Google Formula For Adding New Products

gpmac writes "Google executives attempted to demystify the search company's product decisions during presentations with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday. As Google Inc. has moved beyond Web search and into product areas as diverse as e-mail, photo-organizing software and mapping tools, one of the common questions for the company is how it decides where to devote resources. Looks like they are being a little more serious about it than their pigeon story would indicate."

Comments

I deduced the formula several months ago

[Neil Blender]

Here is the psuedo code:

if ( 1 ) {
create_new_product();
}

Re:I deduced the formula several months ago

[serutan]

Same as grandma's formula: one part helping hands and two parts Love.

Formula

[LiquidCoooled]

I'm Feeling Lucky

Re:Formula

[ggvaidya]

:) Your sig is pretty appropriate. Google doesn't seem to believe in it, though.

Re:Formula

[standsolid]

Services synergy:

Imagine, You go to Google Maps and type in your address, then press "I'm feeling lucky".

It then uses Google Local to find the nearest (m/h)otel, then uses Froogle to figure out which one is the cheapest (considering distance and gas mileage). Hell it can even find reviews on usenet using Google Groups

Then it books the motel room for your lucky night.

Hm... this is Slashdot. Back it up a bit...

Pushing "I'm feeling lucky" will map out to the nearest, um, "independent escort service" using the same tools/methods as mentioned above. :)

The Creative Minds At Work

[ackthpt]

I have a friend who works at Google and he gave me a glimpse of the creative processes at work at the very top...

During the Christmas party, Sergey and Larry were driving a large radio controlled SUV around the offices.

Nothing unusual there.

So a few weeks later this same SUV comes bumping around the corner, with the top ripped off and a remote controllable camera mounted on the chassis. One of the two (Sergey & Larry) was navigating it, while the other was operating the camera.

I expect this is all part of their new Search Engine Strategy.

we love google, yes we do. without google we wouldn't know about this while searching for a louis vuitton leopardskin defrobnicator...

Re:The Creative Minds At Work

[nordee]

Yes, it's a meatspace crawler.

Re:The Creative Minds At Work

[DrewCapu]

It's a prototype for how they will verify that their maps are correct.

Ok, everybody! Pair up!

Re:The Creative Minds At Work

[pipingguy]

During the Christmas party, Sergey and Larry were driving a large radio controlled SUV around the offices.

Were they both in it at the time?

Re:The Creative Minds At Work

[zobier]

What's a defrobnicator?

Re:The Creative Minds At Work

[Anonymous Coward]

just read the link in your comment. That needs to be a front page story, not just an anonymous link.

Re:The Creative Minds At Work

[mattACK]

Oh, I saw one of those on Saturday Night Live. It was called a "Woomba".

First Pigeon

[Anonymous Coward]

:P

Google Model

[CDOS_CDOS run]

1.) Write up "pigeon model" story 2.) Become dominate search engine 3.) Say "you'll never be 'evil'" 4.) Buy lots of cool tools (piscassa) 5.) Magic happens 6.) World domination 7.) ...Profit

Re:Google Model

[AceCaseOR]

Don't you mean firing a cannon at the executive producer of Star Trek?

Boldly going where....

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they are not "boldly doing more-or-less" what they did last time - like all Star Trek episodes....

Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[winkydink]

"Google itself was in beta for a very substantial number of years," said Page, who is president of products. "Part of our brand is that we under-promise and we over-deliver, and being in beta is part of that. It's part of our branding strategy."

Translated, in case something should blow up, we want to wait as long as possible before not being able to say, "Hey, it's in beta. What did you expect?"

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[millwall]

That's probably exactly what they mean. I've got no problems with it though. And I think they should have credit for not only saying it, byt also meaning it.

I'm really glad that such companies do exist. I'm sick and tired with all comapnies that over-promise and under-deliver.

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[PopeAlien]

If they suspect it might blow up, wouldn't it be most responsible to leave in beta? If there is any doubt in a products completeness or reliability isn't it best to know that?

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[cybersaga]

Translated, in case something should blow up, we want to wait as long as possible before not being able to say, "Hey, it's in beta. What did you expect?"

You like Microsoft's strategy better?

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[suffe]

How about companies start to deliver what they promise. Not over, not under, just so! Saying that under-promising and over-delivering is good is sort of like saying that since you hate inflation you like deflation. It's hard to make informed choices when you are not told the true lay of the land.

That said, I do like many of googles products and use two of them on a daily basis. That is more then I can say about any company out there. Still, the main critique stands.

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[Anonymous Custard]

Translated, in case something should blow up, we want to wait as long as possible before not being able to say, "Hey, it's in beta. What did you expect?"

Well it's free and in beta, right? What did you expect?

But hopefully they also give a discount to advertisers who place ads on Gmail, since Gmail's still in beta. Or at least warn them.

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[avandesande]

My experience has been very good with their betas, the product is completely usable and any problems are usaly very subtle bugs or usability issues.
I get annoyed at companies that use betas to unit test their applications.

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't knock it so hard. I make my life by underpromising and overdelivering? How does this work out so well? I can underpromise at a level that most people can't deliver even if they overpromise.

