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Gauging Google's Gaffes
conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece looking at some of the recent faux pas of Google and what implications they might have. The articles's conclusion: They should hire a chief marketing officer to avoid such gaffes. From the article: 'Recent missteps that have whipsawed or irked investors include the inadvertent release of sales projections and an agreement to censor its own search results in China. Then on Mar. 8, Google used a vaguely worded blog on its site to disclose a settlement of as much as $90 million in a case concerning click fraud. That came days after the company said the case was without merit and told investors the impact of click fraud on advertisers is immaterial.'"
Call me a conspiratorialist- But I think that things like the "accidental" release of the slides showing the planned online hard drive backup thing, are planned.
And another thing- They may or may not be a great company- I am not here to argue that, but they are made up of people- and as such, mistakes will be made.
The real question is, is it hubris to think that google can do what it wants, instead of what wal street wants, and still stay so valuable (on paper)?
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
How can a company which is depending on the advertise business, stockholders and operation on world level between all the cultural disputes (China) stay an not evil company? Who decides: the clients, a nation or the stockholders?
Besides that, what good is a google application which shares as a unwanted side-effect sensitive business documents without the knowledge of the respected companies?
When it comes down to money,some evil stockholders, countries or clients will take on the power game. And I guess it will heappen when google has a real bad financial quarter. So we have to wait for that for a while I guess. We'll see how google will evolve.
Because--as we all know--companies that do have Chief Marketing Officers never commit any PR gaffes. You can never have enough management!
You have a "love/hate relationship" with Google because you're running a website. My experience is that it's mainly webmasters and advertisers that have any dislike of Google, because they're so relentless at protecting the interests of their users.
Google should just keep doing what it wants and ignore the people in New York who seem to think they can't be ignored...
Ahh, so they should continue to misrepresent information to shareholders? They should reap the financial benefits of the system but not be held accountable by the same system? Remember, "the investors" aren't just the guys trading in NY, there are tons of folks and organzations that invest other folks money that are also "investors" and they are being just as irked and feel like Google is not operating is a straight forward manner.
It continues to amaze me that crap that Google does is seen as innovative and being a maverick shaking up the establishment, but the same deeds done by other companies would be universally condemned. If M$ did similar stuff everyone would be all up in arms. It's funny what cult of personality will do for you, that and a catchy tag line "do no evil". Reminds me of the schlocky 80's flick where Dolf Lundgren plays the alien that blows people away while stating (quite deadpan may I add) "I mean you no harm". I picture Dolf with the words "Google" tatooed to his head and all the gFanBoys drooling while mesmerized and chanting "I mean you no harm" while Dolf casually blows them into oblivion, all the while the other gFanBoys stating that "he must of deserved it".
If more compainies start doing this, analysists will be out of a job, and need to learn calculus first. A lot of analysists just do seat-of-the-pants based on reports. Google isn't giving them any material, which stabalizes GOOG.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
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Just be glad, Wall Street, that they even let you in to play.
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like their relentlessly protected the interest of their chinese users?
Google made compromises which they felt were in the best interest of the Chinese Users. Their options were 1)be banned by the chinese government or 2)censor the results. Now google censors the results, but at the very least tells the users that results are being cesored per Chinese Law. This is information that, as far as I know, other search engines do not reveal. Letting the Chinese people know which information is being censored is the first step in getting that censored information to them, as it will spark curiosity in the rebelious who know that something is wrong with the system, and now have actual evidence.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman