Google Wants You To Be Its Unpaid Muse

theodp writes "So where do you turn to for great ideas when tough times force you to abort your engineers' brainchildren? If you're Google, reports Nicholas Carlson, you simply outsource brainstorming to your users. Google's launched a new Google Product Ideas blog as well as a Product Ideas for Google Mobile site where users can submit feature and product ideas and vote on others. So what's in it for you if you come up with Google's next billion-dollar-idea? 'If you post an idea or suggestion and we put it into action, we may give you a shout out on our Product Ideas blog,' explains Google, 'but we won't be compensating users for their ideas.' Lucky thing don't-be-evil Googlers don't have to live up to the IEEE Code of Ethics, or they might have to credit properly the contributions of others." So what's wrong with a shout out among consenting adults?

Comments

Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[phayes]

Don't contribute to their ideabox. It's not like Google is forcing people to contribute. Why is that too difficult for the article submitter to understand?

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[slugtastic]

It's not like Google is forcing people to contribute.

Who said they do?

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[PFI_Optix]

Or, do. I would LOVE if every service provider gave me a place to voice my opinion on how they can improve their service without me having to have the expertise to actually execute the idea.

An idea is just that: an idea. It's not a product, it's not a service, it's not even the result of a great deal of work. There are a lot of things I'd like to see companies do that I can't begin to make money off of, but I think they could and I would benefit from them. I don't care if they profit off my ideas, my gain is that they are doing what I want.

Leave it to Slashdot users to find a way to negatively spin it when a company goes to great lengths to give their consumers a voice.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[IF_I_was_G*d]

There might be ideas which are suitable only for Google. In fact, the best ideas might be the one, which are only for Google.

In that case it's like being a musician before you could record decently yourself. You had to sign with a record company. Of course, you could have chosen "not to contribute" and play your music on a street corner.

If someone submits a usable idea, what Google can turn into a product, which generates revenue - there is no reason why the person who offered them the idea should not be credited properly as the source of the idea and rewarded properly. I am not thinking of the Microsoft-type of reward: buy DOS from someone in the neighborhood for peanuts and license it to IBM. That would be evil by Google standards, wouldn't it?

How about turning around and say: if you don't want people to compensate for their ideas according to their proper value, don't ask people to contribute.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[phayes]

The summary, by decrying that "we won't be compensating users for their ideas" is implying that Google is stealing them. Theft is by definition non-voluntary. Connect the dots little troll...

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[Manfre]

Or, do. I would LOVE if every service provider gave me a place to voice my opinion on how they can improve their service without me having to have the expertise to actually execute the idea.

Most companies have customer support forums, email address and phone numbers. They have been receiving "opinions" on how they should do their job for a long time.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[phayes]

Google has warned that they will not pay for any ideas that are submitted to them through this interface.

If you think that you have an idea that is worth money to Google, then don't use the ideabox. Go negotiate with Google directly. Patent it (Ugh). Sell it to Yahoo. Start your own company & exploit it. Don't expect anyone else to feel sorry for you because you're jealous but can't think of a way to sponge off of google's wealth.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[Amorya]

Ideas aren't worth very much. You get loads of postings on programmer's forums saying "I have this great idea, and if someone codes it for me we can share the revenue 50/50". They miss the point that having an idea is the easy part, and the design, implementation and coding of it is worth much much more. I can't remember who said it, but I read a quote once about an idea being worth a couple of pints down the pub. That sounds about right. If Google wanted to reimburse these ideas generously, they could give out a cheque for $100. I don't think any more can be expected.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[blhack]

Why is that too difficult for the article submitter to understand?

For the same reason that they can't understand that this is as much you outsourcing your work to google as it is google outsourcing their work to you.

How many people could seriously code an idea they had all the way from drunk drawings on the back of a coaster to full-scale deployment?

Google is offering to give them a service that they want, of course they're going to profit from it if it is good. If you had the skill set to do it yourself, you would.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[SCPRedMage]

Not paying someone for something that they contribute while knowing full well that they won't be payed is NOT the same as stealing.

Nice troll, though.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is only fair when google promise not to commercialize (e.g. get money from) the idea it collects.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

'An idea is just that: an idea.'

A product is just that: a product. I produce several things in my bathroom every single day. I could also turn it into an automated "service" that others could enjoy after a great deal of work, but that doesn't mean it's worth anything.

Ideas that are feasible and (can) result in something lucrative is the whole reason "products" and "services" and "great deal of work" exist in the first place.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideas aren't worth much in the same sense designs, implementations and coding aren't worth much. Unless they are good ones. See, a good idea is the reason why everything else even happens. Like how EVERY SINGLE PROJECT that is worth its salt first starts with a business case. And that is when the value of the idea/proposal is assessed before they even think of designing, developing and implementing whatever it is.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[JAlexoi]

Idea is worthless in monetary value. Implemented idea is what matters. History teaches us exactly that!

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[JAlexoi]

Well this is different I'm afraid. They are not asking how well they are doing. They are asking if there is anything they could do for us.
You don't charge your waiter/cook for giving him instructions or an idea of what the chef will materialize. You actually PAY for listening to your needs and materializing them and you even leave a TIP!

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[fyngyrz]

Like how EVERY SINGLE PROJECT that is worth its salt first starts with a business case.

No. Some start because they seemed like fun to do. Some start because of a simple code fork for something that appeared to be minor, but turned out not to be. Some start as demonstration projects. Some start as academic proof of concept, no initial business intent at all. Some are intended from day one to be public domain, and some are intended to be free to anyone *but* commercial enterprises, unless the commercial enterprise conforms to certain conditions. Some start as a favor to the spouse. Some start because of a personal need. Some start to entertain the kids. Some are outright accidents.