It gives me a comfort cushion to the level that I wish to excel every day. Taking away the pizzazz of underpromising and overdelivering will force me to adopt a standard level of overachievement which then gives my critics a benchmark to hold me to.

I really hate performance reviews. It sucks being better than everyone else working in an organization where the de facto mantra is,"Never directly recognize or reward outstanding work."

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[suffe]

Is that you, Scotty?

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's me, Peter. Whaddaya want, Lumberg?

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[rsborg]

Translated, in case something should blow up, we want to wait as long as possible before not being able to say, "Hey, it's in beta. What did you expect?"

Well, it's clear that in some cases they CANT go "gold" with a product, because they wouldn't be able to charge for it (and it's unclear what the business model would be).

Besides, they're making LOTS of dough, creating new products, and keeping their customers happy... it's that good enough?

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[ackthpt]

That's probably exactly what they mean. I've got no problems with it though. And I think they should have credit for not only saying it, byt also meaning it.

I'm really glad that such companies do exist. I'm sick and tired with all comapnies that over-promise and under-deliver.

As Microsoft is often accused of, i.e. our beta testing program is release it to the public and see what goes wrong then patch it.

While Microsoft is omnipresent and therefore their bugs get a lot of press, there are any number of vendors of products who get it wrong on the first try but still send it out.

We had a vendor at my last place of work who modified payroll code and installed it, untested, just before production runs. Unforgivable in my eyes, and it did blow up hideously at least once (which is why you don't do such things.)

I felt I bought a Beta Pontiac Fiero, years ago, because the first year were highly undesirable due to a staggering list of flaws. Mine was an utter lemon and I got really stuck on what was effectively a Beta car. THe company didn't stand behind it very well, either. "broken headbolt at 30,025 miles? normal wear and tear..."

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a theory. On their 10 year anniversary of going public, they will publicly launch gmail. Maybe a conspiracy with Ebay to create an artificial market? I have lots of free invitations for whoever wants them. Email me at dman05@pacbell.net and I'll invite you.

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[pipingguy]

I'm sick and tired with all comapnies that over-promise and under-deliver.

Bingo, so are most people. Google seems to recognize this and are doing great stuff as a result.

Re:Beta as a part of branding, my foot

[generic-man]

Yahoo! isn't "Beta," and they don't charge for most of their services.

Yahoo!, for example, has the balls to actually take the heat when their products fail. Google can fall back on its fanboys to apologize for Google's mistakes.

Re:robots.txt files revealing

[Anonymous Coward]

2 years ago called....they want their conspiricy back.

You missed an important part of the code

[Craig Ringer]

if (true)
{
Product* product = new Product;
product->setType(Product::Beta);
products.append(product);
}

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[ggvaidya]

if?! Maybe you meant while?

And yeah, I'm talking to you too, Gramps.

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[IWorkForMorons]

Both are poor form. What's the difference between saying:

If (true){ Do something; }

and

Do something;

Nothing. They both do the same thing. They will always do the same thing. True will always be true. You're just doing a lot more typing and making the CPU process an unnecessary If statement. Now if you used a variable instead of just using "true", then that would be useful.

Now please proclaim me KING GEEK!

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[CmdrSam]

If used with proper commenting, it could be a placeholder for a later revision that would need to check something. You could just change the 'true' to whatever it is you want to check rather than having to add in the whole 'if' statement later.

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[clem]

Well, hopefully most compilers would pick up on the fact that the condition always evaluates to true and omit the branch. So, like another poster mentioned, if it adds clarity as to some future intention for the code then go ahead and keep it in there. It should be benign in terms of CPU usage.

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[avandesande]

void CreateProduct(Products products)
{
Product* product = new Product;
product->setType(Product::Beta);
products.append(product);

CreateProduct(products);
}

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[IWorkForMorons]

This is for both of you that mentioned this. Just because a compiler *should* do something, doesn't mean it will. More then likely, an if statement like that will be executed. If you need to add code that might be used later, go ahead. But comment it out so that it's not executed. And if you find you have more code commented out then actual comments, then maybe you should reconsider your design. There's no excuse for sloppy code. It's things like adding code "just in case" that introduces bugs, not to mention adding a whole load of unneeded complexity. If it doesn't do anything, it doesn't belong in the code.

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[Anonymous Coward]

Better hope your compilter handles tail recursion well.

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that for pseudocode that looks an awful lot like C...

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[AmberBlackCat]

Are you sure they're pseudocode? They both look like real code to me. Maybe I've been on the computer too long.

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[abigor]

Yes, now all you need is an infinite stack frame...

Re:You missed an important part of the code

[trentblase]

I use self-modifying code with no compiler optimizations.... you.. uhh... insensitive clod!

70-20-10

[de1orean]

interesting, but how will they deal with the inverse proportion of employee motivation?

70% of employees will want to work on the 10% of stuff that is "truly interesting to us."

Re:70-20-10

[suso]

Exactly. I would hope that they would find that the majority of their employees would find 70% of what they do interesting. Otherwise, what are they doing there? Just a paycheck? That would be sad.

