6 ms·

unless Google, like most of Microsoft’s previous competitors, summarily shoots itself via a series of disastrous decisions It's possible. Corporations change.

• andrewflnr 15y ago
  I don't particularly like Google Instant, but I'm curious why you hate it so much. How is it so awful?
  • xpaulbettsx 15y ago
    I personally find it awful in Chrome because they don't handle the autocomplete experience correctly, and I always end up searching for what they complete instead of what I wanted which happened to be a prefix of it.
    • deleo 15y ago
      Google instant is good for tablets/phones, not for desktop computers. Too bad they rolled it out to everybody I don't like it too much either, but can live with it.
  • cooldeal 15y ago
    I hate it because hitting backspace removes letters from the search field instead of going back in the browser even if I click outside the box. It gets too annoying. Not to mention that it's useless for me because I type really fast.
    • mayanksinghal 15y ago
      I have been using Alt-Left for that. Backspace always sucks and it's too far away!
  • handelaar 15y ago
    Where to begin? * I can't turn it off. Well, more accurately I can't turn it off for long. I've now turned the fucker off over two dozen times but someone at Google just won't permit me to disobey him. Or forgot to handle prefs properly across >1 TLDs. * IT BREAKS THE BROWSER'S DEFAULT SCROLL BEHAVIOUR. "Oh, that's OK, nobody uses the arrow keys to scroll even though everybody can and has always had that ability in their browser" is the dumbest rationalisation ever. Just cut that shit right out. Or let me turn it off. For longer than a couple of days, preferably. I'll just stop there because the other ten or fifteen things I thought of annoy me less than these. But breaking core browser functionality is a dick move. Forcing it on me instead of letting me decide was a dick move. And not fucking leaving it turned off when I specifically turn it off repeatedly over a period of several months is a really dick move.
• w1ntermute 15y ago
  > ...these four things aren't going to hurt google too much, but they tell me that the lunatics are now in charge. Well, considering that Larry was put in charge recently, things may be changing for the better.
  • laz 15y ago
    BWAHAHAHAHA. Dude, Larry IS the lunatic.
• forgot_password 15y ago
  Is Google+ considered a flop? It seems early to render a verdict on this.
  • argsv 15y ago
    http://89n.com/blog/manageflitter/google-public-posts-decrease-41-over-past-two-months http://89n.com/blog/manageflitter/google-public-posts-decrea...
    • Semiapies 15y ago
      Public posts. G+ encourages sharing with "my circles", which wouldn't show up on this.
      • wahnfrieden 15y ago
        Sure but if overall users and usage increases, I'd still expect that rate of increase to be higher than the rate that people learn to stop publicly sharing things. So if public shares are decreasing, it seems likely that overall usage is stagnating or decreasing as well.
    • nl 15y ago
      To date 7280 people have linked their Google+ accounts to Twitter using our service. We check these accounts for new Public posts every 10 minutes which represents a significant number of data points If anyone thinks this is in anyway indicitive of Google+ usage they are fooling themselves. Google has deliberately tried to build Google+ as a standalone product (as opposed to Buzz, which encouraged Twitter etc integration). That's a much slower path to take, but from what I see (in terms of in-depth conversations on Google+ itself) it's being quite successful.
• chrischen 15y ago
  > 1. Google instant. This is such shit I can hardly believe it. Yeah, I can turn it off, but the average person is going to be charmed by the gimmick of it without realizing how awful it is. On unfamiliar computers, I go to bing automatically. The average person doesn't need exceptional people like you to tell them what's good for him.
  • thaumaturgy 15y ago
    Funny, because that seems to be the driving logic behind features like Instant. We've heard from several of our clients, unprompted, about how much they hate Google Instant. They're about as average as everyone else.
    • chrischen 15y ago
      And I've heard people say they love it.
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  • skrebbel 15y ago
    That reply works for every place where someone criticizes any feature of any product. And it makes you look like a stuck up brat every time.
    • chrischen 15y ago
      I'm not exactly sure I understand what you're saying, but I wasn't commenting on his opinion of Google Instant. I was commenting about something else he said.
• 5hoom 15y ago
  Out of all the issues you have listed here, the one that rings true for me is the dis-inclusion of search terms. It can be really annoying to perform a search including a technical keyword and get page upon page of irrelevancy, only to discover your keyword was never included in the first place. This is the only thing you've mentioned that actively makes google less useful to me. Like you say it is reminiscent of the bad old days of search.
  • cpeterso 15y ago
    I think Google's early success can be attributed to its ANDing of search terms, perhaps just as importantly as PageRank. If you searched for oatmeal cookie recipe, Alta Vista would search for oatmeal OR cookie OR recipe, but Google would search for oatmeal AND cookie AND recipe. Google's recent reversal is disappointing.
    • zach 15y ago
      Oh, do I ever remember jamming pluses in front of all my search terms. So annoying. When I switched early to Google, I would chuckle at people who said "search for +firefox +windows +download". Because I didn't have to do that anymore, I used Google. Google knew. Now I'm back to defensive plus-prefixing. It's kind of depressing. This is the kind of thing upon which public opinion can turn. If someone claims "I'm worried Google is getting dumber", you can understand that perspective because you've had this experience. That kind of loss of confidence can ping-pong among influential folks, turn into a trope for news stories and then become conventional wisdom. Search quality is not just about results, it's about the overall experience. I know Google knows that, but this is an example of how closely they need to guard against regressions.