Business is not the be-all and end-all of human goals. It never was; one has to hope it never will be.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, a business case is just project management methodology (I think DSDM?) term for it. I believe PRINCE2 calls this initial assessment something else. Either way, nobody just does things without first thinking about what they're doing and why they're doing it. Even if it's only for "fun", they still need to determine whether investing this type of input is worth the "fun". And that concept of "fun" is based on some idea/purpose that they've had. Our choice to do something or not is triggered by an idea.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[Raenex]

The last time I communicated with my bank via their website they made a particular point about not submitting ideas or suggestions. Want a helpful feature? Sorry, don't ask.

Re:Don't want Google to steal your ideas?

[Hognoxious]

nobody just does things without first thinking about what they're doing and why they're doing it.

I've encountered (usually in the role of the poor bastard who has to clear up the mess) several situations where it was evident that someone had done precisely that.

The Gift Economy.*

[Ostracus]

"So what's wrong with a shout out among consenting adults? "

For those who envision the domination of a gift economy. Now's your chance to make it happen. First software, now ideas.

*Aka "ideas want to be free".

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I'd rather prefer 100 million dollars to a random quantity of "whuffie". That was a story, babes. You don't see Corey Doctorow actually offering all his books for free.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[Hal_Porter]

"So what's wrong with a shout out among consenting adults? "

For those who envision the domination of a gift economy. Now's your chance to make it happen. First software, now ideas.

*Aka "ideas want to be free".

I think I preferred the old economy where we sold our skills to billion dollar companies.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[gbjbaanb]

ah, but at least with software the GPL forces derived products to still be free, if you gift an idea to Google, they get to keep it as if it was theirs all along.

I wonder if the T&C of the product idea site says you have to cede copyright and any patents to them?

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[Man On Pink Corner]

Um, yeah, he pretty much does. At least all of his more recent ones.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[afxgrin]

Too bad not everyone plays their fair part in the gift economy. Instead, there's a very high likelihood, that Google can just take the ideas that are submitted, and implement them without providing any reward to the submitter.

Even if there's some EULA/Contract/legal stuff that Google provides at first, good luck taking them to court and winning against this multi-billion dollar corporation.

There's also the problem of providing relevant ideas. In a public forum listing ideas, there maybe many very good ones, but may hold no relevance to a corporation like Google. By posting the non-relevant idea, you then leave that idea open to the public, where some other corporation who has no intention to 'play fair' at all, can take it, and become profitable, or completely ruin the idea by implementing it poorly and creating an atmosphere of negative public opinion.

I don't blame people for -not- sharing their ideas, even if they never have the resources, time, or dedication to see them through. In the wrong forum, you may face nothing but hostility, and ignorance, because the audience just doesn't understand what you're presenting, or finds your idea a threat to theirs.

Sounds like a nice idea however.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[Anonymous Coward]

http://craphound.com/content/

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[rolfwind]

All too often, we are brought up on the perspective that the "killer" idea is more important than the execution. It's like some type of get-rich-quick scheme for thinkers. This is one area where the patent system used to work, only granting patents on working models are specific implementations - nowadays it's the "killer idea" which some corp or troll patents, sits on it, and waits for someone else to do the work. Truly novel or killer ideas are uncommon - great execution is more important. I would say that Apple's iPods and iPhone are a testament to this. Not one super novel idea in itself, but a slew of good compromises and vision to see it through. Good execution.

I don't think society progresses far when people hoarde their ideas in the mistaken beliefs that it's all gold (rather than the 99.999% fool's gold that they are) or actually more novel than it really is and not collaborating with anyone. I would look to Paul Erdos as the ultimate example of intellectual collaboration.

The problem is that ideas that seem good are plenty. It's like blades of grass. The problem is getting yours to stick out, so that the corporation actually picks your and pours their resources into executing it. I would imagine it's a good feeling if something actually came out of it.

*Note, I'm talking ideas, not some specific design.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[LingNoi]

You can't restrict people from having the same ideas as yourself. Your comparison is horribly inaccurate.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[PJ1216]

What if someone other than the submitter already owns the patent or copyright (assuming the idea is copyrightable or patentable)

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[Mr. Slippery]

You can't restrict people from having the same ideas as yourself.

No, but you can stop them from using those ideas. That's what a patent is for.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked with a guy who invented new ways of teaching. All his ideas were brilliant. He would have PhDs in those fields begging to work for him because they were that excited about his ideas. But his running of his business was not so brilliant. Execution is more important than the quality of an idea. The right execution can make crap fly like an eagle. But if an idea is truly original, you will have to shove it down people's throats. And that is also all in the execution.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[juliuswinfielderving]

Right, except in this case it seems wrong. Here is what they are saying in essence. "Here's how we'll work together, you guys come up with these great ideas and we'll execute and become even more wealthy then previously seemed possible. Thanks!" What a great arrangement. Certainly, execution is very important. It's similar to what Thomas Edison said, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. But my reply would be What? If they think they are so smart, why don't they just execute and come up with their own ideas? They're making millions and millions of dollars because they had a new tilt on an old idea - search. Now, they want to cash in on someone else's genius? They should do their own work.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[thetoadwarrior]

And when 2,000 other people suggest the same thing then why do you deserve the copyright and patent?

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[swillden]

Here's how we'll work together, you guys come up with these great ideas and we'll execute and become even more wealthy then previously seemed possible. Thanks!

You forgot: Oh, and after we execute your cool idea, you'll get to use it.

