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Much as I despise Google's Minority Report style vision for the future where personalised advertising is plastered all over everything, and their evil actions r

Much as I despise Google's Minority Report style vision for the future where personalised advertising is plastered all over everything, and their evil actions regarding privacy... ... and much as I am allegedly a huge Apple fan ... I still think it is unfair for people to compare the effectiveness of Eric by comparing Google's performance to Apple's performance. Google is operating in a mostly saturated market (online search and advertising) in which they have a Microsoft style almost total monopoly. You just don't get spectacular growth numbers in those scenarios. Doesn't mean you can't squeeze the monopoly position to make great profits of course, but those profits aren't going to increase exponentially year after year without cease. Apple on the other hand has been recently expanding into new markets (okay, some older ones too, and some borrowed and some blue) at an enormous rate. People laughed at them when they said they would enter the phone market. People laughed at them when they said they would enter the tablet market. In fairly short order, they've totally disrupted and defined those two markets. Now personally I believe that their dominance in those markets will be short lived, but I think they will continue to lead the direction of those industries long after their market share has dropped below 10%. Google's done what? They have a really nice e-mail service... but apart from that and the search/advertising thing what do they do? Oh, they bought youtube and slapped ads all over it... yeah... great work guys, but not exactly what I'd call innovative. Oh, they have a browser and a smartphone... but again not especially innovative. I dunno, I just expected more from the 20% time of a bunch of PhDs sitting around?

majorlazer 16y ago
Android is the biggest cellphone OS on the market. Chrome is the best browser and it is growing at an extremely fast pace. ChromeOS is well on it's way (it won't compete with the MSFT or AAPL but it has it's niche). Gmail is the best free mail service available (and it definitely was revolutionary, think back to when it was just released). Google AdSense changed the way people monetize on the internet. Google Search was the biggest revolution in the history of the internet. Google Maps/Earth was also a huge revolution and is used by so many different services and software on the internet and on cellphones. Google Documents? Google Voice? Please, Google owns the internet. Sure, Google may not have any hardware revolutions such as Apple, but when it comes to the internet, Google creates and makes possible the most innovative ideas.
- Stormbringer 16y ago
  I don't think you really read what I wrote, or maybe innovation means something different to you. Edit: oh, I see the problem, either you're trolling or don't know the history of products earlier than Google. Nice try Sergei. === I know in the PC industry if you can add one more tick to the extensive feature list it is regarded as massively innovation, but I wouldn't call it innovation, and it certainly isn't disruptive. The only things gmail did differently from other free email services was that they changed the way threading was done, and they added good search that worked (edit: I want to make it clear that I'm not denigrating that, going back to my work Outlook account after using my private gmail account was enough to nearly make me cry - not so much because gmail was utterly amazing, but because Outlook was utterly crap). Neither of those things is disruptive, so I wouldn't really call it innovation. Similarly just about everything else you mention is a minor improvement on something that went before, or something 'cool' (example: Google Maps/Earth) that Google has failed to do much with because the bean counters from the ad division starve it of resources. Sure Android and Search and Adwords are big - note that I very carefully made a distinction between being big and being innovative. The problem with Android and Chrome is that they are "me too!" things, where they copy other people's innovations rather than doing anything particularly new. I could announce that I was doing a new browser, and nobody would think that it was breath-takingly original... they'd be like "oh yeah, another web browser... whatever". Note that copying what other people have done is how most of the computer industry works. Apple copied Xerox, Microsoft copied Apple etc. Don't get too upset about it or you'll drain your Reality Distortion Field's batteries too soon. (But hey, at least the Google RDF has replaceable batteries!) Visicalc was innovative, but I'd rather have the bank balance of Excel than Visicalc :D Even Excel was relatively more innovative than anything Google has ever done, because it was the first spreadsheet with a modern interface rather than being command-line driven. What'd Google do? Oh, we take a spreadsheet and put it online. Yawn "the biggest revolution in the history of the internet" Google search isn't even innovative let alone disruptive because there were a great many search engines before them. Oh, they have a 'special' algorithm. Big whoopy do. Google AdSense changed your life huh? Must be a true believer :D Anyway, glad that you can cash those big fat cheques from Google every month, good for you. :D
  - 16y ago

majorlazer 16y ago

Android is the biggest cellphone OS on the market. Chrome is the best browser and it is growing at an extremely fast pace. ChromeOS is well on it's way (it won't compete with the MSFT or AAPL but it has it's niche). Gmail is the best free mail service available (and it definitely was revolutionary, think back to when it was just released). Google AdSense changed the way people monetize on the internet. Google Search was the biggest revolution in the history of the internet. Google Maps/Earth was also a huge revolution and is used by so many different services and software on the internet and on cellphones. Google Documents? Google Voice? Please, Google owns the internet. Sure, Google may not have any hardware revolutions such as Apple, but when it comes to the internet, Google creates and makes possible the most innovative ideas.

Stormbringer 16y ago
I don't think you really read what I wrote, or maybe innovation means something different to you. Edit: oh, I see the problem, either you're trolling or don't know the history of products earlier than Google. Nice try Sergei. === I know in the PC industry if you can add one more tick to the extensive feature list it is regarded as massively innovation, but I wouldn't call it innovation, and it certainly isn't disruptive. The only things gmail did differently from other free email services was that they changed the way threading was done, and they added good search that worked (edit: I want to make it clear that I'm not denigrating that, going back to my work Outlook account after using my private gmail account was enough to nearly make me cry - not so much because gmail was utterly amazing, but because Outlook was utterly crap). Neither of those things is disruptive, so I wouldn't really call it innovation. Similarly just about everything else you mention is a minor improvement on something that went before, or something 'cool' (example: Google Maps/Earth) that Google has failed to do much with because the bean counters from the ad division starve it of resources. Sure Android and Search and Adwords are big - note that I very carefully made a distinction between being big and being innovative. The problem with Android and Chrome is that they are "me too!" things, where they copy other people's innovations rather than doing anything particularly new. I could announce that I was doing a new browser, and nobody would think that it was breath-takingly original... they'd be like "oh yeah, another web browser... whatever". Note that copying what other people have done is how most of the computer industry works. Apple copied Xerox, Microsoft copied Apple etc. Don't get too upset about it or you'll drain your Reality Distortion Field's batteries too soon. (But hey, at least the Google RDF has replaceable batteries!) Visicalc was innovative, but I'd rather have the bank balance of Excel than Visicalc :D Even Excel was relatively more innovative than anything Google has ever done, because it was the first spreadsheet with a modern interface rather than being command-line driven. What'd Google do? Oh, we take a spreadsheet and put it online. Yawn "the biggest revolution in the history of the internet" Google search isn't even innovative let alone disruptive because there were a great many search engines before them. Oh, they have a 'special' algorithm. Big whoopy do. Google AdSense changed your life huh? Must be a true believer :D Anyway, glad that you can cash those big fat cheques from Google every month, good for you. :D
- 16y ago