Google's Continued Growing Pains

eldavojohn writes "The Mercury News is reporting that Google's 500 percent growth since its IPO hasn't come without a cost. With the purchase of DoubleClick, Google is facing antitrust charges in both the United States and the European Union. And with their rising success, there are open source alternatives springing up."

Comments

no login needed version

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhat ironically you can read this without a login required here:
http://google.com/search?q=cache:www.mercurynews.c om/business/ci_6662571

Re:no login needed version

[Anonymous Coward]

How'd you manage to get to a page that required login? I can't find any linked in the story.

Re:no login needed version

[Rexdude]

Or you can use this extension in Firefox to bypass all such 'login required' sites...

Unregulated capitalism == evil

[iamacat]

Google is a decent company, but they do evil simply by virtue of dominating the market and being impossible for a newcomer to compete with. To fulfill their corporate slogan they should agree to self-imposed restrictions against things like the Doubleclick deal.

Re:Unregulated capitalism == evil

[dch24]

I think this article is misleading. They talk about the antitrust investigation into Google's acquisition of DoubleClick... caused by:

Complaints that "publishers might fear that if they did not deal with Google, their ranking in Google's search engine might be affected"

In other words:
Before Google ever drops my search ranking because I cancelled my DoubleClick subscription, I'm going to spread FUD about this hypothetical possibility, and insist the Government shut them down.

There is also the typically worries about privacy after Google knows not only what you search for, what AdWords you click on, but now what DoubleClick Banners and Pop-Ups you click on too. And they talk about some of Google's competitors, trying to find the next Google killer. They think Wikia and OpenAds will be more open-source (Google's PageRank is a "closely guarded secret") and won't collect any consumer information.

It's all just so ... hypothetical. Wake me up when you have an actual search engine or advertising model. In the meantime, let Google buy DoubleClick. If they fail to deliver on either front, there are plenty of competitors who will willingly accept all their dissatisfied customers.

Re:Unregulated capitalism == evil

[FleaPlus]

Google is a decent company, but they do evil simply by virtue of dominating the market and being impossible for a newcomer to compete with. Is Google actually doing anything to prevent newcomers from entering the market?

Re:Unregulated capitalism == evil

[PietjeJantje]

FFY, Google prime strategy against competition has been to create as big a barrier of entrance to the market as possible, in other words, the opposite of the behavior you suggest they should show.

Re:Unregulated capitalism == evil

[Freexe]

I thought that they were hiring anyone good enough to make a good competitive site.

Re:Unregulated capitalism == evil

[Catil]

Google knows that new searchengines or advertising companies are barely a competition to them because those can usually just be bought - most of them were even started with the intention to hopefully sell out to one of the big players. Like Youtube and Doubleclick, they will probably continue to buy everything that has a strong userbase or many customers, even if the used technology is not interesting to them.
I think what they really fear are sites that make more sense to use as a startpage than a searchengine. Those are usually trying to combine everything people use on a daily basis on the net, like email, news, social networks, and especially RSS. Just like Microsoft, Google tries to have every new technology available on their own, so that new features that get very popular on other sites can be added to their own tools in no time. I am quite sure that if Google wouldn't have implemented Gagdets so fast, some other site offering something like that (and there are a lot by now) would have taken some serious share from the... umm, "startpage-market."
However, as long as those other sites still use Adsense to monetize their work and Google custom search, there is not much to be worried about. Sites that make money through subscriptions on the other hand are more of a threat to them, especially if those subscriptions will continue to be paid with Paypal and not with Google Checkout - I think they were kind of late seeing that coming.

For me, websites that could compete with Google would have to offer whole new ways to surf on the web, with very strong but easy to use personalization and custumization features, some kind of "See the sites like YOU want them to see" or "Stop using a searchengine, we already found what you are looking for." It's a bit hard to get into details, but imagine some kind of webbased RSS reader that not only shares every feed a user added with others but also crawls the web for feeds on it's own. You can then select what you are interested in and it would feature some kind of very fancy recommendations engine based on an algorithm yet to be invented - not this "users that like this also like that" stuff but perhaps something semantic. Then you surf the web just like you watch TV, switching channels from politics to sport. It would probably have Firefox toolbar where you can see the feed headline of the next site to visit with skip, proceed and "try something else" buttons.
Another possible competitor would be said Gadgets-like startpage that implements even more stuff - in fact, everything; where you could post a comment on Slashdot right from your startpage or see if someone answered your somethingawful forum thread. There are already some tools and websites that can or at least claim to convert every website and forum to RSS feeds. Some already do a pretty good job at it but they all have some way to go. I guess Microsoft could even be the one doing something like this. It could be the reason they are supporting OpenID because one problem would be logging in "cross-over" to the various sites.

Re:Unregulated capitalism == evil

[complete loony]

.. and they can track you across every single page with adwords and double click banners displayed using cookies, or just by your IP address. Not just the ads you click on.

Re:Unregulated capitalism == evil

[oliverthered]

That's why I use tor if I'm browsing anything remotely dodgy.

Re:Unregulated capitalism == evil

[dingbatdr]

So you have been browsing "dodgy" material, eh? Let's schedule a meeting about this for Friday.

-The Boss

How long can it last?

[zmollusc]

Man, i dread the day that they isolate the maybe 10,000 people on the planet who actually respond positively to advertising. What will we do with all the trees and bandwidth then? :-(

Re:How long can it last?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, i dread the day that they isolate the maybe 10,000 people on the planet who actually respond positively to advertising.

Yeah, I'm sure that the reason companies have been pouring billions and billions of dollars into advertising for decades isn't that it works, but that nobody even though to check.

Re:How long can it last?

[Rob Simpson]

Man, i dread the day that they isolate the maybe 10,000 people on the planet who actually respond positively to advertising.

Yeah, I'm sure that the reason companies have been pouring billions and billions of dollars into advertising for decades isn't that it works, but that nobody even though to check.

The thing that marketers are best at selling is...advertising. People say that, for example, suckers must be buying stuff from the spam emails they receive, or there wouldn't be spam - but that isn't necessarily true. Spammers only need to convince companies to pay them.

Personally, I'd be happy to just pay a couple bucks per show, or a penny per search, or whatever. I'd have cancelled my cable TV long ago if it weren't for my PVR.

Re:How long can it last?

[gbobeck]

What will we do with all the trees and bandwidth then?

Well, if we apply a few internet laws, the answer would be... Make more porn!

Re:How long can it last?

[cp.tar]

Actually, marketing such as you see on TV only works insofar that you and/or your product get the air time instead of someone else.

Advertising is like an arms race; everyone is doing it (and spending way too much on it) just because everyone else is.

People in general respond negatively to advertising. However, it is generally true that a bad reaction is better than no reaction at all; even if they're annoyed by a commercial, people are still more likely to buy a product they'd heard about (or of) in a commercial than a product they'd never even heard of before.

Furthermore, since everyone is doing it, people are annoyed more or les equally by all companies, so the negative effect (annoyance) is diminished/shared, while the positive effect (people hearing about your product) is retained.

Basically, if everyone stopped playing the advertising game... nah, sorry, it would start all over again. Same dealers, new suck^Wplayers.

Re:How long can it last?

[kestasjk]

If you don't think advertising works you must not have an adsense account that earns money. Advertisers pay on a per click or per view basis and can calculate their profit based on advertisement clicks.

I'm sure you're not saying that the reason billions are spent on advertising is that advertisement media producers are just really good salespeople, but that's how it sounds.

Re:How long can it last?

[marcello_dl]

> Omnes castelli vestris pertinent nobis sunt.

there, fixed it for ya.

Re:How long can it last?

[Propaganda13]

People actually don't respond negatively to advertising. They respond negatively to intrusive advertising. When I search with Google, those ads don't bother me and I have clicked on them. Now, if it was an ad that swooped down and covered the search results, I'd be annoyed and use a different search engine.

When I worked retail sales, you could tell what the tv ads were without seeing them because they work. People would come in and say I want to see the product in your ad. Whatever was in the ad, you would see a spike in customer interest and sales.

I've also seen plenty of people flip channels, turn the station, etc. and say "I hate that ad". When I ask what ad, they say "I don't know because I change it when that annoying ad comes on"

Re:How long can it last?

[Silver Sloth]

I heard somewhere that the expectation is somewhere around four replies per million e-mails (I can't guarantee the figure but it's in the right order of magnitude). For normal advertising this would be hopelessly inefficient but with automated spam you can make money even with such a low return.

Re:How long can it last?

[Arslan ibn Da'ud]

Hmm. Google doesn't advertise themselves. And Google is extremely popular. Coincidence?

Re:How long can it last?

[dk.r*nger]

The thing that marketers are best at selling is...advertising.

This is probably true for small advertising budgets - everywhere, all the time, good salesmen are selling bad businessmen stuff they don't need.

But for just medium-sized ad budgets and up, there is some serious metering going on (as with any other non-trivial investment). And as someone occasionally working in the metering end of a pretty big advertising budget, I can guarantee you that either (a) all 10.000 persons that respond positively to advertising are currently customers of the company I work for, or (b) advertising works.

Personally, I'd be happy to just pay a couple bucks per show, or a penny per search, or whatever. I'd have cancelled my cable TV long ago if it weren't for my PVR.

You can't (unfortunately) expect big companies to respond so quickly to so radical markettrends. But look at iTunes. No-one believed that digital-only distrubution of music over the internet would ever work just a few years ago, and now we've even got non-DRM files. A similar model will emerge for TV shows any time now.
Oh, and I'm more than happy to look at google's sponsored links. Even if there was a paid model (which there is, look at the APIs), I wouldn't take it. I often search for products and services, and I often find what I'm looking for in the sponsored links section.

Re:How long can it last?

[jamiethehutt]

Personally, I'd be happy to just pay a couple bucks per show, or a penny per search, or whatever.

In the last 14 months, according to Google Web History, I've done 6707 searches. If that was at a penny a search I'd not be pleased...

Re:How long can it last?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well he started out by saying "such as you see on TV". I've never seen anyone who DIDN'T respond negatively to that. I tune in to watch Myth Busters which is a 40 minute show and am expected to watch 20 minutes of commercials that I didn't tune in to watch. Who wouldn't respond negatively to that? Now, at some level we all realize that those commercials are paying the bills for the TV station and indirectly funding the Myth Busters show itself. However, that doesn't mean we respond positively to having our time wasted. As another poster in the thread said - I'd have no problem kicking them a dollar every time I watched the show if it meant no ads and no monthly fee for cable "access". Hell, they could even have a "commercials" channel that they paid you to watch. Time Shifting on a DVR is great, but the main use for me? Getting rid of those commercials. They are a waste of my time and annoying. Most people would avoid them if they realized that they could.

Re:How long can it last?

[wed128]

well, that works out to 5 bucks a month. if it weren't for adblock, i'd pay that for an ad-free internet.

Re:How long can it last?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does a view happens when one uses adblock?

Re:How long can it last?

[Irish_Samurai]

Google doesn't advertise? Are you serious? Ever heard of product placement? You can't just go and put a screenshot of a Google search into a movie without consent, well you could and then get sued.

Google does advertise, just not to searchers. See, they sell the searcher to advertisers.

On a side note, what is with everyone hating on Marketing. I understand how intrusive marketing is annoying - but the people here love to beat on it like it was the devil. Come on, do you guys have jobs? Do you like your paychecks? Well, then I bet you wouldn't want the company you work for to quit selling their product or service now would you?

Re:How long can it last?

[BrianRoach]

Man, i dread the day that they isolate the maybe 10,000 people on the planet who actually respond positively to advertising. What will we do with all the trees and bandwidth then? :-(

I have some bad news for you ... AdWords works. Really, really well.

I was running an eCommerce site from 2002 until this spring (Not huge, but in the $350k/yr gross sales area) . Even with decent google indexing (1st and 2nd page placement on most things) you can't beat well-designed AdWords campaigns for results. Froogle (now Google Base) also works exceptionally well.

People (talking about the average consumer here in the US) are just damn lazy - they search, they see what they're looking for in that top or side margin ... and they click on it. Even when your normal indexed page is just 2 or 3 listings below and well-formed for the search result listing. Or if you were the only one there (in AdWords) and there were numerous first page results matching their search. People these days just can't be bothered to actually read all those silly search results (I know it's really somewhat of a sad commentary on Americans ... but it's also simply the truth).

This is not to say that you automatically convert every sale - obviously there's a lot more that goes into that (price, presentation, etc), but the AdWords advertising works - it gets those eyeballs you need to your site.

- Roach

Re:How long can it last?

[Prof.Phreak]

Advertising success is hard to quantify. Lets say a corp, for whatever reason (anecdotal evidence) spends 10% of their revenue on advertising. They'd be pretty convinced that it's working, since... well, they're still in business! They'd also wouldn't want to lower their advertising (to say, 1% of their revenue) since it -might- cut into their sales (again, anecdotal evidence).

They might even increase their advertising dollars, and... by some chance see a spike in their sales (if they see lowered sales, they can attribute it to general economic downturn---why would they -ever- blame advertising?)

This feeds the cycle of uninformed/scared corps pouring money into advertising corps that spam the world with downright annoying ads... and everyone (in such corps) is convinced its working! This also leads to advertising-supercorps like Google---with no hard-evidence that their advertising leads to greater sales.

I've yet to see a corp become successful solely due to google ads. It's always something -else- that drives the actual sales.

Re:How long can it last?

[TheLink]

It's also self selecting.

The lazy people who don't filter out ads who click on ads are more likely to buy your stuff anyway.

As for the people who take the trouble to filter out ads for your stuff, they can find your stuff when they want it.

It's similar to the spam situation. People who actually don't filter the spam, dig through lots of garbage or nonsensical text (to bypass filters) and actually believe the semicoherent spiel, are the sort of customers the spammers/scammers want. e.g. stupid.

Re:How long can it last?

[steelfood]

People in general respond negatively to advertising.

This is only true in the online world, where ads can become particularly intrusive. The technology is new, and advertisers are indeed experimenting with new methods of delivering ads, sometimes experimenting on the customer base.

In the rest of the media world, advertising is duly accepted, sometimes wanted, and even can be a useful device. If done well, it is a short in and of itself, not unlike what you might see on youtube. I reference the Geico cave men for example. Geico sucks (and I would never buy insurance from them), but their ads can be as entertaining as the show I'm watching.

Who would want to fast-forward Superbowl ads? Why would anyone want to do that? A good number of the people who watch the Superbowl watch it for the ads, not for the game...

And then there are print ads. I remember when people bought magazines just to collect the Absolut advertisements on the back cover. There are perfume/cologne ads with the flaps that let you sample the product, or at least make the magazine smell nice (or not so nice). Print ads can be interesting graphical works in and of themselves.

Whereas more established forms of advertising tend to focus on appealing to the masses through gratification nowadays, and subsequently treat the advertised product more as an afterthought, online ads seem to provide little to no value outside of showcasing the product. And hence, the more intrusive they get, the more annoying they become.

Re:How long can it last?

[morcego]

No, you would pay that for an ad-free GOOGLE.
You would still see ads everywhere else.

Re:How long can it last?

[wlandman]

I use Google Adwords where I work. With proper monitoring and analytics we are maximizing our performance from these Adwords. The rules are pretty simple. Maximize what works, minimize what does not. Just to put it in a small scale, if we can generate 100 dollars in sales a day by using 10 dollars in Adwords, that's success.

Re:How long can it last?

[YU Nicks NE Way]

I think the grammar is supposed to be wrong. After all, AYBABTO was a-grammatical, too -- that was its charm.

Re:How long can it last?

[Andrewkov]

Who would want to fast-forward Superbowl ads? Why would anyone want to do that? A good number of the people who watch the Superbowl watch it for the ads, not for the game...

I live in Canada, so I don't get to see these famous Superbowl ads (local cable companies replace them with their own ads). But who really gets excited to watch ads? I really don't get this. It's like those TV shows where they show the best or funniest commercials. Why would I want to watch an hour of TV commercials?? It's amazing what passes as entertainment for some people.

Re:How long can it last?

[Bongo Bill]

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is I don't know which half." - John Wanamaker

Re:How long can it last?

[cstdenis]

I suspect most adsense money comes from people clicking ads to support the site they are on. I know its the only reason I ever click ads.

Re:How long can it last?

[Kelbear]

The reason he's pointing out the Superbowl ads is that they are the exception to the rule. It's hugely competitive, and the quality of the commercials are usually higher than regular TV commercials because buying this spot already costs the companies millions upon millions of dollars for that short clip. They are often quite funny, so rather than simply being sold a brand or product, audiences are also entertained. So for the loss of their time, they are compensated with humor. GP is wondering why more companies don't just make good commercials all the time instead of only bringing it out for the incredibly expensive Superbowl airtime.

I am one of those people who watch the superbowl for the ads. I don't know anything about football and I'm not interested in the sport at all. I turn it on in the background until the commercial breaks unless I'm at a party where the superbowl becomes a group activity.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-623895368 5626218421

Terry Tate: Office Linebacker. One of my personal favorites from a few years back.

These superbowl commercials are not the norm, and it's understandable that you don't get his reference since your company has been replacing the ads with their own.

Re:How long can it last?

[Reziac]

"The thing that marketers are best at selling is...advertising."

I've been saying that for a while now. Indeed, America has offshored so much industry, that the only industry LEFT to us is... marketing. Which is to say, advertising. What happens when the only product left to sell is advertising itself?? Or when the ad industry itself gets offshored?

All that aside, ISTM that Google buying Doubleclick marks the END of their corporate history as a *search engine*, and completes their transition into an *advertising* company first and foremost. Which so long as they continue to be a search engine too, strikes me as a conflict of interest.

Re:How long can it last?

[gbobeck]

I think the grammar is supposed to be wrong.

You are correct.

I wanted to be the first /.'er to have AYBABTU in Latin.

Re:How long can it last?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ad-funded services are a shell game. You pay higher prices for all of the goods and services you consume because they spend such a large amount of their money on advertising in the first place. This is long after the benefits of economy of scale, as the largest, slowest-growing companies spend the most on advertising.

It's amusing when you see widgets that are identical resold by two companies, with the famous brand making 25% more for the same product. Of course you'd be really pissed off if you spent USD4.80/m for Google, but have no qualms paying more than that for the razors, pet food, oatmeal, and so forth that actually supports companies dependent upon advertising.

In a way it's like people clamoring to have the actual cost of everything consumed by them hidden, so that they can feel that in they end they are receiving it all for free, and obtaining a ridiculous value out of the exchange.

Re:How long can it last?

[Don853]

I really doubt that the average internet user ever makes the connection that clicking the add can support the website, and most of the people who have made that connection probably don't bother. I usually only click ads by accident, but sometimes I remember what they're selling if it's something like a video game or a travel website that might be of interest later. Which is, of course, the point.

Re:How long can it last?

[lgw]

I'd have no problem kicking them a dollar every time I watched the show if it meant no ads and no monthly fee for cable "access". Oddly enough, this is exactly how I watch TV: only on Netflix. It costs less than $1 per episode of a TV show, too. Of course, I have to wait for my TV to come out on DVD, but I don't mind.

Re:How long can it last?

[AjeetKhurana]

There is no way I will agree with the notion that advertising never works. But there is merit to what you are saying. Indeed Marketing professionals advertise advertising (and PR and Market research) well.

