4 ms·

If the reason they can't document is because they have a small team, then this is an easy solution for Google - hire some people to document the system. They do

by RyanZAG 13y ago

If the reason they can't document is because they have a small team, then this is an easy solution for Google - hire some people to document the system. They don't even have to be in direct contact with the actual development team, just access to the source code and developer design documents should be enough. For a company the size of Google with the amount of profits they make, 'small team' is just not an excuse for anything. The move is definitely deliberate, they can't have Skype come in and allow people with Skype to make calls to hangout when the hangout client can't make calls into Skype. It would make them look bad.

cromwellian 13y ago
I think you've got it backwards. If Google was really concerned with making Hangouts a competitive moat by blocking interoperability, why would they be plowing so much effort into WebRTC, a technology which pretty much commodifies Hangouts and makes it possible for anyone to implement peer to peer video or audio group chat? Skype is actually trying to block WebRTC, as is Cisco WebEx, and Nokia. I don't really see that Google would have anything to gain by blocking interoperability with Skype, Skype is the market leader, it is usually those who are not market leaders in a particular area to push for interop, and usually those who have a hold on the market to resist.
- sinkasapa 13y ago
  I think that the reason that these aren't contradictions is because Google isn't a person. So if they do one thing that is open and a second that is closed, we aren't using it as evidence to search out a human being's soul or true intentions. An organization of this size can do both things at the same time. If there was a master plan, you could say that the openness is great PR that allows them to do closed stuff without getting as much of a backlash. But again, that is just anthropomorphic BS. In one case people within a personalityless organization are doing one thing. In another case different people in the same organization are doing another. The two cases should be treated separately.
  - cromwellian 13y ago
    I work at Google, openness is not PR, it is part of the culture. People here believe in it, which is why I was the first person to bitch about this, and I'm not alone. Often if someone is doing something that cries for an interop spec, but they aren't doing it, chances are they have some good reasons that don't involve a corporate master plan to "talk about openness to make people like us, but secretly silo-the-world" Often, it revolves around having a task list of a gazillion things to work on and prioritize, and often open-spec is 'nice to have, but not critical for launch' kind of thing. Really, when you look at the market, 99% of the folks are shipping closed apps, where more time is spent on cute emoticons than on infrastructure. Google risks becoming "open, but irrelevent" in a market of iMessage/WhatsApp/FaceBook messenger, where a niche audience is supremely happy they can build third party clients, but which becomes a service unused by the great unwashed masses. The network effect requires other users to increase value, so they've got to double down on things which delight and wow end users first, and developers second.
    - dalke 13y ago
      "Openness ... is part of the culture" It seems that there are any of a number of non-open parts to the Google culture. How many server machines do you all have? How are dirty SEO methods detected and thwarted? What are the details on the influence made by the $18M spent in lobbying D.C. in 2012? That's not to say they shouldn't be private. It's me asking you what it means to be "open" as part of the culture.
      - tomkarlo 13y ago
        Openness being part of the culture doesn't mean that everything Google does is disclosed publicly. Openness to the public, and openness within a company are two entirely separate issues, and there are obvious practical limits to both (at different levels) if you want to be competitive.
        dalke 13y ago
        I believe the previous poster was only talking about openness to the public. (Is Google distinctively more "open" internally than, say, Microsoft or SAP? I think that's a different topic, and one that I'm not so interested in.) As I wrote, I agree with the view that parts of Google are not disclosed publicly. My question is, we all know that Google has some closely held secrets. In that case, how do I tell if (public) openness is part of the culture? Can I use that to estimation method if the level of openness has increased or decreased at Google over the last decade?
- makomk 13y ago
  WebRTC gives Google's solution to group video chat an advantage over both established competitors like Skype and newer competitors by allowing them to integrate it into the GMail web application. Suddenly, everyone who's got a GMail account can be called via Hangouts - instant network effect. Sure, anyone else can also implement group video chat relatively easily thanks to WebRTC, but why would people use the new services? All of the people they'd want to call are on Hangouts, not that new service - and thanks to Google killing federation, you can't call Hangouts users from other services.

by RyanZAG 13y ago

cromwellian 13y ago

I think you've got it backwards. If Google was really concerned with making Hangouts a competitive moat by blocking interoperability, why would they be plowing so much effort into WebRTC, a technology which pretty much commodifies Hangouts and makes it possible for anyone to implement peer to peer video or audio group chat? Skype is actually trying to block WebRTC, as is Cisco WebEx, and Nokia. I don't really see that Google would have anything to gain by blocking interoperability with Skype, Skype is the market leader, it is usually those who are not market leaders in a particular area to push for interop, and usually those who have a hold on the market to resist.

sinkasapa 13y ago
I think that the reason that these aren't contradictions is because Google isn't a person. So if they do one thing that is open and a second that is closed, we aren't using it as evidence to search out a human being's soul or true intentions. An organization of this size can do both things at the same time. If there was a master plan, you could say that the openness is great PR that allows them to do closed stuff without getting as much of a backlash. But again, that is just anthropomorphic BS. In one case people within a personalityless organization are doing one thing. In another case different people in the same organization are doing another. The two cases should be treated separately.
- cromwellian 13y ago
  I work at Google, openness is not PR, it is part of the culture. People here believe in it, which is why I was the first person to bitch about this, and I'm not alone. Often if someone is doing something that cries for an interop spec, but they aren't doing it, chances are they have some good reasons that don't involve a corporate master plan to "talk about openness to make people like us, but secretly silo-the-world" Often, it revolves around having a task list of a gazillion things to work on and prioritize, and often open-spec is 'nice to have, but not critical for launch' kind of thing. Really, when you look at the market, 99% of the folks are shipping closed apps, where more time is spent on cute emoticons than on infrastructure. Google risks becoming "open, but irrelevent" in a market of iMessage/WhatsApp/FaceBook messenger, where a niche audience is supremely happy they can build third party clients, but which becomes a service unused by the great unwashed masses. The network effect requires other users to increase value, so they've got to double down on things which delight and wow end users first, and developers second.
  - dalke 13y ago
    "Openness ... is part of the culture" It seems that there are any of a number of non-open parts to the Google culture. How many server machines do you all have? How are dirty SEO methods detected and thwarted? What are the details on the influence made by the $18M spent in lobbying D.C. in 2012? That's not to say they shouldn't be private. It's me asking you what it means to be "open" as part of the culture.
    - tomkarlo 13y ago
      Openness being part of the culture doesn't mean that everything Google does is disclosed publicly. Openness to the public, and openness within a company are two entirely separate issues, and there are obvious practical limits to both (at different levels) if you want to be competitive.
      - dalke 13y ago
        I believe the previous poster was only talking about openness to the public. (Is Google distinctively more "open" internally than, say, Microsoft or SAP? I think that's a different topic, and one that I'm not so interested in.) As I wrote, I agree with the view that parts of Google are not disclosed publicly. My question is, we all know that Google has some closely held secrets. In that case, how do I tell if (public) openness is part of the culture? Can I use that to estimation method if the level of openness has increased or decreased at Google over the last decade?
makomk 13y ago
WebRTC gives Google's solution to group video chat an advantage over both established competitors like Skype and newer competitors by allowing them to integrate it into the GMail web application. Suddenly, everyone who's got a GMail account can be called via Hangouts - instant network effect. Sure, anyone else can also implement group video chat relatively easily thanks to WebRTC, but why would people use the new services? All of the people they'd want to call are on Hangouts, not that new service - and thanks to Google killing federation, you can't call Hangouts users from other services.