But from looking through their website and doing a strict count of what products and services they have, I would say that 70% of them are experimental, and 10% or 20% count for the search engine part. But that's based on count.

Re:70-20-10

[de1orean]

right, but the 70-20-10 is being floated as a guide to how they'll spend their money (if i RTFA correctly). plain ol' search (and related stuff like AdWords) has gotta take up the vast majority of their resources, i'd guess.

Re:70-20-10

[WaterBreath]

Simple: don't employ people who refuse to work on anything that isn't "exciting" or "interesting".

If I worked at Google I would view their 10% as a perk, and be very grateful for it. Most companies will have you working 100% of the time on stuff that is not exactly exciting or interesting, or even necessarily mentally stimulating.

Re:70-20-10

[de1orean]

Simple: don't employ people who refuse to work on anything that isn't "exciting" or "interesting".

well yeah, that's simple to say, but what i'm wondering is if there will be a long-term effect on morale, as the 70% doing the "boring" stuff look longingly at the 10% doing the "fun" stuff. thassall.

Re:70-20-10

[WaterBreath]

That's a question of management. If Google so chooses, they can have anyone who has the ability rotate in and out of that 10%. Problems would arise with those who just don't have that ability.

I don't think it'll exactly be a problem, but I agree it can't possibly continue indefinitely to be the nice bed of roses that Google wants it to be. Not everyone has the ability to work on the cool stuff, and I doubt even Google can completely avoid employing codemonkeys. And some of the codemonkeys are likely to get envious of the tasks given to more able developers/designers. There's not much that can be done about that because it's a personality conflict rather than a business issue: they're perfectly good at what they're doing, but want to be doing something for which they are not ideal.

So anyways, I guess agree there will be morale issues, but I doubt it will be with the employees providing Google's bread-and-butter.

Re:70-20-10

[fupeg]

When they talk about "truly interesting", I think they mean truly interesting to Larry and Sergey. I could see how making their search moneymakers (Ad*) more global/profitable/etc. would not be very interesting to people who think of themselves as being innovators. It is definitely the right answer to Wall Street to say that they spend 70% of their resources on the search stuff, since that makes all their money. It's their management's challenge to find talented people who are interested in doing the 70% that Larry and Sergey find too boring. All that being said, if you think about their recruiting process, it doesn't seem like the kind of process that would get the kind of people they would need for that 70% stuff.

I for one...

[opposume]

don't care how they deside. As long as they keep coming out with more usefull tools that will make my life easier, that's all I care about. Keep up the good work google!

Re:I for one...

[The_Lone_Gunmen_Are_]

Yeah, once they grow up and become a big and old corporation, then the fun stops... Moi

Re:I for one...

[rkischuk]

don't care how they deside. As long as they keep coming out with more usefull tools that will make my life easier, that's all I care about. Keep up the good work google!

I take it you're hoping a spell checker is next on their list?

Re:I for one...

[opposume]

Yes, in fact I am. I know my spelling is horrid at times and I'm comfortable with that. I get it right when it counts and that's all that matters...

did I miss national Google week announcement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this Google week on slashdot or something?
Seriously... this is not a SEM/SEO forum.
Do we really care for a new Google article on the front page each day? How about how much better the new MSN search is and how many people (and webmasters) are switching to optimize for it this month? How about how Yahoo just did a major update?

Re:did I miss national Google week announcement?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have much to learn. According to Slashdot, the following statements are irrefutably true:

• Google is a a Good Thing.
• MSN Search is owned by Microsoft. Therefore, it is Bad and Evil.
• Yahoo is a corporate whore that will sell your personal information that should be private to the (yep, you guessed it) Evil Spammers.

Anything that implies anything contradicting those ideas shall be shot down by the editors, like this post is bound to get a -1 Offtopic from michael.

easy

[myukew]

1. become cool 2. use coolness to get great programmers 3. build programmer beowulf cluster 4. ... 5. profit!

Re:photo organizer??

[William_Lee]

It's Picassa.

http://www.google.com/downloads/

Re:photo organizer??

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to www.google.com and enter "photo organizer" into the seach box. Push Enter.

gauction

[Anonymous Coward]

When will Google bring out the google auction site??! Ebay has nothing on them except brand recognition. I know google can pull off a better interface and faster server performance. The competition will help keep the costs low.

Re:gauction

[avandesande]

ebay is a bunch of ass-hats.
in an attempt to wring more money out of people ebay has become heavy and hard to understand.

google could pull the rug out from under them pretty quick.
they could allow people to post auctions for free while in beta... this would get them a huge user group.

Re:gauction

[Tsiangkun]

That's a lot of pressure to put on google. Going head to head with a powerhouse like ebay might be enough to cause the very intelligent people at google to crack and start functioning at a lower level of intelligence.

Re:gauction

[whovian]

ebay is a bunch of ass-hats.
in an attempt to wring more money out of people ebay has become heavy and hard to understand.

Maybe it was a calculated move on their part, to try to raise short term profits, in anticipation of an inevitable "G-bay", when they would have to lower prices to remain competitive?