99.99% of ideas you come up with are going to be things you want. Here are some options:

1. Keep the idea to yourself, raise the necessary capital to implement it, hire the right people to implement, package, market and sell it, and become wealthy yourself. That's excellent, and it allows you to use the realization of your idea, in exactly the form you want, but it's damned hard.
2. Find someone with the capability to execute and sell the idea to them. You may or may not be able to do this, and whoever you sell it to may or may not be able to build it. If all goes well, you'll get paid a little and get to use it. Still a long shot, though, especially because if you sell it to one company, you'll be required to keep it to yourself so no one else will get a chance.
3. Keep the idea to yourself and just wish that someone would do it. This is what usually happens. I have dozens of ideas that I think are great but will likely languish in this phase forever.
4. Toss the idea out to someone who can execute and see if they do. In fact, toss the idea to all of the people and organizations you can. This maximizes the odds that you'll actually get to use the cool thing you thought of.

Google is just mining for people looking to do 4, and there isn't a damned thing wrong with that.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[TaoPhoenix]

(AntiMeme)

They're not taking it, they're copying the idea. After all, you can do something with your idea yourself. It's not like they physically vacuum the idea out of your head, unless someone invents the (generic brand) mind-sifter.

After all, if your idea wasn't any good to you, why when they take their resources to do it should you bother to get paid?

How about the publicity? Wouldn't "Google implemented my idea" be worth something?

Oh right. These are business ideas, not songs.

(/AntiMeme)

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[Anonymous Coward]

shoving eagles down throats? are eagle jobs a new idea?

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[Anonymous Coward]

I LOLed.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[C18H27NO3]

I was going to post that same thing re: leaving the ideas open to the public for them to possibly pursue on their own.
When I started reading TFA I initially thought that it would be a one-way closed communication between the idea submitter and the big Goog and when I saw that the ideas were to be posted in an open forum I immediately thought of someone taking someone else's idea and patenting it.
Only three things are to come out of this for anyone submitting an idea:

* Google uses your idea with a simple "kudos 2 U!!!1one! and no monetary compensation.
* Since you have liberated your secret idea, someone else patents it and potentially profits from it.
* Google dismisses your idea entirely and nothing at all happens and life goes on.

I would like to have some revolutionary idea to put forth to Google but the lack of some time of compensation doesn't leave much incentive.

Re:The Gift Economy.*

[An Onerous Coward]

I don't know. If I had a brilliant idea, that would lead to a revolutionary product, then I told Google about it and they made millions and I got nothing, I'd be a bit hurt.

On the other hand, I'd get to use that nifty product that I'd been dreaming of. Admit it, that would be pretty nifty.

All of the terms are put clearly

[Peaker]

How could this be illegitimate, if it does not intend to hide or mislead Google's intentions?

Re:All of the terms are put clearly

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like Walmart asking for ideas what they could do next to become even bigger. Would you give Walmart ideas?

Re:All of the terms are put clearly

[Peaker]

That is irrelevant. What's relevant is that Walmart have every right to do so if they fully enclose that they take the ideas without any compensation.

Re:All of the terms are put clearly

[blueg3]

Wal-Mart doesn't have a suggestion box?

Re:All of the terms are put clearly

[thetoadwarrior]

Department stores (and maybe even Wal-Marts) used to have suggestion boxes. As did many restaurants or often you'd get questionnaire cards with a purchase which often asked for suggestions on how they can improve. I suspect a lot of places still do this.

Google at least lays out all the terms and let you decide what to do. Most other suggestion methods say nothing and if they use your idea you don't even get a "shout out" so all Google has done was take an old idea and made it more open. If you don't like it keep your idea, implement it and patent it yourself. It's not rocket science.

I suspect most of the people moaning about this don't have an idea worth patenting otherwise they'd be doing that instead of sitting here and crying about Google wanting to eat their soul.

Re:All of the terms are put clearly

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the people moaning probably don't want other people to make the mistake of furthering Google's dominance. It's not a situation of "the rising tide floats all boats". It's a situation of showing the big trawler where the remaining fishing grounds are. Crowd sourcing is evil, unless the effort is strictly bound by open licenses.

Re:All of the terms are put clearly

[Anonymous Coward]

They have every right to do so. THAT is not the point. The point is that taking valuable ideas from people without paying a fair price is not nice, especially not from Google, which prides itself to be a non-evil company. It doesn't matter that they don't try to hide it.

Re:All of the terms are put clearly

[thetoadwarrior]

Well luckily anyone with a good idea should have the intelligence to decide whether they agree to the terms or not before submitting it.

Re:All of the terms are put clearly

[Peaker]

Its equivalent to Google having a "donate to google" box.

People who choose to donate do so willingly.

There's nothing wrong with it

[matt4077]

Why shouldn't they ask for ideas from users? It's part of any business relationship that both sides profit. Since I rarely click on ads, I've probably gotten more use out of google products than they got in return. If I had a good idea, I'd have no problem to let them know. At the least, their products get better and I get to use the cool new feature. Most of the ideas are probably worthless to individuals anyway, since they might only be a feature, not a product.

Plus, all the ideas are out in the open for everyone to see, so any competitor is free to implement them as well.

Re:There's nothing wrong with it

[matt4077]

Your opposition only makes me stronger.

Re:There's nothing wrong with it

[Hognoxious]

I've got several ideas for Microsoft.

• Make WPA work reliably.
• Make WPA (the other one) work reliably.
• Make it so you can save power management settings without having to frig the registry.
• Make XP Pro SP3 install properly even if it can't read a stupid music file. Or at least tell you that it needs to run as administrator at the start

They can implement those and I won't ask for a penny.

(I have several others that are quite unprintable).

Re:There's nothing wrong with it

[u38cg]

Quite agree. I suspect you'll find that Google already gets a large number of people contacting them suggesting they do this or that. Having a centralised place where they can employ a guy to sift the wheat from the chaff seems a sensible next step.

Re:There's nothing wrong with it

[noundi]

To me it's always a question of licensing. If you care to keep a share of your idea and the product made of it be sure to submit it to someone who won't steal it from you. Of course this is easy with FOSS licenses but not impossible with proprietary licenses, given that your idea or product is valuable enough.

Re:There's nothing wrong with it

[gladish]

I have a "Great Idea" which I fully intend to take complete credit for. Dear Google Goons, Make your search engine faster and better. And get rid of those stupid sponsored adds.

Re:There's nothing wrong with it

[Khuffie]

Feel free to post em here. My printer isn't working anyway.

It also

[camcorder]

...makes you unpaid advertisers.

Re:It also

[WindBourne]

Kind of like ppl paying MS for a new version of windows beta and then debugging it for them while telling others what they think of it?

Re:It also

[drinkypoo]

The difference here being that with Microsoft you have to pay, but then you don't have anything nice to say about it. Whereas Google is free, and mostly doesn't suck.

How is that different than /.?

[rolfwind]

Other people create the articles, we create the original content that draw people to this site. People love having a soapbox where they think others will listen to their ideas. So I don't understand the tone of the summary.

OTOH, years ago, people working at Nintendo (USA) told me that when they recieved letters, they put them in the trash as soon as it became apparent it was an "idea" letter for a game. They didn't want the liability. How is google going to curb this aspect?

Re:How is that different than /.?

[Sen.NullProcPntr]

OTOH, years ago, people working at Nintendo (USA) told me that when they recieved letters, they put them in the trash as soon as it became apparent it was an "idea" letter for a game. They didn't want the liability. How is google going to curb this aspect?

The letters to Nintendo were unsolicited. Google requires you to agree to their TOS before you can post an idea.

Re:How is that different than /.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideas for features submitted to Google probably don't fall under the blanket of "intellectual property."

Re:How is that different than /.?

[Psycizo]

For the TL;DR people:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

Re:How is that different than /.?

[afxgrin]

They have billions of dollars, random letter writers typically don't. That's how.

Re:How is that different than /.?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Come up with great idea
2. Request a patent for it's implementation, register for copyright and a bit later offer idea for "free" to Google as anonymous
3. Wait for patent and copyright to be approved
4. ???
5. Profit

Re:How is that different than /.?

[Anonymous Coward]

"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services."

So the license to distribute etc is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display and promote the services. That's quite a narrow limitation. No sublicensing, for a start...

Re:How is that different than /.?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have billions of dollars, random letter writers typically don't. That's how.

So the millions that Nintendo had wasn't enough?

I don't think I understand.

Re:How is that different than /.?

[d34thm0nk3y]

From the TOS link at the bottom of this page:

With respect to text or data entered into and stored by publicly-accessible site features such as forums, comments and bug trackers ("SourceForge Public Content"), the submitting user retains ownership of such SourceForge Public Content; with respect to publicly-available statistical content which is generated by the site to monitor and display content activity, such content is owned by SourceForge. In each such case, the submitting user grants SourceForge the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license.

something doens't add up

[Anonymous Coward]

At the moment, "2,436 people have submitted 670 ideas"

I haven't looked at the content of these ideas but on the surface of it, it seems like 1766 people's idea what to post:

"F1RST!!!11!!!!1!"

Hey,...

[Anonymous Coward]

... they are already doing it with search queries!

Ideas are cheap.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, raw ideas are cheap. Everyone has an opinion. The hard part that you need to pay people for is making the ideas work.

Like Edison said, 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Slashdot should pay me!

[an.echte.trilingue]

This is ridiculous. Should /. have paid the guy who submitted this? What about me for all the moderation I have done? Should my company pay people who fill in customer satisfaction surveys?

I am really getting tired of this /. "google really is evil" meme. I mean, jeez, here we're jumping on them for doing standard market research. When they do something that really is evil (like when Microsoft killed netscape), that will be news.

Re:Slashdot should pay me!

[ExtremePhobia]

hey, I wouldn't mind getting paid for my ideas. If you put a significant amount of work into something that's going to get somebody else paid, I don't think it's that wrong to expect some compensation. On the flip side, if you know you aren't going to be paid then you know that your compensation is strictly just getting props. If that bothers you, it's not their fault. If this ideabox doesn't work out then they may start paying people for their ideas.

Supply and Demand - The Supply is huge, the demand nearly non-existent... so you don't get paid.

Re:Slashdot should pay me!

[RobotRunAmok]

we're jumping on them for doing standard market research.

Actually, I think we're jumping on them for being a multi-billion dollar company cynically taking miserly advantage of the naive Web 2.0/UGC culture. The next logical step would be for them to reward the really, really clever and marketable ideas with limited edition Google Logo pins and official membership cards in the Google Youth. Or maybe the "Google Yooth." Yeah, I like that...

I'd suggest such a club as a money-making idea to Google directly if I didn't think it would result in them tapping my phone and implanting a microphone in my dog.

Re:Slashdot should pay me!

[jellomizer]

There is a difference. If you had moderation you didn't have to do it, you contribution of moderating or not has a minimal affect on slashdot as a whole, so the value of your contribution is rather small (financially).
  Also most sites who takes user input for a product goes into a queue and the most requested features gets put in. The way that Google is doing it is an open brainstorming session where all peoples ideas goes out and everyone can see them. Creating a situation where reading and Idea can spark other people to have that idea and vote for it and bring it up. Then the winning idea gets created and can give Google Millions of dollars in revenue. The difference is between your idea and a hundred other peoples idea and your idea alone that was so go that a lot of people liked it.

Re:Slashdot should pay me!

[thetoadwarrior]

I think if you were able to block the Redmond area from posting on Slashdot then they would disappear.

Re:Slashdot should pay me!

[thetoadwarrior]

This is nothing new. It's essentially a suggestion box which companies have been using for ages. None of them ever paid you for your ideas.

Secondly you don't what they'll actually do to compensate you. My guess is they would do more than you think but saying so ensure you'll get every moron and their family suggesting anything and everything and it will turn into a legal mess.

It's same reason developers won't take unsolicited ideas from people. Most good ideas will be thought up by more than one person. So if Google were to pay for ideas and Person A gets picked but Person B gave a very similar suggestion then he'll get pissed off and want his compensation.

Or, you suggest something which, it just happens that Google has been working on for 6 months already. They don't give you the money because it's already 80% done. They release it you get hacked off and sue them.

As it is if they forget to give a shout out to someone with a similar suggestion what's the worse that happens, they list their name too?

You can almost certainly guarantee that if you really do have a load of good ideas they'll want to do something to make sure they stay with them and no other company and you could end up with a job there or something.

But the odds are still likely that most suggestions will have been suggested by hundreds, if not thousands of others so it becomes more of a voting system on what people want rather than you giving them the holy grail of internet business.

Re:Slashdot should pay me!

[mysidia]

Slashdot doesn't make billions of dollars off every article it prints.

If someone comes up with an awesome, completely unique idea for a product that makes billions of $$$ in profits. And the cost for Google to make such an award is negligible, certainly less than the benefit of having more high-quality idea submissions, and in having submitters be willing to do more work to develop their idea/suggestions into something usable, for example: to develop a prototype and make it available to Google.

It seems only equitable to offer them 0.01% of that or even more as a prize, for having provided Google an opportunity they would not otherwise have had.

Plus it would increase the interest in people making submissions.

On the other hand, the danger is, people might submit obvious ideas.

They might even submit ideas for projects Google already knows about and may plan a product for eventually.

Who's to say whether they implemented the idea, because they thought of it themselves, or whether they used the brainstorming submission from a user???

If they promise compensation, they're in danger of having people demand compensation for ideas that are just not unique or special, and that Google already had.

I.e. say I submit an idea for X... one year later, Google does X... how do you tell whether my idea submission made them think of doing X, or whether someone else's submission, or something totally unrelated to Google product suggestsions made them do X?

Re:Slashdot should pay me!

[toiletsalmon]

I think the problem is that, increasingly, CORPORATIONS have the expectation of monetizing EVERYTHING that they do/produce, while at the same time, the precedent is being set for it to be "normal" to "leech off of the public" in different ways for the benefit of the business class.

For a timely example, look at how we historically privatize corporate profits, and yet force the public to pay for/bailout these same companies when times are bad.

It's disingenuous.

They could make your idea real... for free

[wyoung76]

Most people I know (myself included) have a lot of ideas, both good and bad, but have no idea or resources to make the idea into a marketable and/or profitable idea. The fact that your idea could be made real by anyone else and accessible worldwide is pretty much its own thing to brag about.

Re:They could make your idea real... for free

[Xugumad]

Not to mention, just being credited with coming up with Google's next big thing is enough to almost certainly land you a well paid job for life somewhere.

Re:They could make your idea real... for free

[Rastl]

Not to mention, just being credited with coming up with Google's next big thing is enough to almost certainly land you a well paid job for life somewhere.

Yeah, good luck with that one on your resume.

"I came up with the idea for Google's 'Whatchawhoozit' module that has revolutionized the industry. Um, they didn't give me any credit for it or anything but trust me I did submit it through their idea portal."

Alternatively, "I came up with the idea for Google's 'Whatchawhoozit' module that has revolutionized the industry. If you go into Help, About, Credits, Contributers, North America, Submitters and increase the font you'll see me. Right there! Yes, I'm that John Smith!"

I agree that there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip but I'm not about to sign over all rights to my ideas on the off chance that they'll be used. I'll keep them to myself and see if at some point I can bring them to fruition.

Re:They could make your idea real... for free

[JAlexoi]

Actually they say that they will give you credit for it. And unless US copyright law is different from my country's copyright law, the author has 2 types of rights: material and non material. Non material are the rights by witch you can force anyone to disclose that you are the original author of the work.

Re:They could make your idea real... for free

[Rastl]

From the actual Google TOS (emphasis added):

If you post an idea or suggestion and we put it into action, we may give you a shout out on our Product Ideas blog, but we won't be compensating users for their ideas.

So you're giving them your idea for the potential of being buried in the credits. Thanks for playing.

Re:They could make your idea real... for free

[An Onerous Coward]

So, you couldn't think of anything either?

"Unpaid Muse"

[Kupfernigk]

Not to carp, but as far as I know none of the Ennead ever got paid. Of course, had they existed in the days of the RIAA, Euterpe,Polyhymnia and probably Terpsichore would have been served with writs pronto. This would have been a Good Thing, because Zeus had a thoroughgoing way of dealing with people who pissed off his relatives. But I digress...

As I keep telling our sales people, there is something of a gulf between having an idea and actually implementing it. Also, an invention is supposed to solve a problem, not just to state it. I may think it is a good idea to find a way of checking the extent to which bears poo in the woods, but when someone patents the improved device and process for facilitating mensuration and analysis of the sylvan/urban mass ratio of ursine faeces, I really shouldn't expect to profit.

Re:"Unpaid Muse"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I have it on the highest authority that Urania always forced her servants ... er, clients ... er, no, acolytes to sign an NDA on her methodologies for inspiration, and to sign over 30% of all profits.

Re:"Unpaid Muse"

[westlake]

Not to carp, but as far as I know none of the Ennead ever got paid.

This is naive at best - and disingenuous at worst. Greek drama was framed within the context of a religious festival. But it was also a competitive exhibition for the playwrights and the winner did not go home empty-handed.

Rarely works

[Anonymous Coward]

A mega-corp I used to work for also did this, but just internally for employees. The reward- a $50 gift certificate if your idea was chosen by the exec's. Participation and the quality of the ideas was awful. Within a few months they shut down the website since the exec's were tired of filtering through all the crappy ideas. There are already a bunch of sites doing the same thing. Good ideas are rare, good ideas for free are almost unheard of. Think about the American Inventor show. The payoff was huge, yet even amongst a poll of millions of people most of the ideas were pathetic. Even the winning ideas were lame and never become profitable.

Re:Rarely works

[toddestan]

A mega-corp I used to work for also did this, but just internally for employees. The reward- a $50 gift certificate if your idea was chosen by the exec's. Participation and the quality of the ideas was awful. Within a few months they shut down the website since the exec's were tired of filtering through all the crappy ideas.

With a reward of a $50 gift card, is it any wonder the ideas were terrible? If I had a brillant idea that could make tons of money, it's not like I would post it there. The only thing I would bother with would be good-sounding bad ideas, in the hope that management would be fooled enough to give me the gift card.

OR

[WindBourne]

patent the idea, and then submit it to Google's box while you work on the idea.

Re:OR

[LandDolphin]

I'm sure that their lawyers have worked something up so that when you submit an idea, you give up your legal right to that idea.

Re:OR

[blueg3]

I'm sure Google lawyers haven't thought to search patents and applications for submitted ideas before the company pays to implement them.

Also, most ideas that you would put in suggestion boxes aren't sufficient to patent.

Re:OR

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually searching software patents is a really bad idea, and corporate IP lawyers routinely advise that engineers never do so. The USPTO standard for "novel and nonobvious" is so shockingly low that you're very likely to find a patent on something you're already doing, which instantly puts you on the hook for "willful infringement" triple damages if they ever come after you. It's mostly obfuscated descriptions of stuff any CS undergrad could produce in minutes anyway.

Re:OR

[Communomancer]

Brilliant! Oh, except for the part where you don't actually patent ideas, but inventions. Big difference.

Man, people on /. used to know those kinds of things. Now we mod up those who don't.

Comment witheld

[noidentity]

Before I make a comment on this article, you're going to have to compensate me. Or did you think you could steal people's time for some free comments?

Apples to Apples

[BecomingLumberg]

If this was a report about Ubuntu brainstorm, pretty much the same thing, it would be a glowing review? Why can a for profit company not employ the same techniques?

Re:Apples to Apples

[Penguinisto]

Probably due to perception of result.

When Canonical/Ubuntu takes an idea and runs with it, odds are good that everyone benefits, and the results are freely shared without any real encumbrance or price.

When a for-profit company takes an idea and runs with it, odds are better than good that everyone will have to pay for the privilege of reaping the benefits, and a patent or two will prevent anyone else from implementing it for at least the next 25 years.

Not that I'm taking sides (after all, Google's idea-gathering is voluntary), but that's how it usually shakes out.

/P

Re:Apples to Apples

[eapache]

If this was a report about Ubuntu brainstorm, pretty much the same thing, it would be a glowing review? Why can a for profit company not employ the same techniques?

Dell is running Ideastorm. I don't see the big deal either, as long as terms are clearly stated.

Re:Apples to Apples

[noundi]

I should punch you in the face for this, but I know you're just flamebaiting. You know perfectly well of the differences between contributing to an open project (which means you didn't lose the rights to use them) and giving away ideas for no personal gain. This isn't about right contra wrong, but rather stupid contra smart.

Re:Apples to Apples

[BecomingLumberg]

Okay, you do that. Preferably on the chin though - I have a date tomorrow night and a black eye would be troublesome. Anyone who contributes has decided they are okay with it. So what - it is their idea, not yours.

Re:Apples to Apples

[LandDolphin]

Hmm.. I use a fair amount of Google products and I cannot recall paying for one of them.

Re:Apples to Apples

[noundi]

So what - it is their idea, not yours.

I'm not claiming anything. I'm merely pointing out that it's stupid to give away something for no gain, rather than for some gain.

Re:Apples to Apples

[BecomingLumberg]

So you run around punching people in the face for what you consider stupidity? That is an odd kind of superhero...

Re:Apples to Apples

[purpleraison]

If this was a report about Ubuntu brainstorm, pretty much the same thing, it would be a glowing review? Why can a for profit company not employ the same techniques?

They can. However, if they end up profiting from an idea shouldn't the inventor be compensated?

Personally, I see nothing wrong with what Google is doing, and if I had an idea I would suggest something, just so others could develop it for my use.

But just imagine: If you developed and submitted a concept to them, and then they turn around and become the next Microsoft off of your idea and generate millions in profits.... wouldn't you want even a little slice of that pie? Or more accurately, think you deserve some?

Re:Apples to Apples

[BecomingLumberg]

If it is that good of an idea, hopefully you wouldn't just give it away. Would it be a 'duh' moment? Yes. But I doubt someone coming up with a brilliant idea will fail to realize the potential of an idae.

Re:Apples to Apples

[mgiuca]

Quite so! Arguably, this is the whole point of a NFP organisation - you gain a lot more community support when you declare that you aren't personally benefiting from their help.

Would Wikipedia be anywhere near what it is today if it was run by a For-Profit?

Re:Apples to Apples

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Hmm.. I use a fair amount of Google products and I cannot recall paying for one of them.

You cannot recall all the ads thrown up on the screen? You've been paying Google from the start.

Re:Apples to Apples

[Penguinisto]

As sibling said - you've been paying with your eyes.

Re:Apples to Apples

[LandDolphin]

Funny, I checked my wallet and bank account and no where do I see those adds taking money out. Hmm, maybe the advertisers pay for those adds so that I can use those services for free. I'll have to call them and verify this outlandish claim.

Re:Apples to Apples

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Funny, I checked my wallet and bank account and no where do I see those adds taking money out. Hmm, maybe the advertisers pay for those adds so that I can use those services for free. I'll have to call them and verify this outlandish claim.

Ads are taking up your time, bandwidth, resources etc. Also, Google is profiting from your use of its products. To put it another way: Remove the ads and you have a faster/more streamlined experience. Compare a Google search to a Wikipedia search, for example.

Google and its products are not free.