Re:How long can it last?

[toddestan]

Yeah, I don't get it either. I've watched the Superbowl, including ads a few times. There are a handful of honestly good ads in there (I'd say 5-6 for a really good Superbowl, the last one I saw maybe had 1), and the rest generally seem to be trying too hard to be clever, cute, or whatever and just fall flat on their face. The only real novelty of it is that the Superbowl is where everyone kicks off new ad campaigns, so generally all the ads you are seeing for the first time instead of the 10,000th time.

Re:How long can it last?

[zobier]

I'm sure you're not saying that the reason billions are spent on advertising is that advertisement media producers are just really good salespeople, but that's how it sounds. I understand what you're saying but ad agencies do have some of the worlds best marketers.

Re:How long can it last?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm certain the reason churches still rake it in is becaus they really really get you into Heaven.
Uh, yeah.

Re:How long can it last?

[rtb61]

You seem to have forgotten the biggest part of marketing hype, it is no about selling products it is about selling marketing. The biggest job of any advertising firm, is selling it's own advertising and definitely not the products it advertises. Adds served by Google appears in every Google add, that is the product that google is selling.

Lets look at another major bit of marketing B$, targeted advertising, do you want to know the ultra big trick about targeted advertising, align your advertising with the Internet article the user is reading, none of the big B$ about knowing the customer, or prying into the customers private data, the end user has demonstrated their interest in that area by wanting to read that specific article.

Now when it comes to pumping up the stock price to way too many times actual income you need to create hype about the pseudo value of assets, in this case the value of private customer information in terms of targeted marketing, of course it is all just hype, but if done well it is worth billions, and basically allows a company to buy in assets with what in reality are nothing but junk bonds.

The biggest problem for google now is of course open source alternatives to it's products, not because of the products themselves but because the existence and growth of those products demonstrates a growing distrust and dislike of google in the market place amongst the most troublesome sector of the user market, the market leaders, the experimenters, the recommenders, the troubles hooters, the tech customers that actually choose their tech products .

Wikia is no Google competitor

[tmk]

The Wikia search project may be a search engine for very special requests in three or five years, but it is not a competition for Google, nor it is intended to be.

BTW: There are plenty of other open source and distributed search engines. For example this one.

Google's master plan.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Once you have everyone on earth (and beyond) looking at your info, selling ad-space (and data-mining info) allows you to purchase other indexers, data aggregators and information storehouses.

Google is beyond brilliant in cornering the market in data organization.
There is just too much info out there and it's the index that controls exposure.

Re:Google's master plan.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google's mission is to make money.

Only!

Publicly traded companies have various ways of going about it but never confuse that with their sole responsibility and motivation: to increase profits above any other concerns. Everything else is weighted only insofar as it impacts earnings (which might not equate to zero relative value but it's secondary nonetheless).

Re:Google's master plan.

[pipatron]

Yeah, and apparently it's led by someone that understands that the way to a continued successful growth is to be nice to your employees, to treat your customers with respect, and well, generally Do No Evil. Everyone understands that they want to make money. It's no charity. What makes them different from virtually every other major IT company out there is that people don't hate them, which is why, whenever there's talk about Google, the Do No Evil mantra comes up.

Re:Google's master plan.

[somersault]

Yep, I don't get the 'googleisthenewmicrosoft' tag in this article. People hate Microsoft because they make shoddy products, and still dominate the market. If they made decent products, people really wouldn't care so much. I wouldn't anyway. A good product deserves to dominate. Poor products dominating purely through marketing and underhanded tactics is what is disgusting, but google's products are actually pretty useful, stable and have decent interfaces.

Re:Google's master plan.

[everphilski]

A good product deserves to dominate.

Or a hundred beta products, apparently.

And if you haven't noticed, recently, Google has pretty much stopped innovating and rather started purchasing innovative companies. One step closer...

Re:Google's master plan.

[somersault]

Well I mostly still think of google as just my search engine, I'm not even talking about any of the beta products (which are free anyway, the worst thing about Microsoft is the insane prices that they charge for their software, I wouldn't be able to think of them in such bad light if Office cost £30-£50 and Windows cost about £80-100). It is a bit lame to start buying in other companies rather than do everything in house, but to be fair, I think a lot of companies are actually aiming to do that kind of thing these days (make something cool and then get bought by a bigger company).

Re:Google's master plan.

[MadJeff451]

I'm not so sure about that. When I type my home address into Google Maps, it returns an address 2 cities west. I used to love google maps, but I stopped using it and I know from reading the forums that others have found similar problems. Now I've started playing around with MS Live ... which is a total rip-off I realize but at least it works.

Re:Google's master plan.

[everphilski]

Google was never a search engine company, Google is an advertising company that uses search/email/online office as a tool.

Re:Google's master plan.

[somersault]

That's funny, they were a search engine when I started using them (don't even think there were ads), and Google started as a research project at Uni...

Re:Google's master plan.

[mh1997]

People hate Microsoft because they make shoddy products, and still dominate the market.

I disagree. Microsoft products have their share of problems, but I think most people hate MS because they dominate the market. I'd bet that if Linux dominated the market for the last 20 years, the slashdot crowd would be anti-linux and pro-MS. Human nature is to root for the underdog and bash the winner.

Google was the darling of slashdot a yearish ago, and now we see more and more negative comments about Google.

Re:Google's master plan.

[somersault]

Seriously, if Apple were dominant today then I wouldn't mind. I did start disliking them once they got more popular, but that was because they were popular for music players (music players that were less powerful and more about flashy gimmicks than their competitors, though these days I guess you could make the argument that their computers do the same! I still have one tho ;) ) and not their computers or OS, which I've liked since I first used them in about 1988.

Re:Google's master plan.

[everphilski]

they fooled you, then :)

of course search came first when they were a research project but the second they came out of college it was all about the benjamins. Their search isn't that great anymore, gaming the system is easy... its quite sad how downhill it has gone.

Re:Google's master plan.

[lokiomega]

Are you serious? MS Live is like 100 times worse.

Re:Google's master plan.

[MadJeff451]

Please define "worse." When using a mapping application, I'd consider the ability to correctly locate the start address as critical. Doesn't matter what other bells and whistles an application might have if it can't meet core competency. What specific things have you found about MS Live that bother you so much?

Re:Google's master plan.

[somersault]

Well, it still does its original job, but there are a lot of f*ckwits who want to try and make money off of messing up the system. It's the same in many areas other than search, with spam, mafia, criminals in general.. not really google's fault, and I find my search results are still relevant (whenever I do search, which I guess is less necessary with sites like amazon, wikipedia and urban dictionary providing for my shopping needs, handy information on random topics, and obscure internet/local dialect word meanings :P ).

Re:Google's master plan.

[Elektroschock]

No, that is not the point: The point is that Microsoft does intentionally "evil". It is their business model!

Bill Gates: "why would the office group be giving out the Office 2000 formats to competitors. to me this seems crazy"

It's like saying: will the Y be the next mafia? The anormality is Microsoft. And its business conduct was good for them as the Mafia also makes big business. But when you contravene bones mores earlier or later people will show up and protest.

I don't trust a new open format.

Re:Google's master plan.

[iamacat]

Sure. But why should it be all of our missions to help Google make money and make us into corporate drones rather than individuals who can, with reasonable effort, start their own business in online advertising? We can easily pass laws that would prevent companies with too big a market share from buying remaining competitors or expanding into new areas.

So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[Behrooz]

I'd say these 'growing pains' appear rather similar to the challenges faced by any corporation of similar size. Potential mergers with companies in the same field being investigated by the FTC? Welcome to the Fortune 100. Open source alternatives as a 'threat' to ubiquitous name recognition and >50% market share? Yep, that's a truly pressing problem most tech companies would love to face. Difficulties sustaining rapid growth when your market cap exceeds $150B?

Well, yes, it's difficult to grow rapidly when you're valued at over 1/400th of the gross world product. Pick a bigger planet next time, perhaps?

Honestly, did this article really say anything insightful or unusual? If it did, I missed it...

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[SnowZero]

Well, yes, it's difficult to grow rapidly when you're valued at over 1/400th of the gross world product. Pick a bigger planet next time, perhaps? Well, after Google earth, they did expand to the Moon.

I wonder if Mars in next... it seems to have a lot of free ad space.

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[cp.tar]

I wonder if Mars in next... it seems to have a lot of free ad space.

Just you wait. I bet the Coca-Cola Company is already making arrangements to paint their logo all over Mars surface.

Unlike the Moon, no need for Russians to paint it red beforehand, either.

*shudder*

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[dberstein]

Planet Moon?

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[SnowZero]

When you're looking for off-Earth market share, you take what you can get, even if it isn't quite what you were hoping for.

Just don't bring up the planetary status of Pluto, unless you want to start another flame war.

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[mybadluck22]

http://www.google.com/mars/

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Posting anonymously because of involvement with companies discussed below.)

What's interesting is that Google's acquisition of DoubleClick is being delayed over and over again by the various regulatory commissions that need to approve it. At the same time, Microsoft's acquisition of Aquantive proceeded right on schedule with no delays at all. As an ad technology provider, Aquantive is actually bigger than DoubleClick, so it makes you wonder if all that experience Microsoft has with anti-trust is really paying off now.

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[shawn(at)fsu]

Coke Adds Life!

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

microsoft ads + aquantive combined would be smaller than google so their acquisition in all likelyhood won't cause a problem. However, google+ doubleclick would be a very sizable part of the market.

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[slothman32]

Your sig is interesting.
I don't know if it is intentional but U and I are together on the KB.
It's ironic how a pickup line is true.

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[dustman]

Damn, no Street View

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[mybadluck22]

It is intentional. :)

Re:So how did this article end up on here, anyway?