      • zem 15y ago
        would be an interesting hack to just add a frontend that prepended a + to each word and then submitted to google. (and it would be cute to call it +google, though that would likely get you a call from a lawyer or two)
• kalleboo 15y ago
  > 3. The debasement of the brand. I'm talking about the non-stop cutesy-pie logos. What if Coke did this? MTV quite successfully built their whole brand on this http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/mtv_international_goes_bare.php http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/mtv_inte...
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
• cpeterso 15y ago
  > 3. The debasement of the brand. I'm talking about the non-stop cutesy-pie logos. What if Coke did this? Coke often alters their can designs for seasonal themes or movie promotions.
• yannickt 15y ago
  Why do you think Google+ is a flop?
• bambax 15y ago
  > 2. The disinclusion of search terms. This happened all the time pre-google, and now it's happening at google with every query. You have to affix a plus sign on every term if you want it actually searched. Not only that, but Google now casually replaces word in the query. I was searching this morning for something specific with the word "append", and Google apparently thinks "add" matches "append". This is infuriating and keeps getting worse. How do Google not know that this is the exact behavior that killed the likes of Altavista and allowed them Google to exist in the first place? Why are they doing this?
  • irahul 15y ago
    > Why are they doing this? Because it serves a majority of users. When I search for "ubuntu sound garbled random", I need an answer to my query - I don't care about 'garbled', 'gibberish', 'distorted'. Or 'random' or 'after some time'. If your needs are specific, you need to prepend a '+'. But general consumer queries don't need it. People who need to use that can know about it and use it. The overhead isn't that high. EDIT: And if you need to prepend a + to query terms, that means for the given query terms, the missing word is rarely occurring and the overall ranking is low. Eg. 'ubuntu sound issue gibberish'. You won't see any results with 'gibberish' in it, but the results are relevant. Google isn't a giant hashtable - it's a search engine, and this behavior is desirable.
    • 0x12 15y ago
      I would like to suggest a profile switch that reads 'hands off my search terms'. Of course you'd need to be logged in for that but it would go a long way towards getting rid of the following pattern: - search for something - scan the responses, getting confused - realization that google may have messed with the search terms - scroll back to the top, confirmation - re-enter query in a way that google will not mess with it +google +please +stop +this
      • bambax 15y ago
        > I would like to suggest a profile switch that reads 'hands off my search terms'. Of course you'd need to be logged in Oh yes please. A checkbox would be fine, too (you can disable Instant without logging in, why not this?)
• moultano 15y ago
  >You have to affix a plus sign on every term if you want it actually searched. Anyone who's seeing this a lot, would you mind getting the queries from your search history and post them here or email me? I'd like to file the appropriate bugs.
  • foxit 15y ago
    I run into this all the time, and I figure it's an extremely common thing. For instance, I'm frequently looking to buy nightstands. I need tall ones, for tall beds. Searching tall nightstands doesn't even guarantee me results that are tall - plus that odd, highly-appearing link about Swedish women. Most results are just for nightstands, not tall ones. Now add the word italy to the query. Plus it, even. You still won't get more than 20% of results that relate to nightstands from Italy.
• irahul 15y ago
  > but the average person is going to be charmed by the gimmick of it > Again, normal people are unaware. Knowing about prepending a '+' to a query term doesn't make anyone 'exceptional', and not knowing about it doesn't make anyone 'normal/avergage'. FWIW, products are written for majority, the so called normal, average people, and majority finds the way google useful. When majority doesn't adapt to their changes, they will iterate. It's product development 101. > The debasement of the brand. I'm talking about the non-stop cutesy-pie logos. What if Coke did this? Google isn't Coke, and Coke can't change its logos dynamically. And you know, your normal/average person doesn't give a shit about what is displayed at upper left - they care about the value the serviice provides. If Google is finding them things they want, cool. And seriously, debasement of brand? When the 'Les Paul' logo came out, in almost every office in the world, and in almost every house which has a connected computer, there was at least one person excitedly telling someone else about the logo. A million dollar advertising campaign won't have got Google this much publicity. > Very public flops outside their area of expertise. Google+, etc. Too early to tell. But what does it matter to Google search? Google can deliver 100 flops a year. I will stick to search as long as search works for me.
• GeneralMaximus 15y ago
  I hear you. Google search is becoming increasingly useless. Just this morning I was looking for some Scheme documentation. Typing "scheme set!" into Google returned all kinds of crap because Google not only ignored the "!" after "set", it also searched for "scheme OR set" instead of "scheme AND set!". Bing, on the other hand, gave me exactly what I need. DuckDuckGo was as bad as Google. I realize they're doing it to help out the average user, but whether the average user needs this kind of help is debatable. There are "average" users who actually know what they're doing and they're going to be pissed when Google insults them like this. Lawyers, doctors, photographers, designers, car mechanics, gardeners ... these are "average" users too, and sometimes they have very specific queries. What Google returns when they search for these extremely specific queries is what will decide if they're going to stick with Google or switch to Bing/whatever. "You don't really know what you want. You're too stupid. We know better. Let us help." Is that the message you're sending me, Google?
  • foxit 15y ago
    Exactly. The inability to get Google to recognize punctuation in any form is a killer, and not just for technical queries. There are many proper names that include punctuation but otherwise mundane words, and it's impossible to find what you're looking for in a sea of words with the distinctive punctuation stripped out.
    • reinhardt 15y ago
      Did google (or any other engine for that matter) ever take into account punctuation?
      • T-hawk 15y ago
        They've special-cased a few instances of punctuation. C# and C++ work as search terms, for example. & also works, possibly because it frequently shows up in searches with high advertisement value such as "Barnes & Noble". But yes, I'd kill for a search engine that could consistently search for punctuation. I was recently trying to learn the difference between the <%= and <%# pseudotags in ASP.NET and completely struck out on Google.