Re:gauction

[avandesande]

My objection to ebay is less about their fees than their interface. I distinctly remember my disgust when they released their 'new' interface.

Now you have to wade through a ton of non-auction(ebay store) adds to get to the real stuff.

Re:gauction

[Silent_Fire]

One problem I see is that an auction site would require a lot more supervision than a search engine, and introduce all sorts of potential lawsuits. Think about just how frequently you hear of people auctioning illegal objects, or fake auctions. Now think about the number of people you have to have constantly checking up on these things. Remember, if Google screws this up by annoying customers, then those customers won't want to use other Google products, either.

Re:gauction

[sfjoe]

eBay has fewer people checking on these things than you might imagine. Typically, nothing will happen until a complaint is raised. The eBay community are their own policemen.

Re:gauction

[Bishop923]

Not to mention some of the really nifty UI features their Javascript wizards could cook up, stuff like Auctions that update in real-time.
Then there are all of the other Google products that could interoperate...
Add a (paid)feature of auction listings where they will show up on adsense.
Add some kind of integration with Froogle to suggest prices based on similar items(or point ppl who lost an auction to a similar item),
Integrate with Google Local to show only auctions from a particular city/region/state (great for very large items or automobiles)

They could practically erase eBay from existence.

Re:gauction

[scaldef]

Really? From what I've heard eBay employees something like 8000 people. It seems unlikely that the majority of those people are actually programmers. I'd imagine that a very sizable chunk are babysitting the service in one way or another.

Re:gauction

[six11]

It's interesting that whenever I see people talking about why Google is so popular, one of the things is always their interface. Google understands user-centered design (which is, by the way, much deeper than the interface). And since they have the whole "Don't be evil" thing, it means that gaudy advertising and design-by-ego will not ever, ever be part of their offering.

Re:gauction

[Anonymous Coward]

The major problem with Google moving into auctions is that this would essentially make them a MERCHANT. Not only would this be a huge culture change in the fabric of Google, but it would put them in direct competition with the very merchants who are their most loyal customers-- namely those that support the AdWords program.

Re:gauction

[pipingguy]

Note to young Google people: beware of crayons up the nose.

I wish they'd move into house search

[syntap]

I'd love to key in "DVD player remote" or "car keys" and have it show me a map of where it is in my house.

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[cybersaga]

Security would be a huge issue. People will start typing in "Neighbour's wife naked".

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[Anonymous Coward]

"Security would be a huge issue. People will start typing in "Neighbour's wife naked"."

Who exactly will be unsafe then?

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't used that feature yet? http://vunct.com/~jasonalter/googlekeys.jpg

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[SquadBoy]

http://battellemedia.com/images/googlekeys.jpg

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[Anonymous Coward]

People will start typing in "Neighbour's wife naked".

Start? Good grief, I've been typing that in for months now!

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[MikeBabcock]

That would scare me half to death.

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[Lord_Dweomer]

Once RFID gets easy to use and setup in the home, you can guarantee Google will have a Google Map of your house and it could tell you where it is by searchign through Google Desktop.

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[donothingsuccessfull]

Just can't get enough of that bible study eh?
http://www.google.com/search?q=Neighbour's%20wife% 20naked

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[syntap]

Well, they'd probably call it Google Household. Then you'll be able to find out where your posse is hangin' by using Google Neighborhood. RFID sensors in store fronts log where the boyz last walked into or out of a place and let you know. Of maybe they just get tracked by cell phone GPS broadcasts.

Mod this funny but I really think searching on Google for your friends based on call phone location wouldn't be too difficult to implement in the near future.

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words: RFID tags.

RFIDoogle, anyone?

Re:I wish they'd move into house search

[Invulnerable Bede]

I wish they wouldn't. Think of the crawlers, man! Urrrgh!

Re:photo organizer??

[ggvaidya]

It's called Picasa. It's a Windows-based program, though. Version 1 was very pretty but a bit slow on my comp. Haven't checked out v2 yet.

Re:Why oh why won't it fly?

[ovit]

Their is a crucial difference here.

While google is certainly currently over priced, they're value is not 0. They have lots of revenue.

Most of the dot bombs never had any real amount of revenue. The ones that did (ebay & amazon) are still around... Google will be around in 2007... Perhaps not at its current price, but it will be around...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Google has to many beta products at the moment

[hsmith]

When are they going to actually finish something? Everything except for the standard search seems to be in beta. Are they going to produce anymore finished products anytime soon?

Re:Google has to many beta products at the moment

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't need to.

Most of the products you are referring to are already fully functional (even better than similar products). The symbol of beta is just so that... (fill in blank) The point is that it hardly matters. Program is compeletely functional, you've got a product. Calling it beta doesn't change that much.

And of course, no program can ever be truly finished. We all know that.

Re:Google has to many beta products at the moment

[kat11v]

IANAL so I can't be certain, but from what I've heard, the reason for the "keep everything in beta as long as possible" that we've been seeing from Google is largely due to legal rather than technical reasons. When the product is still in beta and hasn't been "officially" released, as it were, you can make changes to the User Argreement Contract without being liable to anyone else (such as perhaps the users that signed up under the old agreement).