[Refenestrator]

I found it amusing that it's also true for the Dvorak layout.

Big is evil?

[Epsillon]

No, SM, not big, just cookies that don't expire until 2038 and profiling users might be just a little naughty. An anonymising proxy based search plugin may well be the answer for Firefox users. Those without Firefox can still make use of Blackboxsearch - at least until something a little more ethical (than BlackBox or Google) appears.

FWIW, BlackBox is also slightly naughty. It's using Google's search technology without giving anything back. The disparity between getting a few links and giving up your right not to be profiled makes it the lesser of two evils, though.

Re:Big is evil?

[Phil246]

The google cookies expire much much sooner then 2038, they will expire after 2 years now for those who do not visit the page again for it to be renewed.
See this for the announcement

Re:Big is evil?

[Epsillon]

Thanks for the correction, Phil, although I notice that they do say "in the coming months" and, since the blog post was made in July, there's no indication of when the policy kicks in. They also fail to mention what happens to users who already have the long expiry cookie on their system.

Don't get me wrong, Google is the best engine out there, period. Tinfoil aside, I simply think that people may have misconstrued the motto; "Do no evil" and the unwritten subtext "because we are watching you" extrapolated from their actions seems to be an admonition rather than a corporate statement of ethics.

Re:Big is evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find myself wondering if you're the type to distrust anything corporate for no real reason other than it's corporate? It's fine if it is. I'm just thinking of the pile of other things that Google has delivered on after saying it would happen, and the one or two things that they haven't.

I'm not claiming that most companies are trustworthy, but over the last 8 or 9 years, Google has pretty consistantly done exactly what they said they'd do. At this point, I'm inclined to trust that they will continue to do so.

Re:Big is evil?

[Epsillon]

I find myself wondering if you're the type to distrust anything corporate for no real reason other than it's corporate?

Not really. I trust some corporates who have never attempted to do anything but provide a product or service in return for the appropriate fee. When corporations start taking it upon themselves to profile, catalogue, report and categorise people who have no wish to be so treated I find that leaves a bad taste. For just this reason I refuse to use store loyalty cards. Perhaps I am too protective of my privacy but, in my experience, if you don't protect something you value, you lose it.

I'm not claiming that most companies are trustworthy, but over the last 8 or 9 years, Google has pretty consistantly done exactly what they said they'd do. At this point, I'm inclined to trust that they will continue to do so.

Good point. They do seem to have a good track record so far, despite the data mining operation. As I said up-thread, they are the best search engine bar none. They also support OSS through their "Summer of Code" events, amongst other things, which makes me feel they deserve at least some slack. However, privacy is a number one concern, especially here in the UK where it's getting close to the point where we have none left.

Please note, I'm not talking about searches on immoral topics here. Most of my search history would show my amateur radio interests, my hardware hacking and my FreeBSD searches. However, just imagine the potential mine of information for governments looking for problems to apply their solutions to. Almost any set of data can be manipulated to prove almost anything and, as we saw with ThePirateBay, anything held can be the subject of a subpoena. "There, you see? Bomb making has x number of hits! This Interweb pipes thing is a danger to our very civilisation!"

I suppose you could say it's not Google that is the problem. It's the thought of what others (governments, primarily) could force Google to become. A little aforethought could avoid this eventuality.

Thanks for a nice, well thought out response. You haven't exactly made me change my mind, but you certainly made me look critically at what I wrote. I accept that perhaps I am being a little hard on Google right now, but only because I can see a potential threat to something wonderful. The Internet has given humanity something we've never had before: Unfettered access to information. Some good, some bad (yep, that's freedom), but all of it outside the control of those who would burn our digital books.

Perhaps I'm a pessimist, but there are always those who will try to subdue anything that removes control from them (ironic that I'm talking about Google removing control from individuals, but I'm sure you can read between the lines on this and accept my limitations when trying to articulate my stand on this issue). Sorry if this sounds a little too dramatic, but Google is both the primary enabler and the possible downfall of this at the moment, which I think means we all have something at stake when they decide which way to go. It also gives them a huge responsibility. Are they up to it? I hope so. I think this justifies a certain amount of critical examination, don't you?

OpenAds is no Google competitor

[LingNoi]

It is like comparing apples and oranges.

OpenAds is just for local site advertising. With OpenAds I have to set it up, configure it, paste the HTML into my web pages and then look for people that want to advertise on my website. With Google you just signup for an account and paste in the HTML.

Re:OpenAds is no Google competitor

[Anonymous Coward]

Beyond that, it is SLOW for any more advanced features. It is written in php and does several mysql queries per ad served, several of which are updates. For sites or agencies that serve more than a couple hundred pages/ads per second, that just is not going to cut it.

Re:OpenAds is no Google competitor

[niceone]

From TFA it appears that OpenAds competes with DoubleClick's adserver software (which Google charges for).

I work at a startup

[MillionthMonkey]

We would be inclined to view antitrust charges as a "nice to have" type of problem.

Re:I work at a startup

[timeOday]

Just look at Microsoft... all those antitrust trials sure have brought them to their knees, eh? Microsoft must lay in bed every night wishing all those billions of dollars would stop flooding in so they wouldn't have to spend 0.001% of it on their legal department. I'm waiting for them to fire 99% of their employees any day now and focus exclusively on the Zune so nobody can accuse them of being a monopoly any more.

Re:I work at a startup

[MillionthMonkey]

That doesn't account for the true costs of the antitrust charges- Microsoft has to hire lobbyists.

misleading "OpenSource" use?

[El_Muerte_TDS]

OpenAds (formerly known as phpAdsNew) may be open source software, but it mostly relies on 3rd party ad sellers. It will allow you to sell ads on your own site, but as long as no advertisers are buying your ad space you have to rely on things like AdSense.
Also, open source software for rotating banners with click/impression counting has been around for ages, it's not new. phpAds was created in 1999.

Open source search engines. Well, the source might be open (just like htdig has been open source for ages). But it's not like any end user of search engines is going to run their own search engine, it's simply impossible for consumers to run their own search engine. Website operators may run their own search engine, but usually limited to their own site.

So the whole reference to open source "competitors" to google products is complete bullshit.

Re:misleading "OpenSource" use?

[vidarh]

The point is that if the source to a competitive search engine was freely available, the cost of actually competing with Google is pretty low. Google has tremendous hardware costs, but mostly due to scale. The minimum cost to start indexing the web is pretty modest - you can crawl at least tens of millions of pages a day on a single Xeon box (been there, done that), and you can create a search index from tens to hundreds of millions of documents in a day on a single box depending on how good your indexer is (again, been there, done that) and how much metadata etc. you want to index. As such, you could get going with a dozen EC2 licenses or a few thousand a month in hosting fees.

The sticking point is search quality. That's a hard problem. And that is what is limiting most of the companies trying to compete with Google: Finding ways of getting results that are as good as or better than Google's without having Google's resources available.

The crawling, the indexing and returning basic results is easy. Back in '97 I shortly did a Linux specific search engine. It took only about a week to write the basic elements, and I indexed about a million pages to test it. Today it would've taken more care, as the number of documents you'd need even for a narrow niche vertical search engine is far higher, but there are also more off the shelf full text engines available that can easily handle at least up to the tens of millions, some into the hundreds or more (though _all_ of them are slow) if you don't want to do the work yourself. But that part is not hard work.

Most of the rest of what Google does well is scale the system, and that contributes to their margins, but it's something any competitor would have a lot of time to figure out too. Besides, over the next few years we're going to see a huge number of ex-Google employees who have learned a lot about scaling from Google's system, and who are back in the job market for various reasons, or looking to start their own companies.

Re:misleading "OpenSource" use?

[tknd]

You're forgetting that Google has one large disadvantage. Being the top search engine means the best traffic. So all of the "SEO" people and aspiring blogs/estores/media attempt to push their pages to the top of the list. As such Google's search quality has degraded significantly.

Their algorithm is also showing significant weaknesses. If you Google a term like a historical figure or a popular person's name, a wikipedia result is always near the top. This isn't necessarily bad as a good portion of the time a person may want to read the wikipedia article. But what if you've already read the wikipedia article or have no use for it and were intending to find other resources? Suddenly that search result was useless. Wikipedia is already well known that I don't feel that it's search result needs to be included in the search results; most people already know when they want to look something up on wikipedia.

So with these two combined facts, I find that the first page of results on Google is becoming more and more useless. I continually have to keep playing tricks with Google to get the first search results to be useful, but I'm knowledgeable enough to get by. Many other users are probably hopeless in getting adequate and useful search results from Google anymore.

Google is degenerating into a marketing battleground and there is no significant hope for things improving anytime soon... unless a couple of guys startup their own search engine in a basement that is vastly superior to what's currently out there and then make money off of advertising...oh wait.

open-source alternatives?

[Swampash]

Google is an advertising company. It sells eyeballs, which it has a lot of in virtue of having a good search algorithm. How is there an open-source alternative?

Re:open-source alternatives?

[expatriot]

This is a very good point.

Perhaps there could be open source search software, but open source massive server farms paid for by advertising revenue. How could that even exist in theory, a charity search company?

Re:open-source alternatives?

[TheRaven64]

It sells eyeballs ... How is there an open-source alternative? I thought open source automatically came with a million eyeballs.

Re:open-source alternatives?

[The-Bus]

You know, back in the dot-com days, I was in the business of selling eyeballs. To my surprise and the horror of most companies, "eyeballs" apparently was not meant in the literal sense. I don't know what the police did with my jar, but I never did hear from any of the hobos whose eyes I scooped out.

I hope they're ok. :(

Re:open-source alternatives?

[slothman32]

The first thing I though of is the second "Adams Family".
Near the beginning they talk about the baby having his grandfather's eyes.
They then say, "Take those away."

Of course they are.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google DeathSquads(tm) are driving from campus to campus, slaying out of hand any student enrolled in CS, IT or Engineering fields.

And you thought those vans were just taking pictures.

No, Google's not doing crap to stop innovation/competition; there's just the usual, "But, but, it's Google! Waah! I don't want to work my ass off, I don't want to make something better, I just want to call them evil and tell them what to do as a non-shareholder!" crap going on here at Slashdot.

Re:Of course they are.

[Arabani]

"But, but, it's Google! Waah! I don't want to work my ass off, I don't want to make something better, I just want to call them evil and tell them what to do as a non-shareholder!" That probably works better with companies that don't actually do a half-decent job of trying to live up to their motto of "Don't be evil".

Re:Of course they are.

[cain]

Google DeathSquads(tm) are driving from campus to campus, slaying out of hand any student enrolled in CS, IT or Engineering fields.

The students still have a fighting chance though as the Google DeathSquads(tm) are still in beta...

I used to share your misconception ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

I'm sure that the reason companies have been pouring billions and billions of dollars into advertising for decades isn't that it works, but that nobody even though to check.

I used to share your misconception. My undergraduate was Computer Science, however now I have had some graduate level marketing classes and I was surprised to find out how quantitative professional marketing is. There is massive experimentation to determine what works and what does not.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The text you quoted was (fairly clearly, at least to my eyes) sarcasm.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[UbuntuDupe]

Well, can you explain how Coca-Cola isolates the effect of any one campaign (billboards, one specific slogan, sponsorship of a racetrack, etc.) on their sales and brand recognition?

Or were you saying that you understand how quantitative marketing is, after most of the 20th century?

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[TheRaven64]

Usually big companies do this by using slightly different combinations of advertising material in different geographical regions and then comparing the changes in purchasing patterns with the regions before and after the advertising campaigns. If one does well, then it is promoted to national and international levels (international is harder, since different cultures respond to different forms of advertising). A company like Coca-Cola has sales figures for individual stores and vending machines, and so can accurately correlate seemingly trivial things, like proximity of vending machines to billboards. With online advertising, people like Amazon are fairly good at tracking the people who click on a link, then return later and make a purchase.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[jollyreaper]

I used to share your misconception. My undergraduate was Computer Science, however now I have had some graduate level marketing classes and I was surprised to find out how quantitative professional marketing is. There is massive experimentation to determine what works and what does not. Really? Wow. My undergrad marketing class confirmed everything I'd suspected. We had several case studies to present as group projects. One in particular was presenting a new frozen food product in supermarkets. I asked him how we were supposed to go about surveying the market to figure out if there was even a demand for what we were selling before we pitched the board, i.e. him and the other groups. "Just make up the figures," he said. "The important thing here is the exercise in making the presentation." Doing my damnedest to keep my smart mouth shut, I went along with it. But seriously, what the fucking fuck? Sure, we did a bang-up job of selling the idea to the class, we got an A on the project, but the facts we presented were all bullshit. I had no more idea of whether or not the product would succeed than before I started the project.

I'd hoped that this was just a poor class and that marketing professionals would actually know what the hell they're doing. Sadly, it hasn't been the case. I worked my way through college and I've seen advertising and marketing done by mail-order catalog companies, dot.coms, homebuilders, etc. I could gather all those marketing people together in one room and you wouldn't find a single clue in the entire lot. When I was still in school, I was working in one marketing department as a jr. report cruncher. Now the way I learn things, I cannot go by rote. I need to know why we're doing things, how the process works. If I just get a series of steps handed to me like a magical incantation, devoid of rational explanation, I'll never remember it. So I ask tons of questions, ask the why's, and end up pissing people off because they think I'm using socratic questioning to point out how big of dumbasses they are. That isn't even the case! I'm just sitting there wondering why nothing makes sense. By the time I realize it's because nobody knows what the hell they're doing and I should just shut up, they're already put me on their shitlist.

What the other poster said about marketing types being good at selling their ideas, that's exactly right. The marketers I've worked with have all been con men, good at backslapping and getting an idea sold but unqualified to even understand if the idea is a good one.

I'm sure there are marketing professionals out there, somewhere, who are actual professionals. But in my experience, sales and marketing is where football jocks go when they get fat.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[mh1997]

...however now I have had some graduate level marketing classes...

Good point! As everyone in school knows, what they teach in class is exactly how it works in the "real" world. However, as everyone that is working in a given field knows, new graduates are nearly useless until they learn how to apply what they learned to the real world.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"By the time I realize it's because nobody knows what the hell they're doing and I should just shut up, they're already put me on their shitlist." ...and this is specific to marketing how? Welcome to Earth.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[jollyreaper]

"By the time I realize it's because nobody knows what the hell they're doing and I should just shut up, they're already put me on their shitlist." ...and this is specific to marketing how? Welcome to Earth. I think what makes it feel different is that other departments tend to operate more on hard numbers than bullshit. I'm speaking in generalities here, of course, there are always exceptions. But other departments are not as good at bullshitting and so have to justify themselves with hard numbers, facts, and performance. The sales/marketing side then seems to lead the rest of the company around by the nose and rarely gets called to the carpet for failed predictions, screwups, etc. You rarely see a department like IT leading the charge in a company. Even when computery shit is the primary business, like in an IT consultancy, it'll be the sales guys who call the shots. I can't speak for the entire industry but I do know a guy who used to own a shop like that. He was a hardcore as/400 geek, liked programming more than marketing. His sales guy wasn't worth shit, he lacked the ability to figure that one out, and the company folded because they weren't getting the jobs in. And that probably plays to the stereotype of computer people being more passive, less confrontational, and letting a disaster happen to them. That contrasts with the marketing stereotype of fucking a company to death with their own egos.

I think we're talking about human nature problems across the board here but it's a specific set of personality traits that usually drives someone into a position of control and those traits also tend to self-select for the marketing side of the house.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[JM78]

...Just make up the figures," he said. "The important thing here is the exercise in making the presentation...

Clue #1 - obviously what you were looking to learn is not what your teacher was interested in teaching you.
But in my experience, sales and marketing is where football jocks go when they get fat.

Example #1: McDonalds. Spectacular marketing. The food sucks but their brand is like a narcotic to kids. I'm sure you can think of plenty of products that are successful in part because they have awesome marketing. Considering your background I find it hard to believe you don't think marketing works against all the sheeple we have in the world. Sounds more like you're just too damn cynical as a result of [fill in the blank].

So I ask tons of questions, ask the why's, and end up pissing people off because they think I'm using socratic questioning to point out how big of dumbasses they are...

On a side note - I am so glad to hear I'm not the only one with this problem. Found any solutions? I'm tired of getting fired for calling my bosses pathetic wastes of time and space.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[moogleii]

I vaguely recall signing up for a new instant dinner food trial from a major brand while in college. They expressed me a box that appeared to have been refrigerated in transit. I put it in the 'fridge, cooked it up later, ate the thing, and filled out a survey.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[farker haiku]

My undergrad marketing class confirmed everything I'd suspected.

What you're seeing there is the different between an undergrad class and a graduate level course like the GP took.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[VJ42]

I think what makes it feel different is that other departments tend to operate more on hard numbers than bullshit. You've never met anyone who works in HR, have you? Not once have I had a sane conversation with an HR drone.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[VJ42]

On a side note - I am so glad to hear I'm not the only one with this problem. Found any solutions? I'm tired of getting fired for calling my bosses pathetic wastes of time and space. I solved it by getting an awesome boss who knows what she's talking about, thus insulating me from the madness of middle and upper management. Now if only I could find a way to insulate myself from the HR department, I'd be set.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[jollyreaper]

...Just make up the figures," he said. "The important thing here is the exercise in making the presentation...

Clue #1 - obviously what you were looking to learn is not what your teacher was interested in teaching you. Yes, I'd already reached that conclusion. I was pointing out how the omission of this topic in any of the courses I took seemed like a horrible oversight.

Example #1: McDonalds. Spectacular marketing. The food sucks but their brand is like a narcotic to kids. I'm sure you can think of plenty of products that are successful in part because they have awesome marketing. Considering your background I find it hard to believe you don't think marketing works against all the sheeple we have in the world. Sounds more like you're just too damn cynical as a result of [fill in the blank]. It's more a matter of I've never been in an organization that's had it's act together on that end. It's the difference between seeing bands get famous vs. actually being in or knowing the people in a local band that go on to success. Well, maybe that's a crappy example. What I'm getting at is that I've never been up close in any company where I could see this sort of thing done and done right. So the next question, of course, "am I picking bad companies?" It's like complaining that all women are sluts when the only place I'm going to meet women is dive bars on the band end of town. But when I look back on the different companies I've worked for, they've been across the board, big megacorps and widdle mom and pop shops. It's the same kind of stupid, the only variable is the scale upon which the stupidity is played out.

So I ask tons of questions, ask the why's, and end up pissing people off because they think I'm using socratic questioning to point out how big of dumbasses they are...

On a side note - I am so glad to hear I'm not the only one with this problem. Found any solutions? I'm tired of getting fired for calling my bosses pathetic wastes of time and space. It seems like you're just insulting me here. But on the off-chance that you're not, the only thing I've found that works is to just be very, very careful with what you say. Some companies will just be toxic no-win situations. Other places you can get by in and learn the ropes. Some people will take an immediate dislike to you on sight and try to sabotage you. So long as you do not give them the ammunition, you should be able to protect yourself. If they have too much clout, you're gone. Better luck next time. I'm mildly aspie (not self-diagnosed as is trendy) so the subtleties can be a bit perplexing. The worst thing I can do is come across as arrogant or cocksure so I try to use self-deprecating humor, smile, be friendly when helping out with computer problems. This approach has been very successful in my current job. I've been more successful with it than my dad. He is a mechanic and is very good at what he does. His approach to dealing with people who he felt were morons is called "assault and battery." His response to the old saying about violence never solving anything is "They just didn't use a sufficient level of violence." When in meetings, especially with marketing, I always ask myself "What would my dad do in this situation?" Probably hit the guy. So I do the opposite and things generally work out.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[microbee]

however now I have had some graduate level marketing classes

Really? Wow. My undergrad marketing class confirmed everything I'd suspected.

