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I honestly never used it, and am completely unaffected by this. What was the most successful product that emerged out of google labs?

by iradik 15y ago

alastair 15y ago
Maps, reader, docs
- ssttoo 15y ago
  Maps was bought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#History) and so was Writely, which became part of Docs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writely). Dunno about Reader.
  - nostrademons 15y ago
    In both cases, they were mergers of acquisitions with existing products that had already been under development internally. The version of Maps that was bought was a desktop product, not all that different from many of the other shrinkwrapped satellite mapping programs available in the late 90s, and it was only when it was fused with the web-based Google Local ideas cooking up internally that it became the innovative product people know of. It's very hard to identify accurate parentage for anything developed within Google, because the culture (and innovation process) is such that ideas get proposed, refined, merged with other ideas, abandoned, resurrected in other forms, implemented, iterated upon, and finally launched, often by many different groups. Even Google Search (usually identified with Larry & Sergey) isn't really their creation: large chunks were developed by Scott Hassan (eGroups founder and never actually a Google employee, though he had a big chunk of stock), Craig Silverstein, and various other Stanford students and early employees, and the ranking algorithm was completely rewritten early on by Amit Singhal. Oftentimes the press - or just curious Internet comments - wants a single person they can associate with a product, and so they'll take a name (usually the most famous) and make something up. That's not how it really works, though. Most ideas have many parents.
z92 15y ago
Google suggest which later got integrated in main page is one, I guess.
wcchandler 15y ago
Not sure if this includes other services like Gmail Labs, but I relied on "attachment reminder" throughout college. It has saved me multiple times, including now in my professional career.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  I may be wrong, but I think it's been rolled into the main product. A few times, recently, I've been prompted as to whether I've forgotten an attachment, and I don't recall ever turning that Labs feature on.
- skystorm 15y ago
  No, Gmail Labs is separate and is not being shut down.

I honestly never used it, and am completely unaffected by this. What was the most successful product that emerged out of google labs?

by iradik 15y ago

I honestly never used it, and am completely unaffected by this. What was the most successful product that emerged out of google labs?

alastair 15y ago

Maps, reader, docs

ssttoo 15y ago
Maps was bought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#History) and so was Writely, which became part of Docs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writely). Dunno about Reader.
- nostrademons 15y ago
  In both cases, they were mergers of acquisitions with existing products that had already been under development internally. The version of Maps that was bought was a desktop product, not all that different from many of the other shrinkwrapped satellite mapping programs available in the late 90s, and it was only when it was fused with the web-based Google Local ideas cooking up internally that it became the innovative product people know of. It's very hard to identify accurate parentage for anything developed within Google, because the culture (and innovation process) is such that ideas get proposed, refined, merged with other ideas, abandoned, resurrected in other forms, implemented, iterated upon, and finally launched, often by many different groups. Even Google Search (usually identified with Larry & Sergey) isn't really their creation: large chunks were developed by Scott Hassan (eGroups founder and never actually a Google employee, though he had a big chunk of stock), Craig Silverstein, and various other Stanford students and early employees, and the ranking algorithm was completely rewritten early on by Amit Singhal. Oftentimes the press - or just curious Internet comments - wants a single person they can associate with a product, and so they'll take a name (usually the most famous) and make something up. That's not how it really works, though. Most ideas have many parents.

z92 15y ago

Google suggest which later got integrated in main page is one, I guess.

wcchandler 15y ago

Not sure if this includes other services like Gmail Labs, but I relied on "attachment reminder" throughout college. It has saved me multiple times, including now in my professional career.

pasbesoin 15y ago
I may be wrong, but I think it's been rolled into the main product. A few times, recently, I've been prompted as to whether I've forgotten an attachment, and I don't recall ever turning that Labs feature on.
skystorm 15y ago
No, Gmail Labs is separate and is not being shut down.