In this case, I can see how it would make a lot of sense for Google to keep most of their new (or not so new) products in beta while all the wrinkes resulting from those are being smoothed out. After all, you never know when you'll be sued by some random European government over some unintended effect (*cough*France*cough*).

Re:Google has to many beta products at the moment

[generic-man]

Bullshit. PayPal hasn't been "beta" for years, yet they are courteous enough to inform me when they change the terms of their User Agreement. If I don't agree to the terms of the new User Agreement, I have the option to terminate my account at any time.

Beta is all about deflecting criticism of Google products. GMail doesn't support IMAP? Well, it's in beta! Froogle can be easily exploited to report deceptively low prices -- that's in beta too! Google News often displays stories as 'related' when they have nothing in common, but that's in beta. It just goes on and on. People have very high expectations of Google, but Google hasn't released a new product since Google Groups (and that's been replaced by Google Groups 2, which is a sharply-criticized beta).

Re:Google has to many beta products at the moment

[Fnkmaster]

Actually I think "beta" partially means "we are figuring out the business model right now". Like email - it's not that they are holding back on a wide release of GMail to add more features. They are just tweaking the profit model, and recognize that as part of that process they may be forced to modify functionality substantially.

By keeping it in "beta" they can change the featureset or tweak to satisfy advertiser demand and have a cover-your-ass story just in case they change things ("sorry, that wasn't a finished product you were using, it was just a beta test").

Once they have a firm idea of how they are going to make money off of the product and have added advertising into the mix fully, it seems to come out of beta.

Re:Google has to many beta products at the moment

[PC_Detonator]

Plus, Google Groups has been stable (they're developing the new Google Groups seperately on a subdomain) and their directory service has always been stable too. I guess they have enough teams for each one to work on something.

Re:Google has to many beta products at the moment

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's not right either, because Google makes essentially nothing off of image search -- no advertisements are surfaced on those pages, and it's not in beta either.

Re:robots.txt files revealing

[Anonymous Coward]

Howard Dean called, he wants his YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGGGGGGGGGG back.

All hail our computer overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

[conspiracy]What they don't tell you is that 100% of their buisiness model is to make Google so knowledgeable about everything that when it does spontaneously become artificially intelligent it can take over the world in a couple hours. What better way to approach the top-down method to AI design than with a gigantic search engine? [/conspiracy]

Don't be cheap now.

[MrAustin1337]

Google is a great company. They have revolutionized the internet and I believe they will continue to do so. Maybe they make a little money, however go to the Google HQ Office and I guarantee you will see more old clunkers than BMW's and Mercedes-Benz. They are people who are devoted to their work and they deserve to make a profit. I can't tell you where I'd be today without Google and some of their features. It's nice to have a good company who does it all...

Re:Don't be cheap now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for being so damned insightful.

Re:Don't be cheap now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we please stop using the word "revolutionary" to describe everything from Google to Tiny-Tot Pull-up Pants?

Thanks a bunch.

Re:Don't be cheap now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that's a revolutionary idea.

Re:Don't be cheap now.

[Momoru]

Because Google made a MAJOR error during its IPO process, every individual employee's stock sales are public information (usually company's use a loophole so that only directors and execs have to report). So you can see exactly who does and doesn't care about the money at google (at least immediate money). Like good old Washington Wong who sold 10 shares for a couple thousand quick bucks.

Not many companies work that way

[irikar]

Under promise and over deliver. How many companies work that way these days?

How many programmers in how many companies have to over work in order to try to achieve what was over-promised and consequently under-delivered by over rated marketing and executive dudes?

I'm not sure I totally subscribe to the idea of staying in beta for that long though... But you have to admit the idea of gmail invites is brilliant. Once gmail leaves the beta stage, its user base will be huge. Anyone has an idea of how big this user base is already?

Re:Not many companies work that way

[jthayden]

I don't really pay a whole lot of attention to this stuff, but how often do they announce products before they are in beta either.

It seems to me that they get to work on stuff until it's done and release it as a beta for some end user testing. I'm sure they have their own internal deadlines, but it looks like those deadlines aren't driven by marketing and product launch dates like they are in other companies.

If something isn't done, or isn't done right, I don't think they release it. Compare that to most other companies.

Re:Not many companies work that way

[MrAustin1337]

Yeah. I'm one of those programmers who has to make up for other people's promises.

Re:Not many companies work that way

[Matt Perry]

But you have to admit the idea of gmail invites is brilliant. Once gmail leaves the beta stage, its user base will be huge. Anyone has an idea of how big this user base is already?

Since Google is using invites rather than a free-for-all signup, I'm hoping, and confident, that they'll wipe all the Gmail accounts after the beta. That way everyone can have a fair chance to get whatever username they want.

Alternatively, since they are going to be a domain registrar, you could host you could register a domain with them and then host the email via gmail.

Re:Not many companies work that way

[Anonymous Coward]

They won't do this. To many people is already using gmail for more or less important emails.