Well, you know whom I'll believe.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[jollyreaper]

I vaguely recall signing up for a new instant dinner food trial from a major brand while in college. They expressed me a box that appeared to have been refrigerated in transit. I put it in the 'fridge, cooked it up later, ate the thing, and filled out a survey. The case study we were involved with was for frozen dog treats. It was also based on a real life company. I would not be surprised if they did do this kind of survey and people did mistake who was supposed to be eating it. :)

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[jollyreaper]

>> My undergrad marketing class confirmed everything I'd suspected.

>What you're seeing there is the different between an undergrad class and a graduate level course like the GP took.

I've only ever done undergrad stuff. It was a mixed bag. Friends of mine have done grad courses and they say that it's still a mixed bag, you're just paying more per credit hour. Depends on the institution, depends on the instructor.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

I'd hoped that this was just a poor class and that marketing professionals would actually know what the hell they're doing. Sadly, it hasn't been the case. I worked my way through college and I've seen advertising and marketing done by mail-order catalog companies, dot.coms, homebuilders, etc. I could gather all those marketing people together in one room and you wouldn't find a single clue in the entire lot.

I've worked in software development for decades and I've seen quite a bit of terrible code written in commercial and FOSS environments. I was taught to do better in various undergraduate and graduate level classes, however there are poor practitioners in every field. I believe you are describing a similar observation, but these observations do not negate the proper practices that are taught and are followed by the truly professional.

I'm sure there are marketing professionals out there, somewhere, who are actual professionals. But in my experience, sales and marketing is where football jocks go when they get fat.

I think part of what you describe are the inflated job titles of salesmen. Before I had these marketing classes the only marketing people I knew were really salesman. It is not that different from programmers being given the title of engineer. I think being an engineer requires are broader knowledge and a greater capability. Perhaps I am biased by the MBA program that I am in. Some of the professors I have had are not pure academics, they also posses decades of experience at extremely recognizable firms. We were constantly made to justify statements and opinions, constantly told that CEOs can smell BS and that data and analysis are needed to persuade them. Again, not all CEOs may be as described, but we are being trained to function as professionals working for other professionals.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

Well, can you explain how Coca-Cola isolates the effect of any one campaign (billboards, one specific slogan, sponsorship of a racetrack, etc.) on their sales and brand recognition?

Someone else mentioned Coca-Cola, I'll add Bank of America since they were a recent case study. Bank of America operates branches that are setup for experimentation and market research. This incudes environmental ideas such as TV screens to get your attention while waiting in line to new product and service offerings. Tests in these special branches are often paired with non-test branches that serve similar neighborhoods and demographics of the same city. Coke and BofA are following the same process we learned in science class, test case + control case, collect and analyze data, repeat ... determine if differences in observations are statistically significant. Develop a model to predict widespread use, implement, collect and analyze data to determine if model/expectations were accurate. If not, study some more.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

... Good point! As everyone in school knows, what they teach in class is exactly how it works in the "real" world. However, as everyone that is working in a given field knows, new graduates are nearly useless until they learn how to apply what they learned to the real world ...

I have decades of experience in software development and BS and MS degrees in computer science. I worked in software development full time while earning both of these degrees. If you think I am some kind of ivory tower type you are seriously mistaken. I have always been quite good at combining the academic and the practical.

What these marketing classes are teaching is very much like basic principles of software engineering from my MS program. In short, the university is teaching the best practices that have been developed by some of the best practitioners in their respective fields, in the "real world" not academia. These basic principles/practices, from both software development and marketing, are a beginning not an end. Details need to be worked out for each subfield and/or product. As for how things work in the "real world", the quantitative techniques and tools we are using do seem to show up on quite a few job advertisements (professional marketing positions, not sales positions with inflated titles). They are not that different from experimentation and analysis in the medical field.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

... there are always exceptions. But other departments are not as good at bullshitting and so have to justify themselves with hard numbers, facts, and performance. ...

In my marketing classes it is all about quantitative analysis. They constantly stress that CEOs will smell BS and hit you with questions about your data and analysis. Some of our professors have decades of experience at major firms and readily offer stories of someone who got reamed trying to offer the BS you suggest. I used to share your perceptions. I had no idea what real professional marketing was all about. In much the same vein, examing most commercial or FOSS code will give you no idea what real professional software engineering is about. Poor practitioners exist in every field, in industry and academia, they distort perceptions and create opportunities for the rest of us to excel.

Re:I used to share your misconception ...

[mh1997]

I have decades of experience in software development and BS and MS degrees in computer science. I worked in software development full time while earning both of these degrees.

I apologize, you are not the type of person I pictured. You have experience and education.

Competitors

[Arabani]

Apparently Yahoo! is catching up to Google, at least in terms of customer satisfaction, so I really don't think Google's dominance in search is that big of a deal. In advertising, maybe, but that's why the FTC and EU are looking into possible antitrust violations ... nothing particularly special there. Now, if they actually stopped the merger because of antitrust violations, THEN that's news. Until then, it's just hypothetical bullshit and dreams. The article does manage to make on good point, though, which is that sooner or later the market would manage to break Google's (hypothetical) monopoly. Heck, there's already countless startups all hoping to displace Google. Google does not come close to enjoying the dominance that Microsoft once did, which is why all this concern about Google shutting out the competition seems premature, at best.

Re:Competitors

[cyberkahn]

I just wish Yahoo would make their main page more like this.

Re:Competitors

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that bullshit story got a lot of coverage. Ever thought that maybe people who still stick with Yahoo at this point are somewhat more fanboyish than the mainstream who primarily use Google? "Customer satisfaction" in these surveys is pretty meaningless, ads impressions are ads impressions regardless of how satisfied the consumer is.

Am I supposed to feel bad for Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because for some funny reason, I don't...

Deja vu?

[SamP2]

When Microsoft was originally established, in the era of IBM dominance over PC OS and software, their mission statement was to be everything IBM wasn't at the time... To cut the red tape, to avoid bureaucracy, to put human relations above legal stuff, to be the "people's company" that fights the IBM tyranny. And back then, in the late seventies and early eighties, it was. If you find it hard to imagine, just google the "Would you have invested?" poster.

Fast forward 20 years, and what do you see? Microsoft now is the Big Bad Suing-R-Us company, holding almost total dominance over the PC OS and other markets. It is the new Goliath. And then, comes the new David, Google, with the mission statement of "do no evil", in other words, "do no Microsoft", once again being the "people's company" that fights the MS tyranny.

Fast forward another X years... You get the idea.

The cycle never ends, and indeed it is pretty much natural. Once a company grows from a small enthusiastic community (which Google once was, which Microsoft even earlier once was, etc) to a big faceless corporate conglomerate, there will come a new player, making up with agility what he lacks with force. And the new David vs. Goliath battle ensues, until David grows up to be so big and fat you can't tell him apart from Goliath anymore, and the next David candidate takes on the role.

Re:Deja vu?

[xhrit]

>My theory is, make sure you CEO stays in a very small windowless room with no direct contact to outside sources, that way, he can never have his likeness cropped into images of evil baddies. Everyone will love your company.

The CEO is a public figurehead. It is the Board ov Directors that makes all the decisions for a company - the CEO just does what he is told. The board stays in a very small windowless room with no direct contact to outside sources, and the CEO takes all the credit or blame for their actions. If something goes wrong, the board axes the CEO and renews public faith without having to change a thing about how the company is run.

Re:Deja vu?

[Prof.Phreak]

...but was IBM ever a ``David'', and who was the ``Goliath'' ?

Re:Deja vu?

[namityadav]

Never, it seems

nothingtoseeheremovealong

[4D6963]

Oh noes, Google is so big it's having a tough time getting bigger! Oh noes, it's having more competition than Photoshop, although the alternatives can't really catch up, how will they manage to stay number 1!?

Oh boy, what will be the outcome!

Re:nothingtoseeheremovealong

[niceone]

no thing to see he remove a long

A long what????

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Using google...

[Ortega-Starfire]

... Has yet to bite me in the ass. Until then, I will continue to use them, regardless of alternatives, unless I find something that works 100% better.

Other companies, such as Symantec, Microsoft, Apple (read iTunes crapola), and other various smaller groups will have to work very hard to regain my business.

Re:Using google...

[slothman32]

It'sn't[sic] evil but with all the stuff added to the front page it isn't the same.
Plus for those with CSS turned off it doesn't work the same.
I wish they went back to the original with just a few words and simplicity.
That's even why /. liked it.
I still use it though.
It works well enough for me.

open source alternatives? where?

[edmicman]

Really? What are the open source alternatives to Google's offerings?

I want to host my own "gmail" frontend that uses my own IMAP server. Where is the open source alternative to Flickr that I can install on my own? I'm not seeing these open source alternatives out there.

Re:open source alternatives? where?

[bronzey214]

If you have a Wordpress blog, FAlbum is a wonderful plugin for linking WP to Flickr, otherwise, Coppermine is a very good choice.

Personal search

[Colin Smith]

Bayesian searching.

Put in some terms, it comes back with some preliminary results, rate them as what you're after/not and it then starts rating sites by the match closeness.

Spamming becomes very difficult... Unless that's what you're searching for and ads on the search site could use the same corpus to determine which ads to display to the searcher.

people who call Google evil

[someone1234]

What they say about Microsoft?

