- swebs 8y agoThey should follow the smartphone industry and just use arbitrary algebra expressions. I'm enjoying my OnePlus 5T solve when T = 3.
- mikestew 8y agoWhen Porsche was releasing the 911 back in the 60s, Porsche wanted to name it “901”. Except Peugeot had a trademark on three-digit model numbers with a zero in the middle...
- Latteland 8y agohow could you trademark 0s in the middle? All 3 digits one maybe? that would be 9 * 9 = 81 separate trademarks. Seems like it's too comprehensive. 92818181818 0 1. Probably didn't get that, eh!
- mikestew 8y agohow could you trademark 0s in the middle? By talking to the French patent office, circa 1950s, apparently. I don't know what you're on about with the rest, but I'm just parroting what's well-documented, you're welcome to go look it up.
- 8y ago
- iliketosleep 8y agoI think you're right on there. When I saw the title, my initial thought was that Google had developed some kind of rocket! In other words, the name gives so little information about what the product actually is that it could be literally anything.
- trhway 8y agoi thought it is something to replace Google Plus :) Speaking about bad namings - reminds me how back at Sun at one moment everything became "Java" (even stock ticker, no kidding). "We've got just 5 product boxes (Java this and Java that), just 5 boxes, that's all! Simplify things for the customer!" Lets just say that naming as Java various non-Java things simplified nothing for nobody.
- lugg 8y agoI thought it was a new phone. After reading the top comment I realised it was a new version of drive and apps. After reading the link I now realise it's not even anything. It's just plain old Google with a new landing page at one.google.com.
- Beltiras 8y agoAlso: "One" has so bad SEO that Google One does not show up on the first page of Google Search results and OneDrive only on the third page. Google One was not on the first five pages.
- PurpleRamen 8y agoI wish for once they would really offer a unified storage-solution. But Yet it's all just a colelction of different storages with different interfaces, rules and so on. Google Drive has integrateion into all their services somehow, and Google Photos has some bad integration into Google Drive. But what about Google Books? Google Music? Google Mail? Youtube and all the other stuff they have? At best they have some import/export-functionalitity, not a real "One-for-all" type of filemanaging-solution. I haven't tested Google One yet, but it doesn;t seem to change anything there, just offering more space for them all.
- zengineer 8y agotrue, I had to scroll up and down at least 3 times until I more or less got what it is
- will_brown 8y agoIt’s also a straight rip off of a name from Microsoft...who produces the product Xbox One Not unlike how Google became alphabet which seems influenced by *Amazon A to Z
- jm547ster 8y agoStrange analogy, surely it would have to be ripping off a product called ‘Microsoft One’
- Spearchucker 8y agoPossible. First thing Google One made me think of was that they're getting into the gaming space.
- will_brown 8y agoWell it’s not an analogy. It’s just stealing a product name from a competitor, it really doesn’t matter if the products aren’t in the same space. If Google created Google Windows and the product wasn’t an OS, it’s still a rip off right? It’s one thing when it’s Apple/google maps because it’s a generic and descriptive mark, but One? Should have just gone full stop Google Windows.
- toupeetape 8y agoIf we are going down this road, Microsoft copied HTC, who not only had a product called "One" but also ones called "One S" and "One X" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_One_S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_One_S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_One_X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_One_X
- will_brown 8y agoOk...I’m no MS fanboy. But MS OneNote was released right around the same time. But let’s be serious Google spent millions to brand/launch this, and it’s got to be embarrassing that either: a. None of the yesmen thought to speak up and say hey should we really use a name MS uses for a bunch of their products (One Note, Xbox One, One OS, One Guide); or b. Straight ripped it.
- amit-bansil 8y agoNames are hard. Maybe "Google Bundle"?
- TickleSteve 8y agoGoogle OneStorage or Google OnePlace (for everything.. gedit?)
- kbutler 8y agoThey bought into their own subliminal messaging. They just really like hearing "Google Won".
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- auslander 8y agoAll your data are belong to us
- mtgx 8y agoIt also seems to symbolize Google's real new mission statement, changed from "Organizing the world's information" to "Collecting all of your information*, whether they publicly admit to it or not.
- wyldfire 8y ago> "Google one" sounds like... nothing. "What is it???" It sounds precisely like Amazon's "Prime" brand, and it's no coincidence. It's a sunk-cost feature to convince you to come back (like membership shopping clubs - Costco, Sams). Unfortunately I don't think it has the draw of 'free shipping' (+ music/TV/etc).
- marcosdumay 8y agoPrime has a well established meaning and predates Amazon by, well, probably centuries. It is also well aligned with their original usage, in that preferred customers could pay more to get better treatment (faster deliveries and customer service response).
- tracker1 8y agoGoogle Plus would probably be a better name... but, well...
- wmeredith 8y agoPrime has all kinds of built in positive connotations. “One” is pretty meaningless here.
- copperx 8y agoInteresting comment; as a non-native speaker "prime" evokes the idea of f'(x) and prime numbers. Prime is pretty silly (e.g., "Optimus Prime") and might be an inside joke. What are these positive connotations? To me prime sounds neutral, like a fact.
- pacuna 8y agoMaybe "One Place" would have been better. I saw the article title and I thought it was a new smartphone or something
- gaff33 8y agoPerhaps this is going the away of Amazon Prime - which started off as subscription for faster shipping but grew to be a one-stop subscription for various things?
- darkerside 8y agoAmazon Prime doesn't sound like much either, does it?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- QML 8y agoThe ‘one’ stands for 1.0, as in the people signing up will become beta users for a product that will inevitably be shelved. /s
- goldenkey 8y ago> Thank you for uploading 2 TB of data. Unfortunately Google One is being phased out and you will have until July 31st to download your data before it is pruned. Our new storage product is called Google Two - we don't currently have a migration program so you'll need to download and reupload your data once you pay for a Google Two membership. Thank you for being a loyal cus-tomb-er!
- barberousse 8y ago> It's probably a great internal name Well, Google+ was taken :)
- lorenzorhoades 8y agowhats Stripe mean? Whats Google mean? Whats Uber mean? Paul Graham has an essay about how the name of your company doesn't really mean anything, and you should always pick a name with the .com available.
- wmeredith 8y agoThey forgot the golden rule of user experience design. People spend the vast majority of their time not using your product.