What do you think would happen if that many adresses changed owner just like that?

Mayhem I tell ya!

Re:Not many companies work that way

[l4m3z0r]

Anyone has an idea of how big this user base is already?

No idea but I can garuntee its about to explode in growth or is about to "go live"( as in not be beta anymore). My reason for thinking that is I was handed 50 invites the other day.

Re:Not many companies work that way

[Anonymous Coward]

thats the dumbest thing ive ever heard

Re:Not many companies work that way

[Feztaa]

You only got 50? I was given 50 twice.

The first time, I donated 45 of them to the invite spooler, and retained 5 "just in case". A couple days later, it was back at 50 again. So I donated another 45 to the spooler and kept another 5 "just in case".

I'm not providing a link to the invite spooler because it's been taken down due to being overwhelmed by gmail invites. He claimed he had about 3.5 million of them, his server couldn't take the load.

Only 21 of the 90 invites I submitted were used. Good thing I kept those 5... ;)

Re:Not many companies work that way

[okmnji]

I agree, except on the wiping of the accounts. Really, what reason do they have to do this? Not only would it piss off a lot of users who will lose months of archived emails, but there really isn't anything for Google to gain by doing so. Methinks somebody is just a little peeved that there happen to be lots of people named "Matt Perry", and several of them happened to be more "in the loop", and got invites first.

But yeah, I can see Google moving in the same direction as Yahoo! with this stuff, tying domain registration with gmail, and possibly hosting.

As for the original question of how big the user base is*, I would say it's about as big as it's gonna get for a while. I've had 50 invites for the past week, and whenever I invite a few people, it just fills back up again. I practically have to beg people to take them. And before anyone says it, one account is plenty for me, and I like having my OWN hard drives thankyouverymuch.

* And by user base, I mean those people actually using Gmail for real e-mail purposes, not remote file storage.

Re:Not many companies work that way

[WelcomeToTheFallout]

Anyone has an idea of how big this user base is already?

Not sure how big it is now but judging by the fact that I've got 50 invites on my one account now I'd think it's probably pretty close to going gold.

If you want one let me know!

Re:photo organizer??

[njko]

v2 Its Better, its more complete, and has a nice set of new tools like sepia,BW,etc.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

20% of google employee's time...

[jxyama]

is dedicated to working on projects he/she wants to work on, completely unrelated to his/her core job function.

i assume this means you get to take one day a week to brainstorm and work on whatever sounds cool.

when you have a collection of fairly bright and competent people and provide them with computational and other resources and give them some free time, you get some cool stuff.

Re:20% of google employee's time...

[GreenMarine]

Now I see where all those level 60 Hunters came from!

Re:20% of google employee's time...

[pipingguy]

I agree (while not claiming to be bright and competent). Often I go off on tangents, trying to solve relevant, nagging business-related problems via innovation with similarly-minded drones. It's actually fun to do, but if it's not part of your "official" job description there's the risk that you get called on it ("wasting time", from a short-sighted management perspective).

Google's idea of paid 20% time on personal interest projects is a good one, as people that prove that they can consistently come up with good ideas likely end up managing similarly-minded people.

Ouch

[Craig Ringer]

Particularly painful given that I've been spending all day with my head immersed in C++.

Definitely well past sleep time.

Re:Why oh why won't it fly?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not supposed to work for everyone. It only needs to work long enough for the top 10% of executives and shareholders to assure themselves a profit long enough to find the next rope. Did you ever play Jungle Hunt? Top investors swing from rope to rope using the energy of the expendable general investing populance to keep the ropes swinging.

Pyramid scheme.

Re:Why oh why won't it fly?

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

An overrated .dot-com is once again ruling the roost. So let's see, given that it took, on average about, say, four and a half years for the other dot coms to collapse after their IPO, that puts google on course for bankruptcy in about 2007?

There are so many differences between Google and 99% of the dot coms that IPO'd, I'm not even sure where to start.

1. Google was already profitable before the IPO - they've been profitable since 2001, in fact.
2. Google did not give away control of their company to investors - public investors only hold 10% of the company, and the founders still fully control it.
3. Even if their share price collapses (it's most likely overvalued, but I'm not sure by how much), there's no reason the company has to collapse. A surprising number of "failed" dot-coms are still around and doing okay, even with tiny share prices. Google is in a much better situation than almost all of them were, in terms of long-term profitability and a sustainable business plan.

found the link...

[jxyama]

here's a talk given by a google employee at Univ. of Washington. he mentions the 20% deal - the talk was given Oct. '04, so i don't think it's outdated yet.

abstract page (with a link to the archived talk, ~1 hour)

Re:found the link...

[Finuvir]

I was at a technical talk at Google in Dublin only a few months ago and they mentioned the 20% of time on personal projects. It's still very much a part of how the company works.

Man Bush is gonna be pissed.

[MrAustin1337]

Man. I thought it was the government's job to spy on our houses. Now the FBI will have to buy the info from Google!

Tech TV. Behind The Technology...

