13 ms·

Internally, this has been around for a little while (disclaimer: I work for Google but not on anything related to this). What continues to impress me about Goo

by cletus 15y ago

Internally, this has been around for a little while (disclaimer: I work for Google but not on anything related to this). What continues to impress me about Google is: 1. Just how quickly this was built (really, it was quick); and 2. Google wants you to use our services because they're compelling not because we don't give you any other choice (ie "Don't be evil"). Sure there are limits to what it currently does but I think you'll see it rapidly iterate.

maddalab 15y ago
ITA Software, acquired by Google in the last year, has always had this functionality available at [1]. In fact it is more full featured with ability to search international flight and a number of other options. There are even apps for iphone and android. This functionality pales in comparison to what is available there. I do not see the point of building this rather than have people use what is better and currently available. [1] http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ http://matrix.itasoftware.com/
- tonfa 15y ago
  How fast is Matrix? How does it scale?
revorad 15y ago
It says "Ads" on the booking options. What's the business model?
bradleyland 15y ago
Let's be honest. Google wants us to use their services because the better they understand us, the better they can advertise to us. That's the profit model at Google. I don't begrudge them for it either. You've got to turn a profit if you want to keep the lights on. I don't mean any offense, but the "Don't be evil" mantra is growing a bit tired. Evil is a strong word, and "not being evil" is a pretty low bar, IMO.
- yanw 15y ago
  They specify what they mean by "evil": http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googevil http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googevil
  - vtail 15y ago
    Here is the direct link: http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/tenthings.html http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/tenthings.html
- breck 15y ago
  I strongly disagree. Google wants us to use its services because at its core is a bunch of engineers that simply want to make the world better.
  - jey 15y ago
    What Google "wants" as an entity is different from what the individual component humans want. (i.e. the agent 'Google' is distinct from the agents that it is composed of)
    - abraham 15y ago
      Google is strongly guided by the agents that shepherd it.
      - blub 15y ago
        You mean agents like Eric Schmidt, that declare online privacy as dead?
        abraham 15y ago
        Online privacy never existed. If it is online it can be leaked, stolen, or shared.
      - vladd 15y ago
tamersalama 15y ago
Just curious about the backend. Python too or Lisp?
- tonfa 15y ago
  Why "Python too"?
  - abraham 15y ago
    Google is well known for using Python.
    - felideon 15y ago
      I'm willing to bet this is using ITA's software, which is written entirely in Common Lisp. See my comment above.
      - abraham 15y ago
        I said nothing about this specific product. I was simply simply answering the parents question about the use of Python at Google.
    - tonfa 15y ago
      Using python yes. But for building apps with heavy traffic? Most of the SWE jobs on google.com/jobs have a Java/C/C++ requirement, not Python.
rhygar 15y ago
It looks like it was built quickly. Why is there a giant search bar at the top of the screen? I came here to look for flights, not to search the web. Why is there a giant map at the top of the screen? I already know where I want to go. I don't need to look at a map to decide which destination I want. This part seems like more of a tech demo than anything. The whole UI looks like it was designed by an engineer. For example when I want to book the flight, I get a tiny left/right arrow box-thing to increase the passenger count. Very poor choice of UI.
- alec 15y ago
  To see how the map is useful, put in an origin and then play with the price limit.
  - rhygar 15y ago
    It's a cool in a geeky sense that destinations drop off the map when I click back and forth. How does this solve my problem as a customer though? I know I need to get from A to B. How does the map help me choose which flight from which carrier on what day?
    - nostromo 15y ago
      It's helpful in places like San Francisco or New York, where you have options about which airport you can use. For example, I looked at a ticket from SEA -> SFO. When I zoomed in on SFO, I can easily see how much it is to San Jose or Oakland as well. It's also just fun to enter your departure airport and see "where can I fly and for how much?"
    - alec 15y ago
      If you leave the destination open and limit by price, you can answer questions like "Where can I go for $500"?
      - yesbabyyes 15y ago
        This is all I've wanted from a flight search product since forever. It will be awesome when it's more international!
alohahacker 15y ago
is there a API or a way to affiliate model to integrate this on our own sites? i could totally use this on my travel related sites/apps :)
- abraham 15y ago
  I doubt there will be. Flight data is typically well protected by the industry. The only reason Google has access is they acquired ITA who is the main data warehouse.
Omnipresent 15y ago
Its' tough for a company to keep impressing customers with everything that comes out of it. That is what google has been doing for a long time now. It really is impressive. As a developer, I just HOPE that one day google takes a service like this and makes a long blog post out of it describing and bisecting every aspect of the app and how it was built. I'm tired of clicking 'view source' and finding nothing but minimized JS
- Permit 15y ago
  A tip I found the other day is that in Chrome you can actually de-obfuscate minimized Javascript and throw break points in there if you'd like. In Chrome 12 you just right click the scripts pane in the developer tools and click "De-obfuscate Source". In Chrome 13 you navigate to the scripts pane and click the "{}" icon. I honestly have no idea why they got rid of the right click functionality, but it's incredibly useful for me.
  - shoota 15y ago
    Thanks for the tip. I did not know about this.
- lukesandberg 15y ago
  I think that would create a sort of turtles all the way down situation. Google has so much internal proprietary technology infrastructure that it would be pretty difficult to provide a compelling explanation that doesn't have you wondering about how 10 other google services work (that you just learned about). Disclaimer: I work for Google and this is how I feel every day :) it's a good feeling though!
- abraham 15y ago
  Many of the tools Google uses to build their products are open source. Flights source for example mentions GWT. https://code.google.com/webtoolkit/ https://code.google.com/webtoolkit/
felideon 15y ago
"Just how quickly this was built (really, it was quick)" Wouldn't this have to be thanks to their relatively recent ITA acquisition? Not too surprised since QPX runs a few popular websites such as Orbitz and Kayak. (I'm not saying it's not a feat to do it in such little time as any project does take time, but I would like to see credit where due.)
vaksel 15y ago
No they want us to use their services because they make more money that way. And sure you have the choice of using competitors but let's be honest, Google has the option of always showing their own services in the #1 position in search results(i.e. search for any mortgage term). And they also dominate any local keywords. Instead of going to the actual business's website, the first 10 results tend to be Google places. Google wants to control all information. By being the defacto middle man between all businesses and their customers they are able to carve a large chunk of advertising dollars.
- NolF 15y ago
  If the results Google gave me were not relevant to what I needed (and that includes linking to third parties over their own excellent properties) then I would use bing, or find something else which accommodates to my needs better. However, this is currently not the case. I can quickly search the local weather without going to any random site, do quick maths or conversions without effort, search journals and books without second thought etc...
johnx123-up 15y ago
Just curious... how quick it was? (2-days for coding and 2-months for ideation??)
itswindy 15y ago
"Just how quickly this was built (really, it was quick); and" Sorry but not impressed, unless it was done overnight. Nothing special there, just copying from already done sites. "2. Google wants you to use our services because they're compelling not because we don't give you any other choice (ie "Don't be evil")." Yeah, that's why they keep filling the first page with in house junk that would NEVER make it without the Google advantage. I am already seeing adsense ads for this all over the web, how much does Google pay the webmasters for them?

