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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'

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
- cdavid 16y ago
  While I don't follow your thinking about google, I think that the "special" algorithm for search, at least the original one (pageRank) is not that special. Other people had the same ideas even before - what really made it so successful is their use of commodity hardware IMO, and that was only possible no sooner than late 90ies because linux became good enough (licensing any proprietary unix for 1000s machines would have been difficult). This and the corporate culture - it seems they manage to hire a lot of very talented people, not just engineers, from early on. That's pretty hard to do.
  - Stormbringer 16y ago
    My memory may be a bit rusty on this, but as I remember it in the pre-pagerank days Google were just aggregating the highest results from a bunch of other search engines such as Alta Vista (?) and Yahoo (?) ... which seemed pretty scummy. As for my 'thinking' on Google, here's the way I see it. I see people giving money to Dell. I see people giving money to HP. I see people giving money to Adobe and Microsoft ($deity only knows why). I even see people giving money to Apple. When was the last time I saw someone buy something from Google? I've met two or three people with Android phones. yeah, so Google gets what - a $10 royalty? Don't spend it all at once! Which then raises the question: who/where/when/what on earth is paying for all this 'free' stuff that Google gives away? Surely it must be the advertising! And if advertising is really the only thing they have bringing home the bacon, eventually the bean counters from advertising are going to run the company (if they don't already). Google maps is awesome, but I never once paid for the privilege... how did they afford to put all those cars on the road eh? What I see is things like Google buying youtube, and then making it worse by slapping ads on it. I view Google as a modern day King Midas. But they don't turn things to gold, what they touch gets covered in advertising instead. Secondly, I have noted several instances where Google has been very 'cavalier' (to be generous) with the truth (no we're not sniffing your wifi. Okay, we're sniffing your wifi, but only accidentally. Okay, we're doing it systematically and deliberately, but we're not storing it. Okay, we're storing it, but nothing important. Okay we're sniffing your passwords, are you happy now?!?!?!) also privacy (Eric saying he doesn't believe in it - has he been snorting the Zuckerman again?), or even lives (see also: Chinese dissidents being sold up the river to Beijing by Google) Google was bending over big time for the oppressive regime, until China tried to hack them, when they suddenly grew a backbone and started standing up to them. That's not character. That's not 'not being evil'. === NB: me saying Google is not perfect is not the same as saying that some other company is perfect. what I was saying originally is that not only is it unfair to compare Google to Apple because of Apple's unusually good current results, but also they are different kinds of companies, working in mostly different markets (fundamentally Google is an internet based advertising company, and Apple is a media/hardware company - comparing them is like comparing a biotech stock with Walmart, it just doesn't make sense. Moreover, one of the primary differences in their financial results is that Google is in a saturated market, but Apple is not. It is hard to be a 'growth stock' in a saturated market where you already have a massive monopoly.

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

cdavid 16y ago
While I don't follow your thinking about google, I think that the "special" algorithm for search, at least the original one (pageRank) is not that special. Other people had the same ideas even before - what really made it so successful is their use of commodity hardware IMO, and that was only possible no sooner than late 90ies because linux became good enough (licensing any proprietary unix for 1000s machines would have been difficult). This and the corporate culture - it seems they manage to hire a lot of very talented people, not just engineers, from early on. That's pretty hard to do.
- Stormbringer 16y ago
  My memory may be a bit rusty on this, but as I remember it in the pre-pagerank days Google were just aggregating the highest results from a bunch of other search engines such as Alta Vista (?) and Yahoo (?) ... which seemed pretty scummy. As for my 'thinking' on Google, here's the way I see it. I see people giving money to Dell. I see people giving money to HP. I see people giving money to Adobe and Microsoft ($deity only knows why). I even see people giving money to Apple. When was the last time I saw someone buy something from Google? I've met two or three people with Android phones. yeah, so Google gets what - a $10 royalty? Don't spend it all at once! Which then raises the question: who/where/when/what on earth is paying for all this 'free' stuff that Google gives away? Surely it must be the advertising! And if advertising is really the only thing they have bringing home the bacon, eventually the bean counters from advertising are going to run the company (if they don't already). Google maps is awesome, but I never once paid for the privilege... how did they afford to put all those cars on the road eh? What I see is things like Google buying youtube, and then making it worse by slapping ads on it. I view Google as a modern day King Midas. But they don't turn things to gold, what they touch gets covered in advertising instead. Secondly, I have noted several instances where Google has been very 'cavalier' (to be generous) with the truth (no we're not sniffing your wifi. Okay, we're sniffing your wifi, but only accidentally. Okay, we're doing it systematically and deliberately, but we're not storing it. Okay, we're storing it, but nothing important. Okay we're sniffing your passwords, are you happy now?!?!?!) also privacy (Eric saying he doesn't believe in it - has he been snorting the Zuckerman again?), or even lives (see also: Chinese dissidents being sold up the river to Beijing by Google) Google was bending over big time for the oppressive regime, until China tried to hack them, when they suddenly grew a backbone and started standing up to them. That's not character. That's not 'not being evil'. === NB: me saying Google is not perfect is not the same as saying that some other company is perfect. what I was saying originally is that not only is it unfair to compare Google to Apple because of Apple's unusually good current results, but also they are different kinds of companies, working in mostly different markets (fundamentally Google is an internet based advertising company, and Apple is a media/hardware company - comparing them is like comparing a biotech stock with Walmart, it just doesn't make sense. Moreover, one of the primary differences in their financial results is that Google is in a saturated market, but Apple is not. It is hard to be a 'growth stock' in a saturated market where you already have a massive monopoly.