Fortune Magazine On Google Growing Up

prostoalex writes "Fortune Magazine runs a pretty long story on Google, but instead of the usual exultation over PageRank algorithm and Larry-and-Sergey biographies, we get a different message - is Google growing up, and is trouble brewing at Google? Here's Fortune's description of the pre-IPO days: 'Google has grown arrogant, making some of its executives as frustrating to deal with in negotiations as AOL's cowboy salesmen during the bubble. It has grown so fast that employees and business partners are often confused about who does what. A rise of stock- and option-stoked greed is creating rifts within the company. Employees carp that Google is morphing in strange and nerve-racking ways.'"

Comments

One other sign of Google going down: Google Groups

[Mengoxon]

About a year ago, I found out that it was suddenly not possible to post anymore in "old" Google Groups discussion.

When you are ready to post, click on the "Post a Follow-up" link below the text of the message to which you wish to reply. Please note that follow-up links only appear on messages that are less than a month old.

I don't get it! At the time I found a solution to a problem that was posted, I just wanted to add that solution but could not! What's the point?

Re:Google changing search results for profit?

[Stephen]

We had a long discussion on this just yesterday. I don't see the point of repeating everything again today. But I don't think your conspiracy theories are plausible -- Google were trying to get rid of spam, and may have been over-zealous, but I don't think they were deliberately trying to worsen their search results; they know that will lead to a very quick death.

Re:Google has no problem.

[mccalli]

The comment you're replying to says the voters were senior advertising execs. I understand that many of these people have, on occasion, used the internet.

These happy internet-using execs were then said to have voted the brand the most recognisable in the world. And that's simply cobblers. No matter who voted for it, they are wrong.

Cheers,
Ian

cause: newsnet behind Google Groups

[Reinout]

Not being able to reply to an old, archived news message in Google Groups doesn't seem so strange/bad to me:

Google groups is basically only an interface/archive to the existing internet newsgoup mechanism. If you'd reply to a year-old message in some newsgroup that got archived in google groups... you would be sending a reply to the newsgroup itself, thereby giving the whole readership of that newsgroup (let's say some 200 people) an answer to a year-old question.

Seen in this light, I wouldn't count this against google.

Reinout

Re:Forbes store gets it half right

[DeadSea]

Google seems to be having problems with domains that change ownership. When a domain name expires and somebody else picks it up, it no longer should have the authority of links that existed to it before the ownership changed.

For example Google search for "perl foreach". The first result is from perltoys.com. perltoys at one point had magnetic perl poetry magnets that slashdot and millions of other sites linked to. As a result they have very high page rank. Now the domain has been bought by somebody else and it offers keyword stuffed pages of sponsored links.

What Forbes seems to miss

[Animats]

is that Google is not only profitable but has paid back its startup costs.

Few Internet companies can say that. AOL/etc. can't. Yahoo can't. The new telecoms can't. Microsoft can.

Google as a business has no real need to go public, because they don't need cash. Going public is a dumb financial decision for them, because they'd be overpaying for money they don't need.

The founders could buy out their initial investors in a leveraged buyout and go private. That's a tough deal to set up, and the VCs would have to agree, but it's another, and perhaps a better, option.

Re:Google has no problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has paid for placement on TV shows such as Law and Order and Buffy, but it's kept hush-hush, very few people actually realize it. Last season they bought placement on about 6 or 7 shows all within the same 2 week or so period, but were subtle about it, and the Googleites so far have just shrugged and said either "oh well, it's not evil" or "nah, that was a coincidence, that all those writers put in very awkward references to Google in their scripts" (check out the awkward explanation of what Google is by Willow on Buffy, the most obvious paid placement of all since the normal writing on BTVS was so, so much better than that.

Sort By Price

[meehawl]

Google is rapidly becoming useless as a web shopping search tool. Which is more than annoying, as I haven't managed to find a useful replacement.

Yahoo Shopping. Sort-by-price. Cross reference merchant ratings with BizRate if in doubt.