by cletus 15y ago

maddalab 15y ago

ITA Software, acquired by Google in the last year, has always had this functionality available at [1]. In fact it is more full featured with ability to search international flight and a number of other options. There are even apps for iphone and android. This functionality pales in comparison to what is available there. I do not see the point of building this rather than have people use what is better and currently available. [1] http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

tonfa 15y ago
How fast is Matrix? How does it scale?

revorad 15y ago

It says "Ads" on the booking options. What's the business model?

bradleyland 15y ago

Let's be honest. Google wants us to use their services because the better they understand us, the better they can advertise to us. That's the profit model at Google. I don't begrudge them for it either. You've got to turn a profit if you want to keep the lights on. I don't mean any offense, but the "Don't be evil" mantra is growing a bit tired. Evil is a strong word, and "not being evil" is a pretty low bar, IMO.

yanw 15y ago
They specify what they mean by "evil": http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googevil http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googevil
- vtail 15y ago
  Here is the direct link: http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/tenthings.html http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/tenthings.html
breck 15y ago
I strongly disagree. Google wants us to use its services because at its core is a bunch of engineers that simply want to make the world better.
- jey 15y ago
  What Google "wants" as an entity is different from what the individual component humans want. (i.e. the agent 'Google' is distinct from the agents that it is composed of)
  - abraham 15y ago
    Google is strongly guided by the agents that shepherd it.
    - blub 15y ago
      You mean agents like Eric Schmidt, that declare online privacy as dead?
      - abraham 15y ago
        Online privacy never existed. If it is online it can be leaked, stolen, or shared.
    - vladd 15y ago

tamersalama 15y ago

Just curious about the backend. Python too or Lisp?

tonfa 15y ago
Why "Python too"?
- abraham 15y ago
  Google is well known for using Python.
  - felideon 15y ago
    I'm willing to bet this is using ITA's software, which is written entirely in Common Lisp. See my comment above.
    - abraham 15y ago
      I said nothing about this specific product. I was simply simply answering the parents question about the use of Python at Google.
  - tonfa 15y ago
    Using python yes. But for building apps with heavy traffic? Most of the SWE jobs on google.com/jobs have a Java/C/C++ requirement, not Python.