Re:Apples to Apples

[LandDolphin]

if Google profits or not, does not mean it costs me anything.

As far as Adds go, they exist all over, regardless if I'm using a Google Product or not. Poeple "steal" that from me all of the time, at least using a Google product I'm getting something for it.

Having to look at an Add does not equal having to pay for something. An exception to that might be if you regularly get paid ot look at Adds I guess.

Re:Apples to Apples

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

if Google profits or not, does not mean it costs me anything.

Yet it supports the point the guy you originally responded to was making.

As far as Adds go, they exist all over...

Not everywhere. That's why I suggested you look at how Wikipedia gives you results.

Having to look at an Add does not equal having to pay for something.

'Fraid it does. Whether you pay with cash or your pay with time, it's costing you. It affects what they send. It affects what you get. It affects how they conduct themselves. Google's search results, for example, would be an entirely different entity if they were not a for-profit company.

Anyway, I'm not saying it's bad. It is, however, important to the context in which this discussion was established.

Re:Apples to Apples

[JAlexoi]

No, no, no. The advertisers actually secretly transfer the $$ to your account to COVER the expenses.

Re:Apples to Apples

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove the ads and you have a faster/more streamlined experience.

If you removed all the ads and you'd no longer *have* Google to use; It would have died as a startup long ago. Your proposal is more like the tragedy of the commons than an improvement. If you don't return shopping carts after you are done with them, you have "a faster/more streamlined experience" while shopping. However, it will cost others who don't have a cart, get their car scratched from your cart, or pay more for store employees to retrieve them. So, do you return your shopping carts? Sometimes you need to look at the big picture.

Compare a Google search to a Wikipedia search, for example.

Perfect example. Both take about the same time. One searches the entire internet and usually returns a good result on the first page. The other searches a tiny fraction of the data, and works terribly unless you use the exact terms unique to the page you want.

All the technically savvy people I know search Wikipedia using Google with "site:wikipedia.org", as it works much better than Wikipedia's own search. Google may be making money from me, but at least some of that goes to make a better search engine I can freely use. Wikipedia is a great repository for content, but appear to lack the resources to make a good search system.

Re:Apples to Apples

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Perfect example. Both take about the same time. One searches the entire internet and usually returns a good result on the first page. The other searches a tiny fraction of the data, and works terribly unless you use the exact terms unique to the page you want.

There ya go. Google costs you, but it's worth it.

Thank you for supporting my point.

Re:Apples to Apples

[Raenex]

Canonical is for-profit.

Re:Apples to Apples

[Anonymous Coward]

NP. Just say what you mean from the beginning.

Re:Apples to Apples

[noundi]

Haha not exactly. However if I did have super powers that's precisely the kind of superhero I'd be.

What's the big deal?

[MMC Monster]

Isn't this the same as Dell's Idea Storm and Ubuntu's Brain Storm?

Re:What's the big deal?

[noundi]

To answer your question: no. It could be seen as very similair to Dell's, but not Ubuntus. The difference is that the contributions you submit for Ubuntu Brainstorm are yours and others to keep. Thus there's always a personal gain, and no providing you with a new product to purchase does not count.

Garbage

[Hognoxious]

The article mentions that Google won't be compensating submitters, then quotes like holy writ the IEEE code of conduct which mentions crediting them.

Last time I looked, those words weren't synonyms.

Re:Garbage

[icebraining]

If your idea is good enough to be compensated, you should patent it and sold the patent. But 99% of the ideas I see in websites like Ubuntu Brainstorm aren't good enough for anyone to pay for them. If Google actually makes something the user wants, having the idea come true should be enough compensation.

Re:Garbage

[Hognoxious]

No, no, no no.

Patents should be for an invention/implementation (4 stroke engine), not an idea (horseless carriage).

Re:Garbage

[juliuswinfielderving]

But you're missing the point. The point is that if Google takes someone else's ideas and makes a fortune on them then that is just wrong. The IEEE code of conduct is simply used as a reference to back up that basic and I think obivious supposition. The code of conduct is not scripture but it is well written and well thought out. Also, it's also about attribution. How would you feel if your manager stole every good idea that you proposed to him and posed them as his own?

Re:Garbage

[Hognoxious]

The point is that if Google takes someone else's ideas and makes a fortune on them then that is just wrong.

Why?

I know someone'll probably answer why making money off someone else's work is wrong, so I'll deal with that now: they aren't the same thing. Ideas are very nice, but they aren't a usable product; making them so is the work part.

Coming up with the idea of a perpetual motion machine, a matter transporter or an automatic translator is an entirely different thing - and a considerably easier one - than building one.

This is the biggest fault with the patent system at the moment; it considers wishful thinking and engineering to be equivalent. There's a proverb about 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, and it seems to have been forgotten.

The IEEE code of conduct is simply used as a reference to back up that basic and I think obivious supposition.

It doesn't say that, so why do you think it means that?

Also, it's also about attribution.

One "also" would have been grammatically correct, but still unnecessary. Credit covers attribution; they're the same thing.

How would you feel if your manager stole every good idea that you proposed to him and posed them as his own?

Annoyed. I'd be annoyed if he used my coffee mug as a pisspot but neither of those is the point here.

Re:Garbage

[uhmmmm]

But you're missing the point. The point is that if Google takes someone else's ideas and makes a fortune on them then that is just wrong.

How?

If Google steals an idea and makes a fortune on it, then sure, it's wrong. But if they use an idea that was freely given to them through this service, where the stated goal is to possibly be used in Google's products .... what's the problem? The submitter knew what Google was going to do with the idea, and submitted it anyway.