[lottameez]

I smell a made-for-TV movie in the works in about 4 years.

This is the "back-in-the-happier-days" segment. Then they'll move on to a Sergey interview complaining about what an *sshole Larry was and how Larry never really contributed anything. Larry will appear withdrawn and pale, and be interviewed in a jail cell where he is serving 10 years for a drug-induced armed robbery of a Fry's Electronics. He'll bemoan his loss of stature and twitch nervously everytime Sergey's name is mentioned. Somebody gets in a car crash (or at least a disturbing fender bender).

Perhaps Google Can Explain...

[MightyMartian]

Perhaps Google can explain how it's going to make money now that it's advertising model is being blown to tiny bits and pieces.

Perhaps they could erotic pictures next to any search results.

Re:Perhaps Google Can Explain...

[Skater]

It has? How?

Not being allowed to sell trademarks in France to people that don't own them hardly seems "blown to tiny bits and pieces".

Re:Perhaps Google Can Explain...

[marshall_j]

well they can't post ads for competing companies beside results.

they can definatly post ads for products that enhance your search results. eg search for bmw and get car stereo ads on the side.

Re:Perhaps Google Can Explain...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that'll work.

Until they decide to put pics of Halle Berry up beside search results for Carmen Electra

Re:Why oh why won't it fly?

[jxyama]

you forgot one of the most important differences:

google has a solid (i.e. already proven to be profittable) business model. most dot-coms didn't - they were mostly mundane business models that were somehow considered "novel" simply because they used internet as the communication medium.

Re:robots.txt files revealing

[JimmehAH]

They were at war with them. I'd imagine that manages to affect most affairs.
Take that and the fact that there's still a lot of varied work going on there that the White House is deeply involved in and I'm not that surprised that every directory has an Iraq subdirectory.

Be more concerned when they include Iran or North Korea in their robots.txt

next product:

[lejerdemayn]

Google Sentient! motto: killing all humans in the process of the search of the unsearchable! :D

Re:Why oh why won't it fly?

[hackstraw]

4. They are still in business.

how do they make money?

[dioscaido]

Somewhat related to the topic of google's continued expansion into new product areas -- how does google make money?

I love the company, and I hope they continue doing what they are doing, but looking at their stock I get unpleasant flashbacks to the tech bubble of the late 90's, where companies with high coolness factor but low profits had skyrocketing stocks. Are ads and 'google appliance' sales enough to drive the $189 per-share stock price?

Re:how do they make money?

[Tazzy531]

I wouldn't say that Google has low profits. They are already profitable. They've been profitable even before the IPO. Their last report fourth quarter net incoming was $204.1 million.

Are ads and 'google appliance' sales enough to drive the $189 per-share stock price?
I just wish I got into GOOG at 85.

Re:how do they make money?

[Tazzy531]

Stupid slashcode. It should have said:

Are ads and 'google appliance' sales enough to drive the $189 per-share stock price? -- You do realize this question has no meaning. You can't compare stock prices to stock prices because they have different numbers of outstanding shares. The number you should be looking at is the market cap. This takes the number of shares into comparison. The market cap for GOOG is about the same as that of YHOO. Of the two, which do you think will be more successfull?

Re:how do they make money?

[Lord_Dweomer]

When you are the #1 destination on the net, and everybody comes to you for searching, then yes, ad sales are more than enough to drive a profitable business, especially when those ads are found to be the most effective advertising method on the entire internet.

Re:how do they make money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Need a loan? For home loans, commercial loans or to refinance an existing mortgage please contact the mortgage loan specialists at Lend USA!

Internationalize?

[Momoru]

Brin said that Google has an "objective this year of becoming an international company"....

....so we've kicked off the year by offering a mapping program that only works for the USA.

Re:Internationalize?

[xsbellx]

It happens to work reasonably well for Canada. Although close, we not quite yet the 51st state.

They mention their new map service.

[Sebastian Jansson]

During a question-and-answer session, Brin said that Google has an "objective this year of becoming an international company" as opposed to a U.S. company with some global operations. Brin is president of technology at Google
I see they have allready started, by removing all other countries. ;)

Re:robots.txt files revealing

[NemosomeN]

Perusing the robots, I found:
Disallow: /kids/teeball/iraq
WTF
But really, it looks like they disallowed every /iraq and /text in every folder - whether it existed or not. Can't think of any reason, unless they don't want everyone to know about The bloodiest military mistake ever.
(Yes, this is a joke, look up google bombing [I think that's the term])

Re:Why oh why won't it fly?

[C. E. Sum]

> google has a solid (i.e. already proven to be profittable) business model.

I think you mean "google has a currently solid business model." I love google, and use it an aweful lot. I even think adclick is a good advertizing model. However, their continued success depends (IMO) on them adapting their technology and business practices so they keep being profitable -- even in the face of people trying to manipulate search results and other companies copying the best of google's ideas.

Just to say something about Google services

[cwalker]

Looking at what Google is now offering, gmail, google news, google search, and now google maps, they are the best of services out there right now. I dont see any reason for using any other comparable services.
I used to use maps at yahoo because they were using FreeBSD servers. Googles mapping seems to be far superior and they are using Linux servers!
I have never used any other search engine, so I guess I can say I am suomewhat spoiled.
Mail is the best! 1 GB of storage.
News, wow!