rhygar 15y ago

It looks like it was built quickly. Why is there a giant search bar at the top of the screen? I came here to look for flights, not to search the web. Why is there a giant map at the top of the screen? I already know where I want to go. I don't need to look at a map to decide which destination I want. This part seems like more of a tech demo than anything. The whole UI looks like it was designed by an engineer. For example when I want to book the flight, I get a tiny left/right arrow box-thing to increase the passenger count. Very poor choice of UI.

alec 15y ago
To see how the map is useful, put in an origin and then play with the price limit.
- rhygar 15y ago
  It's a cool in a geeky sense that destinations drop off the map when I click back and forth. How does this solve my problem as a customer though? I know I need to get from A to B. How does the map help me choose which flight from which carrier on what day?
  - nostromo 15y ago
    It's helpful in places like San Francisco or New York, where you have options about which airport you can use. For example, I looked at a ticket from SEA -> SFO. When I zoomed in on SFO, I can easily see how much it is to San Jose or Oakland as well. It's also just fun to enter your departure airport and see "where can I fly and for how much?"
  - alec 15y ago
    If you leave the destination open and limit by price, you can answer questions like "Where can I go for $500"?
    - yesbabyyes 15y ago
      This is all I've wanted from a flight search product since forever. It will be awesome when it's more international!

alohahacker 15y ago

is there a API or a way to affiliate model to integrate this on our own sites? i could totally use this on my travel related sites/apps :)

abraham 15y ago
I doubt there will be. Flight data is typically well protected by the industry. The only reason Google has access is they acquired ITA who is the main data warehouse.

Omnipresent 15y ago

Its' tough for a company to keep impressing customers with everything that comes out of it. That is what google has been doing for a long time now. It really is impressive. As a developer, I just HOPE that one day google takes a service like this and makes a long blog post out of it describing and bisecting every aspect of the app and how it was built. I'm tired of clicking 'view source' and finding nothing but minimized JS

Permit 15y ago
A tip I found the other day is that in Chrome you can actually de-obfuscate minimized Javascript and throw break points in there if you'd like. In Chrome 12 you just right click the scripts pane in the developer tools and click "De-obfuscate Source". In Chrome 13 you navigate to the scripts pane and click the "{}" icon. I honestly have no idea why they got rid of the right click functionality, but it's incredibly useful for me.
- shoota 15y ago
  Thanks for the tip. I did not know about this.
lukesandberg 15y ago
I think that would create a sort of turtles all the way down situation. Google has so much internal proprietary technology infrastructure that it would be pretty difficult to provide a compelling explanation that doesn't have you wondering about how 10 other google services work (that you just learned about). Disclaimer: I work for Google and this is how I feel every day :) it's a good feeling though!
abraham 15y ago
Many of the tools Google uses to build their products are open source. Flights source for example mentions GWT. https://code.google.com/webtoolkit/ https://code.google.com/webtoolkit/

felideon 15y ago

"Just how quickly this was built (really, it was quick)" Wouldn't this have to be thanks to their relatively recent ITA acquisition? Not too surprised since QPX runs a few popular websites such as Orbitz and Kayak. (I'm not saying it's not a feat to do it in such little time as any project does take time, but I would like to see credit where due.)

vaksel 15y ago

No they want us to use their services because they make more money that way. And sure you have the choice of using competitors but let's be honest, Google has the option of always showing their own services in the #1 position in search results(i.e. search for any mortgage term). And they also dominate any local keywords. Instead of going to the actual business's website, the first 10 results tend to be Google places. Google wants to control all information. By being the defacto middle man between all businesses and their customers they are able to carve a large chunk of advertising dollars.

NolF 15y ago
If the results Google gave me were not relevant to what I needed (and that includes linking to third parties over their own excellent properties) then I would use bing, or find something else which accommodates to my needs better. However, this is currently not the case. I can quickly search the local weather without going to any random site, do quick maths or conversions without effort, search journals and books without second thought etc...

johnx123-up 15y ago

Just curious... how quick it was? (2-days for coding and 2-months for ideation??)

itswindy 15y ago

"Just how quickly this was built (really, it was quick); and" Sorry but not impressed, unless it was done overnight. Nothing special there, just copying from already done sites. "2. Google wants you to use our services because they're compelling not because we don't give you any other choice (ie "Don't be evil")." Yeah, that's why they keep filling the first page with in house junk that would NEVER make it without the Google advantage. I am already seeing adsense ads for this all over the web, how much does Google pay the webmasters for them?