Google didn't do ANY evil to me, it is a free service for me.
Google won the search engine market by simply serving the best search results.
If i don't like Google, i could try other search engines.
Why do I still use Google? Because it is the best.

M$ on the other hand provides its mediocre software force-fed to me.
I cannot avoid it even when I want to.
Most software types already exist on Linux, but games are still scarce.

Re:people who call Google evil

[nicolastheadept]

Agreed.

Re:people who call Google evil

[Chapter80]

Google didn't do ANY evil to me, it is a free service for me.
M$ on the other hand provides its mediocre software force-fed to me.

Devil's Advocate:
Microsoft Windows is free software to me. I buy a PC, and it comes with Windows. Sure, HP or Dell has to pay for it, but I don't.

My sarcastic comment, above, is parallel to your comment about Google Search being free. Someone is paying for Google Search, and the costs are most certainly being passed along to the consumer somewhere along the line. Just because you don't see it itemized doesn't mean that you aren't paying for it.

So why, again, is Google so good, and Microsoft so evil? Because Google plays the shell game better?

Re:people who call Google evil

[otis wildflower]

Microsoft Windows is free software to me. I buy a PC, and it comes with Windows. Sure, HP or Dell has to pay for it, but I don't.

You did. The OS was part of the bill of materials for the system, and for lower-end systems it's a pretty significant part of the bill of materials. Therefore it isn't free.

Also, support for Windows isn't free either, and last time I heard AppleCare was worth the extra $$$ for normals while there's no real analog for Microsoft.

Re:people who call Google evil

[Chapter80]

Nope, I just went to HP's site and looked at the cheapest system I could find. Windows was included, no additional charge. It's free. Just like Search. (just because Search isn't listed on a Bill of Materials, does not mean that your dollars aren't paying for it.)

Re:people who call Google evil

[someone1234]

You pay the M$ tax in most every hardware. Even if you wanted to use a linux machine.

Re:people who call Google evil

[Chapter80]

You pay the M$ tax in most every hardware. Even if you wanted to use a linux machine.

You pay for the Google Adwords that a company runs, with every product that you purchase, even if you use Yahoo for your searching. Get it?

Re:people who call Google evil

[someone1234]

I never bought stuff that way :)
Actually, i don't see most ads, i use adblock, got it?
I'm the kind of guy who goes out of the room when the ads go on TV. Or at least i mute it.
Of course, sometimes i USE google to look for a specific ware or service, and i'm happy Google helps me to find it.

Re:people who call Google evil

[Your.Master]

In that case, you are approximately parallel to the users who nick Windows from the Internet.

Please understand that I'm not judging you as an asshole or anything. I use adblock as well. And my copies of Windows were free because Microsoft literally just mailed them to me. Two copies of XP pro and three copies of various versions of Vista over the last year and a half. They'll do stuff for a top-of-the-class graduating student at a top university :). Google sent me a T-shirt, a pen, and a notepad. Cheap bastards.

But I think you're missing the point. People are in general paying for Google -- first, as you said, through advertising impressions and, to some extent, non-intrusive participation in market research; but also to the companies that sell the products they say advertised, who in turn pay for Google and have to cover that cost, ultimately, in the product sale price. Now you could argue that realistically, if they hadn't advertised with Google they'd have advertised with somebody else and the cost would be the same. However, in that case, you simply would not have Google unless you paid in a different form -- such as cash by a more direct route. For instance, a lot of companies that make computer hardware parts and other companies that assemble same advertise on Google. HP just won't list their Google advertising costs divided by their customer base, plus the Google advertising costs of their suppliers, on their bill of sale. I don't know if HP advertises with Google, but that's not really germane to the point. Indirectly, you have to pay this price, whether or not you use adblock. Whether or not you use Google at all. Just like the "Microsoft tax", really, but it seems acceptable when it's because advertising is so ubiquitous that it's necessary even for a universally known brand like HP, but it is unacceptable that ubiquitous use of Office formats makes MS Office a business necessity (before people jump in, everybody is well aware that OpenOffice.org and other almost-perfectly compatible office suites exist), and ubiquitous use of the Windows API in computer software makes Windows a business necessity (everybody here is well aware that most things have acceptable free alternatives).

Hell, to a limited extent, all the suckers buying Windows paid for Microsoft to mail me a copy of Vista Ultimate. It only cost them a vanishingly small fraction of a cent, though.

It may or may not also be that what you are paying, indirectly, for Microsoft products is less palatable than what you are paying, indirectly, for Google products. Honestly, I use products from both companies and find them very satisfying for what I paid for them.

Re:Unregulated capitalism != evil

[Veilrap]

Your title was misleading just thought I'd fix it for you.

So, compete with them

[Colin Smith]

Join Majestic 12 and contribute to an alternative search engine. You can have your machines index a certain amount per day and contribute the result to the index.

Having alternatives is what keeps companies honest. Government regulation just makes the regulators a target to be corrupted.

Re:So, compete with them

[anthonybjr1]

Here, here... I agree 100 percent....

Re:So, compete with them

[Anonymous Coward]

Is hear, hear, perhaps what you meant?

Re:open source alternatives? where?

[Colin Smith]

freshmeat.net

Double click was a bad move

[Anonymous Coward]

All the people I know that work at google are smart folks. All the people I know that work at doubleclick are complete dumbasses, I'm dead serious.

vs. yahoo

[kisrael]

Google has been doing so much hiring lately it's been scaring me a bit (though they didn't lower their standards enough to help me get passed a bombed interview ;-)

But I was surprised that when hunting for references to this poem via its 2nd line ("No! Summer's beautiful, but full of doubt,") Yahoo came up with the matches I expected, and Google came up with nothing. (Hmm, at least as of last night... but both were old and quality links)

PVR/Cable

[Junta]

I'd have cancelled my cable TV long ago if it weren't for my PVR. Offtopic, but I don't have cable and use MythTV+Airstar HD500 (cheaper alternatives exist nowadays) to DVR the broadcast networks. AFAIK, it's the only way to do something DVR-ish without a cable or satellite service. Though admittedly, zap2it has left me in a bit of an pinch with respect to a PVR without any recurring fee...

Why? The same reason banks have nice pens.

[OpenGLFan]

An expensive advertising campaign, even if annoying, also demonstrates that the company is doing well enough to spend money on, well, an expensive advertising campaign I didn't realize the effectiveness of this until I started looking at changing car insurance companies. I realized I hadn't heard of a few companies, but I subjectively felt like the ones I had heard of on national TV advertisements were more stable before I had even started comparing insurer ratings.

It's the same reason banks have big buildings and nice pens chained to the desk. You feel more confident putting money somewhere you don't think will disappear tomorrow; a bank with the investment of an expensive building and a damn great vault is less likely to disappear with your money.

Those who would like to draw parallels with guys buying expensive sportscars or peacocks spending valuable chemical energy on impressive plumage to make a deeper point may wish to do so.

Re:Why? The same reason banks have nice pens.

[cp.tar]

I do see your point.

However, living in a country with a telecommunications monopolist (growing weaker now, but still a bloody monopolist) spending millions on advertising and at the same time overcharging us for the services rendered, I learned one thing: I pay for that advertising.

If they didn't waste money on advertising, their product might be cheaper. If the advertising is very intrusive, it is very expensive. And it's the buyers of the product who pay for it.

I really think consumers must be masochists.

blackboxsearch broken or overreaching?

[sacrilicious]

Those without Firefox can still make use of Blackboxsearch

I just tried blackboxsearch (thanks for the link), both its google and yahoo flavors, and both gave me a message saying something about the referring page being broken. Whether this had something to do with my suppressing cookies and having noscript on I can't say... but I figure that a site trying to appeal to people concerned with privacy shouldn't require either cookies or scripts, so either way I'd consider the site broken, whether in implementation or concept.

Re:blackboxsearch broken or overreaching?

[Epsillon]

I can't replicate this. I have NoScript and ABP and I also tried setting network.http.sendRefererHeader (about:config) to 0, thinking that BB has some sort of referrer filtering going on, but it still works. However, I have noticed that the Google search has a little (OK, huge) bug: It displays the first page of results fine, but as soon as you try to advance to the next set of results, BB's server barfs with a 404. Sorry for the misinformation. It always worked for me before, but it looks like at least the Google portion is coming apart at the seams right now.

Re:blackboxsearch broken or overreaching?

[sacrilicious]

btw, don't know if you've come across scroogle, it's been a goodie for me. One thing I find reassuring about it is that it's clear from the accompanying graphics and text on the scroogle pages that the people running it genuinely hate google... they're more foamy at the mouth about google than I am. :)

Re:blackboxsearch broken or overreaching?

[Epsillon]

Yes, I have used Scroogle in the past. The thing I liked about BlackBox is that it retains the Google look and feel when providing results. Here is a screenshot of the first page of results for "compiz-fusion". It should simply act like Google's search results, but the issue with the subsequent pages of results remains.

Anyway, thanks for the link. There is a search plugin available for Scroogle Scraper on Mycroft, too.

Size and Evil. It's all in the attitude.

[deek]

The new Microsoft, eh? That's an interesting tag for Google. Big is apparently evil? Certainly, the bigger you are, the more careful you have to tread, lest you squash the ants under your feet. It's not necessarily evil if you do squash an ant; it is evil if that was your purpose. Likewise Google and Microsoft. It's not necessarily evil if many people use your software or services; it's evil if you try to destroy your competition. I'd say Google has a long way to go, to be truly compared to Microsoft.

It's funny the timing of this article, because I've just completed my final interviews with Google for a job there. I'm usually a small/mid sized company person, because I hate big company environments. Google is the first large company to convince me that it'd be worth working with them. They really seem to allow employees to spread their wings and do their thing. They don't seem to try to squeeze every drop of productivity from people, and may possibly get things done better because of it. I know I certainly am more creative with my problem solving, if I'm in a relaxed and fun environment. Anyway, if I get this job, it'll be very interesting to see how Google copes with allowing such freedom at work. Maybe they've invented a way to herd cats.

