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"Google 'should stand for a beauty, technological purity of innovation and things that are important to people,' he said. It should also be a trusted brand, he

"Google 'should stand for a beauty, technological purity of innovation and things that are important to people,' he said. It should also be a trusted brand, he said." I love this statement, I just hope Google means it. I have a feeling Page does, as you never hear other big tech CEOs speak like this, but the "innovation" and "trusted brand" bits are debatable. Yes, Google is extremely innovative, but they show time and time again they're not above copycatting others' innovations, a concerning thing especially for startups. If you reach a point, it's either sell to Google or Google will enter the market and become your competitor (Dropbox is next up apparently). That's neither innovative or trusted.

eurleif 15y ago
>Yes, Google is extremely innovative, but they show time and time again they're not above copycatting others' innovations, a concerning thing especially for startups. I agree that it's not nice to have that happen if you're the startup in question, but it can be good for users, and I'm not sure it contradicts Larry Page's statement. In order to innovate in a given market, you have to be in that market first. If someone else dominates that market, their features set the users' expectations, and copying them can help your competitive service get a foothold.
- jhdavids8 15y ago
  I largely agree...it can be good for users but can also scale back the innovation in that market due to Google's reach. A brand like Google can get to so many more users than a startup can. I'm amazed quite often by the number of people who don't know what Dropbox is. Yet, when Google enters this market, it'll be those people discovering GDrive and thinking "This is awesome! Why haven't I seen this before!" Competition drives innovation, definitely. Question is, who can innovate quicker and expand their market more rapidly, a startup or Google. Google has resources a startup does not. And for that, Google can often get to a controlling stake in the market, thereby controlling the innovation and halting that of the original business.
patrickaljord 15y ago
To be fair, people have been talking about gdrive since way before dropbox. It's just that now is the right time, they have a successful mobile OS, google docs is taking off and chrome OS people need a hard drive. It was a given that they were going to release something like that if only for Chrome OS.
- shantanubala 15y ago
  Also, Dropbox wasn't revolutionary because of what it was on paper. If you told me "file sync made easy" I would've been skeptical a few years ago. The simplicity of Dropbox's interface made it popular, not the actual concept. Which makes Google's "GDrive" a little more interesting as far as strategy. If I'm Google, I would want people to stop using Dropbox. Not because I want to make a competitor to Dropbox, but because I want more people on the web seeing my ads. If people get used to syncing their files effortlessly, they'll stop using web-based software and go back to the more responsive, feature-rich, and integrated desktop tools (eg MS Office vs Google Docs). Less people using the web = less revenue. GDrive won't be a "drive." It will be an attempt to get rid of our notions of files and applications on our computers. Or at least that's my prediction. They won't bother making a Dropbox clone because it doesn't help them in any way if it's successful (it'll probably wind up costing them more money than it's worth) because Dropbox encourages users to use desktop apps and save files using a traditional file system on their computer.
  - ryandvm 15y ago
    They already tried that - it's Google Docs. It's been only moderately successful, so to boost adoption they're going to hook up a Dropbox interface to it and pick up all the Dropbox users that also have Google accounts.
diminish 15y ago
Google - a company I admire - relies heavily on monetizing all of its web assets through online ads and they are sometimes copying or are giving away for free or opening up all other services not in their core but in some other company's core business. They are the most prominent company to play well the open web ideas; But they are vulnerable too, one such threat is the robads.org ad standards; which wants to standardize how ads are defined and published on the web in a simple manner. If robads.org gets traction, and people start to publish their ads online, Google may face a vulnerability in its core business too.
- alperakgun 15y ago
  As long as Google dominates in search, Google will be able to monetize better than anyone else. robads seems interesting though, but will have a long time to get adopted.

eurleif 15y ago

>Yes, Google is extremely innovative, but they show time and time again they're not above copycatting others' innovations, a concerning thing especially for startups. I agree that it's not nice to have that happen if you're the startup in question, but it can be good for users, and I'm not sure it contradicts Larry Page's statement. In order to innovate in a given market, you have to be in that market first. If someone else dominates that market, their features set the users' expectations, and copying them can help your competitive service get a foothold.

jhdavids8 15y ago
I largely agree...it can be good for users but can also scale back the innovation in that market due to Google's reach. A brand like Google can get to so many more users than a startup can. I'm amazed quite often by the number of people who don't know what Dropbox is. Yet, when Google enters this market, it'll be those people discovering GDrive and thinking "This is awesome! Why haven't I seen this before!" Competition drives innovation, definitely. Question is, who can innovate quicker and expand their market more rapidly, a startup or Google. Google has resources a startup does not. And for that, Google can often get to a controlling stake in the market, thereby controlling the innovation and halting that of the original business.

patrickaljord 15y ago

To be fair, people have been talking about gdrive since way before dropbox. It's just that now is the right time, they have a successful mobile OS, google docs is taking off and chrome OS people need a hard drive. It was a given that they were going to release something like that if only for Chrome OS.

shantanubala 15y ago
Also, Dropbox wasn't revolutionary because of what it was on paper. If you told me "file sync made easy" I would've been skeptical a few years ago. The simplicity of Dropbox's interface made it popular, not the actual concept. Which makes Google's "GDrive" a little more interesting as far as strategy. If I'm Google, I would want people to stop using Dropbox. Not because I want to make a competitor to Dropbox, but because I want more people on the web seeing my ads. If people get used to syncing their files effortlessly, they'll stop using web-based software and go back to the more responsive, feature-rich, and integrated desktop tools (eg MS Office vs Google Docs). Less people using the web = less revenue. GDrive won't be a "drive." It will be an attempt to get rid of our notions of files and applications on our computers. Or at least that's my prediction. They won't bother making a Dropbox clone because it doesn't help them in any way if it's successful (it'll probably wind up costing them more money than it's worth) because Dropbox encourages users to use desktop apps and save files using a traditional file system on their computer.
- ryandvm 15y ago
  They already tried that - it's Google Docs. It's been only moderately successful, so to boost adoption they're going to hook up a Dropbox interface to it and pick up all the Dropbox users that also have Google accounts.

diminish 15y ago

Google - a company I admire - relies heavily on monetizing all of its web assets through online ads and they are sometimes copying or are giving away for free or opening up all other services not in their core but in some other company's core business. They are the most prominent company to play well the open web ideas; But they are vulnerable too, one such threat is the robads.org ad standards; which wants to standardize how ads are defined and published on the web in a simple manner. If robads.org gets traction, and people start to publish their ads online, Google may face a vulnerability in its core business too.

alperakgun 15y ago
As long as Google dominates in search, Google will be able to monetize better than anyone else. robads seems interesting though, but will have a long time to get adopted.