Microsoft is a competitor

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Here's their code:

5 REM Copyright 2005 Microsoft
6 REM Contact: marketing@microsoft.com
10 Load "Google.com"
20 Let newfeature = googlefeature
30 goto 30

So you've got NOTHING to do?

[ReadParse]

Yeah, sometimes I feel like somebody who doesn't appreciate the awesome non-web-search stuff that Google is doing might feel like a fast-food manager I used to work for:

"If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean."

I've recently seen in Waffle House they have a sign for the cook.. after the last order, "Kill the flame and GET IN THE GAME". Meaning to turn off the gas burner (they NEVER do) and to "walk the line," cleaning. Hey, remind me to never go back to a food service job, where the very idea that your work might be done and you might sit around for a minute or two is ludicrous. I can't believe I used to live like that.

My point is that some of these projects that come out, as cool as they are, seem extraneous, almost like they're SO BORED with web searching that they just come up with this stuff in their spare time.

"Oh, so I suppose that search code is BUG FREE, then??!?! Huh, Google?"

I love Google. Love 'em. The mapping is awesome, the mail is awesome -- I even love Google Sets, which seems to be perpetually in the lab.

RP

old story. fuckedgoogle.com had it first

[googisgod]

http://www.fuckedgoogle.com/ the only site on the net devoted to exposing the dark side of google.

Re:Why oh why won't it fly?

[Finuvir]

you forgot one of the most important differences:

Did you miss point one: profitability? Solid business model == profit.

Dark fiber?

[NiklasD]

This article appears interesting to me. However, rather speculative...

robbIE gambling on censorship/PostBlock devise

[Anonymous Coward]

to impede freedom of speech &/or genuine information?

a bad bet, even with somebodIE else's dough.

reminds us of the gnu online dating debacle?

whoreabully MiSguided censorship is no match for newclear power?

to quote from some previously PostBlocked/censored material: /. posters take to the ether, etc...., to avoid being unheard of/deleted.

from yet another post aptly titled:

robbIE steps on /.'s pedigree with whoreabull MiSuse of the patentdead PostBlock censorship devise?
(Score: mynuts won, fauxking corepirate nazis' puppets on a string)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 08, @03:56AM (#11604730)

what some fools will do for a little more monIE?

lookout bullow.

unprecedented evile et AL, is about to take it in the .asp again? the daze of the phonIE bullonly greed/fear/ego based stock markup FraUD execrable, is WANing into coolapps/the abyss, as we fail to communicate affectionately.

all is not lost?

consult with/trust in yOUR creators, supplying newclear powered communications tools as needed, to facilitate the wildly popular planet/population rescue initiative/mandate, since/until forever. see you there?

it's ok, we're willing to go the extra/last mile with/for you.

Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled. You can still login to post. However, if bad posting continues from your IP or Subnet that privilege could be revoked as well. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner (for weeks/months in our case) or login (just makes robbIE turn on the PostBlock devise faster) and improve your posting . If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down (like with the georgewellian nazi bouNTy hunter scam?). If you think this is unfair, we don't care.

My experience

[harmonica]

It's pretty fast, esp. the search which updates while you type the keyword. Be sure to turn off "special effects" and "check for updates" in the options, both annoyingly being turned on by default.

I can't seem to be able to understand the scroll pane for the thumbnails, though. If I want to scroll to the end, it jumps back to where it was once I release the mouse button after dragging it down. Very annoying.

Magical google rules...

[ZehFernando]

1. Release any new product as 'beta' even though it has been public for an year. That way, when people find one of the many bugs in it, they can't say how bad it is because "it's a beta". 2. Make it - whatever it is - invite only. That way, people will actually want it more - they'll feel like they belong to a VIP group. When they finally get into it - whatever it is - they will be so happy that they will want all their friends to notice it, by inviting them to the service, as well as posting on blogs and selling invitations to it. "Hey, I'm on ! Do you want an invitation?". 3. ?? 4. Profit.

Let me know when they build a search engine

[letchhausen]

that works. One that doesn't rank bullshit shopping sites at top. If I look for my brother's workplace (a car dealership in Detroit) the actual web site for the company appears low on the 2nd page and sometimes on the 3rd page. It's pretty bad when the actual item itself is buried in favor of crappy link networks.......

Bubble Blowing

[Doc Ruby]

I sense a new market bubble. If a couple of anoninted "smart guys" like Google's founders can answer analyst questions like "how do you decide on new products?" with answers like "we have a formula: 70% exactly what we already do, 20% doing that in another platform, and 10% stuff we like, but can't explain", we can all peddle our BS to these brokers. If you can't impress them with intelligence, baffle them with bullshit - or do both at once.

Re:Gmail account

[Anonymous Coward]

As one of the dozen or so of people who still don't have a gmail account, I would be interested in an invitation. Please contact me at giovanto@excite.com Thanks!