School vs. Real World

[Slashdot Parent]

Well, it doesn't surprise me for a minute that your teacher told you to make up some numbers. You said it yourself: the goal of the project was making a presentation, not the analysis itself. Market research, while important, was tangential to what he was trying to teach at that moment.

If you'd like, I can see your anecdote and raise you one. My wife works for a large company doing new product development. She manages an army of market researchers, business analysts, and data analysts. When they are launching products, there is a ton of market research that goes into it: focus groups, beta testers, the works. Business analysts and data analysts forecast the response rates based on marketing channel and population.

Numbers are scrutinized at all levels, and heads roll if they are off in either direction. Too little response and you have squandered marketing budget and diluted your brand. Too much response, and you overwhelm the operations department, turning away customers and turning off customers who aren't being attended to promptly. This type of forecasting is a serious financial discipline, but it's way beyond the scope of Marketing 101.

The same tracking is done of response rates, and models are constantly tweaked.

Your experience in industry is unsurprising. Home builders, and certainly dot.coms are notorious for flying by the seat of their pants. Catalog companies just spam everybody. But in the real world, marketing is a serious financial discipline. Definitely not a place for uneducated ex-jocks.

Re:School vs. Real World

[jollyreaper]

Well, it doesn't surprise me for a minute that your teacher told you to make up some numbers. You said it yourself: the goal of the project was making a presentation, not the analysis itself. Market research, while important, was tangential to what he was trying to teach at that moment. Ok, but where do we find out how to get the real numbers? If not in a marketing class, then where? This is directly pertinent to putting together a marketing plan and launching a product, otherwise we could just be bullshitting ourselves. But it was never covered, not once. It was the same way in the advertising class I took. All of this required for a business degree. Every class handwaved and bullshitted the facts, never once pulled things together in a meaningful way. Now I know there has to be an informed and factual way of handling these topics and I'm sure that there are people who are very good at it. But I never encountered them in school and have not encountered them in the workplace. It's very demoralizing.

If you'd like, I can see your anecdote and raise you one. My wife works for a large company doing new product development. She manages an army of market researchers, business analysts, and data analysts. When they are launching products, there is a ton of market research that goes into it: focus groups, beta testers, the works. Business analysts and data analysts forecast the response rates based on marketing channel and population. Wow, cluefulness. Could you tell me what it feels like? Is it nice?

Your experience in industry is unsurprising. Home builders, and certainly dot.coms are notorious for flying by the seat of their pants. Catalog companies just spam everybody. But in the real world, marketing is a serious financial discipline. Definitely not a place for uneducated ex-jocks. I've worked for megacorps and small businesses. They're all stupid for different reasons. Maybe it's just because I'm in Florida, everybody from up north says it's dumber down here. That and we have shitty bagels, can't make a decent sub, and have no idea what pizza is. "Well fuck, there's enough of you down here, you'd think someone would have brought the recipes!" They say that everything is more lax down here, not in a laid back island casual sort of way but just slipshod, like nobody gives a shit. This is contrasted with up north being tight-assed and deadly serious, likely to be dead from a coronary by age fifty but by god, things will be done right.

So, in your estimation, what's a good industry to get into? I went for a business degree in school because I figured it would be flexible. I'm good with computers so I figured I'd just angle into the IT side of wherever I was at. I thought the classes for my degree were pretty much bullshit but stuck with it on the understanding that this was just a hoop to jump through to get a job. Computery stuff paid quite well while going to school but I was caught in a big slump after graduation. The place I'm at now pays well but is going through financial hard times and is not likely to last much longer. All of my computer skills up to this point have been self-taught so I'm going for some certs to round out what I know and get through the hiring process at future companies. Right now I'm working as an IT handyman, doing a little bit of everything, sysadmin, router guy, desktop support, report systems, etc. It's all varied and interesting. I prefer working for a company rather than working on my own since I can just concentrate on the problem and fix it vs. having the problem as well as billing, marketing, and all the other headaches of running my own shop. It pays well and I would think that the skills would be portable across many industries. The only problem, of course, is that the whole economy is in a general downturn. Is there any industry that doesn't suck balls? Where people are sane? It seems like you just have to pick the madness you can best tolerate.

Re:School vs. Real World

[Slashdot Parent]

Ok, but where do we find out how to get the real numbers? If not in a marketing class, then where? I dunno, Marketing 102, perhaps? Did you learn everything there was to know about computer science in CS 101? No, you just covered a broad array of topics with no depth.

Wow, cluefulness. Could you tell me what it feels like? Is it nice? Well, in fairness, I wouldn't want to speak for my wife, but she seems to have a high level of job satisfaction.

I've worked for megacorps and small businesses. They're all stupid for different reasons. No company or work environment is ever perfect. My wife came home one day last winter and said that her group's budget just got reduced to zero. Apparently their division got a new VP who did not yet have a good grasp of the business. She did, however, know that my wife's group was expensive, so she just cut it. Obviously she was able to get some budget back or she would have a different job right now, but stupid decisions happen everywhere.

So, in your estimation, what's a good industry to get into? I went for a business degree in school because I figured it would be flexible. I'm good with computers so I figured I'd just angle into the IT side of wherever I was at. I would never pretend to be able to give you informed advice on what industry to pursue based on two slashdot posts. I have no idea what you are interested in or good at, and I have no idea what the market conditions are in Florida (anyhow, FL is a big place. I bet life in Miami doesn't much resemble life in, say, Pensacola).

Also, it seems your definition of "sane" and mine are very different. Personally, I would go insane if I ever had to work for a company whose owner was someone other than myself.

Going out on a limb, how about IT work for hospitals, nursing homes, etc? You never mention this, but I hear Florida has some old people. ;) I did some work in the managed care industry a while back, and that went well.

Re:School vs. Real World

[jollyreaper]

I would never pretend to be able to give you informed advice on what industry to pursue based on two slashdot posts. I have no idea what you are interested in or good at, and I have no idea what the market conditions are in Florida (anyhow, FL is a big place. I bet life in Miami doesn't much resemble life in, say, Pensacola). True. I was looking more for a hand pointed in a general direction rather than specific names and addresses of companies. Every industry seems to have a certain culture, some are more reasonable than others. It's up to me to do my own research, of course, but it's always nice to hear a good word about a particular industry when looking into it. I like construction but it's going to be years before this industry picks up again.

Going out on a limb, how about IT work for hospitals, nursing homes, etc? You never mention this, but I hear Florida has some old people. ;) I did some work in the managed care industry a while back, and that went well. That way lies madness. The hospitals are all getting bought up by huge, evil chains like Tenet. I've worked in a Tenet hospital before, they're evil, evil places. As for the smaller nursing homes, my mom just finished a stint in one as a manager. I had to set her system up for her because their IT staff was so overwhelmed (one person.) They were completely disorganized, clueless, and old people were wandering around everywhere, old people just marking time until they died. Nonono, not fun.

Re:Size and Evil. It's all in the attitude.

[TheAwfulTruth]

Google has been evil for years. But as they are like one of the "Darlings of Slashdot" such opinions are rare here, but not elsewhere! Google for "Google is Evil" hand have some fun. THey have done SO MANY evil things so far.. it's just mind boggling. (Yes yes I get it) The street level photography for Google Maps has really been over the edge. Their desktop search and Gmail are INSANELY evil. And before you say that other people do it too, remember, isn't google supposed to "Do no evil?" Does merely SAYING that mean anything they do MUST NOT BE EVIL?

But beyond that they seem to seriously be fragmenting. Their Search engine has become more and more useless as people are gaming it to DEATH and it's now filled bilions of stale stale and useless references. At this point I find Google's results to be more filled with garbage than any other engine.

And while they are off creating useless software bundles for no real reason and trying to buy airwave spectrum, they are completely ignoring their search engine. Been to ask.com lately? Google is going to find itself being left behind as they have lost their way and their one real claim to fame seems to have grown dangerously stagnent.

Re:Unregulated capitalism != evil

[iamacat]

How is making blanket claims without backing them without any facts or arguments "fixing" anything? Do you think it's a coincidence that before Google we had all the search engines appearing with different innovative features - yahoo, excite, altavista, Ask Jeeves and now web search is exactly the same as it was 10 years ago?

If only they had gone after Microsoft this fast

[VGfort]

Interesting the speed of which they claim Google to be a monopoly.

Re:Size and Evil. It's all in the attitude.

[deek]

Interesting comment, thanks for replying.

Firstly, I did that search for "Google is Evil". It was full of rants from people and webmasters that have clashed with Google's policies. I wouldn't describe that as evil though. They've set policy in place, some people get annoyed at them, those people crow that Google is Evil. Not convincing. Here's a typical link.

Street level photography? I thought that was a really cool idea! It adds another dimension to searching maps, on a level that is more in tune with how we recognise streets. It just adds that human element, instead of sterile shaded areas.

I've got no idea about desktop search and Gmail, since I don't use either. I use "find" or "rgrep" for searches anyway. If I was ever to get a webmail account, Gmail would probably be it, since it's had some great reviews.

Their searches getting more useless? I'm not sure about that. I've been able to find everything I've ever needed through Google. You may have a point about stale references, but I've never really noticed it. So far, Google searches are as relevant and useful as the first day I started using it.

I'm not sure what this backlash against Google is about. So far, it all seems to be "oh Google could do this", and "Google has the power to do that". Sure, they've got the power to be as evil as the next corporation. But they're not using that power for anything evil, as far as I can see. Not yet. Bwahahaha!

I couldn't resist that last bit.