8 ms·
Google Shopping Express looking for Bay Area testers
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- turing 14y agoI really wish people would stop pretending as if there was some direct correlation between the killing of Reader and the launch of every new product. Personally, I'd much rather see them working on this than on Reader.
- colinhowe 14y agoDidn't mean it to come across like that - just curious as to what their strategy is and how they argue it. My comment is somewhat OT though so I'll kill it
- ScottWhigham 14y agoYour comment was fine and, in light of recent events, quite appropriate. If you hadn't said it, someone else would have. Why? Because it's clearly and obviously something on all of our minds right now.
- ScottWhigham 14y agoI think you've made an incorrect assumption - OP did not make the "direct correlation" as you imply, nor do I see anyone else on HN doing this either. If you don't like people talking about Google Reader, fine - just don't comment on their comments. Or write a GM script to hide all comments with "Google reader" in them. Problem solved.
- onosendai 14y agoWhile I agree it's off topic for this article, I think it's legitimate to assume a correlation. The justification behind shutting down Reader was the low number of people using it when compared to other Google projects, and the need to direct resources to other, more strategically important ones. As Larry Page eloquently put it, more wood behind fewer arrows. So if Reader was sacrificed to the overarching Google strategy, it's at least interesting, and perhaps relevant, to weigh its loss against new projects that spring up, like this one.
- bane 14y agoRight...if this "wood putting" strategy involves putting more wood behind fewer arrows, why do the number of arrows seem to be increasing, while favorite old reliable arrows are getting the shaft?
- nchlswu 14y agoI feel like people forget that Google is a business. Google has always retired products and always explored new avenues. I don't see the difference
- slg 14y agoI think people have come to see Google almost as a government for the Internet in that they expect them to invest in the infrastructure simply for the greater good.
- Shooti 14y agoI think the rule of thumb is that any old product which doesn't firmly belong to one of the 5 units (Search/Knowledge, Chrome/Android/Google Apps, Identity/Google+, Advertising/Commerce and Youtube/Video) created after Page's 2011 company reorg is at danger of being shuttered. As long as a product belongs somewhere it has a better chance of staying alive, and one way to measure that is when the last update to it was.
- Shooti 14y agoJudging from the Techcrunch leak at the start of the month(http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/04/google-is-building-a-same-day-amazon-prime-competitor-google-shopping-express/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/04/google-is-building-a-same-d...) this product belongs to the new Advertising & Commerce unit which was formed when the Maps and Commerce unit was broken up this month. A product maintained by Google's dedicated monetization unit probably has a better chance of being somewhat stable.
- slg 14y agoExcept that a service like this has very little lockin. You might invest hours into setting up something like Google Reader the way you want. This is just a logistics service. If Google provides this service for only six months and disappears, the userbase doesn't lose anything except the service. I think your argument is still valid for something like Keep. I just don't think it is relevant here.
- cromwellian 14y agoEven if killed, it's not like if you order a roll of toilet paper, the loss of the service will somehow hurt you. The lock-in effect with e-commerce is far less.
- marknutter 14y agoAh, if only the whole world existed inside the Bay Area.
- EugeneOZ 14y agoWhen this service will be retired? Should somebody invest time to Google Services?
- asciimo 14y agoRemember Webvan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan) and Kozmo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo)? It will be interesting to see how Google manages the logistics.
- rhizome 14y agoSix months of free same-day delivery, but what's the value of my purchasing data to Google? Shouldn't testers be compensated for that, or does that fall under the altruistic "Google needs your help?" Am I to think of Google as just another buddy who needs a lift to the bus station?
- turing 14y agoI'm sorry, but I fail to see how six months of free same-day delivery somehow doesn't count as compensation.
- rhizome 14y agoThere are two elements provided to Google here: service viability and the purchasing data from the testing period. It's certainly open to debate, but I'm questioning that the delivery itself is compensation enough for everything that Google is receiving from the testers. Obviously Google (and you) thinks this, but I don't agree that there's only one possible value-based assessment of the relationship.
- potatolicious 14y agoWhether or not free same-day delivery is fair compensation for your participation is a relevant topic. But your characterization of it I found disingenuous: "Am I to think of Google as just another buddy who needs a lift to the bus station?" There's no reason for the snark, and to pretend like Google is just trying to score a freebie like your hypothetical mooching friend is framing the argument disingenuously. The cost of delivering something same-day is non-trivial - Google is not expecting a freebie, though you are of course welcome to value your privacy above that dollar amount.
- rhizome 14y agoI don't think that it's unreasonable to say that Google gets the purchasing data for free in this deal, but these things are quantifiable, right? The value of the shipping and the value of the data? The data might be harder to arrive at a number, though, since purchasing data can be reused over and over for different metrics, increasing its value.
- bankim 14y agoDoesn't this compete directly with Instacart and eBay Now?
- Sym3tri 14y agoFunny to see things like this when Google retired Reader b/c "...as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products".
- psbp 14y agoYet this clearly fits into Google's product vision where (for example) you could be shopping with your Google glass, see a product that is offered at a discount, but you can't fit the product into your small autonomous vehicle. You purchase the product and continue shopping, have a google now card pushed to you warning you that the product will be delivered to your house in 30 minutes, use your Nexus phone to turn on the A/C in your house as well as the outdoor lights and the room in which it will be delivered and have the back door unlock for the delivery person. Receive a confirmation of the product being delivered as well as a visual recap of the product being placed in your home as well as a request for adjusting your home's settings (relock the door, turn off the lights and A/C). It sounds like a pretty focused plan IMO.
- anigbrowl 14y agoIf you live in the San Francisco Bay Area (in the city of San Francisco, and the Peninsula from San Mateo to San Jose) What, no love for the East Bay :-p
- toufka 14y agoUm, google, are you really targeting the right people with Target, Toys R US, Staples, and Office Depot? I was about to give it a try, but I don't think I've bought anything from any of those stores ever - nor do I really plan on it either...
- yummies 14y agoif you've never bought anything from target, then you're definitely not in the set of "right people" for this program. it goes without saying that the key to success here is logistical optimization, and big-box stores are the easiest place to start.
- yalogin 14y agoWhy is Google getting into this? I don't see the value in this. I agree they will get my day to day purchase data but is it worth going through the hassle of launching a physical delivery service? Its just not scalable as quickly. It consumes way too many resources and is a mess to handle the logistics and at the end of the day the margins cannot be high unless they are also selling the goods themselves. Will it be competing with Amazon soon? If not unless my daily purchase data can offset that revenue somehow I don't see how they can sustain this for long.
- amac 14y ago> Why is Google getting into this? Two reasons I'd suggest: it can, and it wants to. Google is a great story and it's continuing to unfold.