Re:Garbage

[juliuswinfielderving]

Ummmm, no you're quite mistaken. That is exactly the point. Open and fair attribution of the source of ideas is the key to this thing. This same basic issue was dealt with pretty intelligently already by the open source community - ie. anyone is free to use oss software at no charge as long as that person does not derive financial benefit. Otherwise there needs to be some sort of licensing arrangement. By the way, since you didn't answer the question that I posed, I'll do so for you. I believe that if your boss/manager/superior stole your ideas and suggested to others within your company that they were his own you would not be so philosophical about the whole thing. You would be highly annoyed. Admit it.

Re:Garbage

[Hognoxious]

anyone is free to use oss software at no charge as long as that person does not derive financial benefit.

Really? Where does it say that? Last I heard, Red Hat do. And IBM. And Novell. Is this another thing that can be "obviously inferred" from something that actually says something totally different?

if your boss/manager/superior stole your ideas and suggested to others within your company that they were his own you would not be so philosophical about the whole thing. You would be highly annoyed. Admit it.

I already said I'd be annoyed, if you can't read then adding an adverb isn't going to help. Let me remind you again, that isn't the issue.

Re:Garbage

[juliuswinfielderving]

The point that I was making with regard to OSS was that the deal is that Red Hat, IBM etc, can't pass the work off as their own. So they can't charge for the software itself. From wikipedia definition of Open Source Software --- "1. Free Redistribution The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale." They, IBM Red Hat etc didn't write it after all. And Red Hat charges for the services - support etc. And they offer Fedora for free and they offer RHEL because they did engineering work to make it more robust or whatever.

Re:Garbage

[JAlexoi]

A "shout out" is also attribution. And they promise to do that.

Re:Garbage

[Hognoxious]

can't pass the work off as their own. So they can't charge for the software itself.

Not the same thing. For about the third time, Money != attribution. They're 100% orthogonal. That's a fact, you either don't understand it or don't like it, but that's how it is. Get over it.

From wikipedia definition of Open Source Software --- "1. Free Redistribution The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software

That kind of contradicts what you said. You do understand that there are two meanings of "free"?

Re:Garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone is free to use oss software at no charge as long as that person does not derive financial benefit.

If I use the gimp, and in doing so save myself the cost of Photoshop, I have to pay? This free software is a total ripoff!

Wow, a feedback blog, what a concept!

[QuietLagoon]

So tell me, why is listening to your users and customers a bad thing?

Read as: "We've got tons of talented engineers...

[Assmasher]

...with absolutely f*** all to do right now as we only have one real product, search, and we're hesitant to make big changes to it... Please give us the ideas we obviously cannot think up on our own so we can give these guys/gals something to do because bored smart people tend to leave no matter how good the bennies are." ;)

Welcome to Web 2.0, baby!

[davFr]

no texT.

Against the IEEE Code of Ethics? Huh?

[sirwired]

The ethics code requires contributions by others to be "properly credited." It by no means requires the contributors to be paid (unless of course pay was promised.) Also, if credit is explicitly not promised (as in this case), failing to credit is not against the code.

SirWired

Re:Against the IEEE Code of Ethics? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ethics code requires contributions by others to be "properly credited." which is more or less what hognoxious said right here.

FTFY.

GASP!

[Steauengeglase]

My God, how far can this go? Google has the audacity to listen to its customer and actually use the better ideas?

Because Google is Huge

[rxan]

I think the evil seen here is only due to Google being such a large corporation. To smaller companies, ideas are the golden egg. They are a way to get an edge on other companies, make a splash in the market, or even create brand new markets. And people don't have a problem with this because they are the underdogs.

But Google is huge. People always seem to make a stink when big companies patent ideas. It's because they don't really need to. You know that in a few years after another company implemented an idea, the larger companies are going to copy it anyway, patent or not. Larger companies don't really need the protection of the patent system.

Re:So google fanbois still have strong precense in

[slim]

Sure. It'd be a step towards MS giving me the kind of products I want. Which right now, they don't.

Re:Read as: "We've got tons of talented engineers.

[slim]

we only have one real product, search, and we're hesitant to make big changes to it...

Well, I'm a regular user of Gmail, Reader, Maps, Docs, Notebook, Desktop Search and probably others I've forgotten.

Search is often improved - they're often adding new file types and previewers. Just recently it became possible to sort search results in a way that gets remembered next time you do the search.

Top Secret Money Making Formula

[marsman57]

1. Come up with cool original idea. 2. Patent your idea. 3. Submit idea to Google. 4. Sue Google for Patent Infringement. 5. Profit. Not ??? step necessary!

Re:Top Secret Money Making Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Come up with cool original idea.
2. Patent your idea.
3. Submit idea to Google.
4. Sue Google for Patent Infringement.
5. Get laughed out of court as Google shows where you agreed to turn over all copyright and patents to them in the terms of service.

Not ??? step necessary!

There, fixed it for you.

Ideas aren't bankable

[mariox19]

An idea is a long way from an implementation. Were they alive today, should Jules Verne be paid for the submarine, or Da Vinci for the helicopter?

Re:Ideas aren't bankable

[purpleraison]

did they submit it to Google?

Re:Read as: "We've got tons of talented engineers.

[Assmasher]

Do you realize how many engineers Google actually has? ;) Google should really create a new product line/direction and become seriously devoted to it. Can you imagine, with the talent Google has, what they could do with Open Office (or build a new platform with the same goal) or if they wanted to obliterate Exchange Server? Unfortunately, this is not (as far as I can tell) Google's goal. Google's goal is search, search infrastructure, and fun little add-ons like gMail, simulations, Google docs, et cetera.

Google isn't looking for a real product to build, they're looking for cool things to attract users to Google to bolster search revenue. That doesn't mean they wouldn't ever build a serious product other than Search, but the culture would (apparently) have to change to do so. It's hard to be competitive if your engineers spend 20% of their time on something other than the product you want to deliver and you can't simply scale a software engineering project by adding people. It's a careful balance.

Profit...

[Kindaian]

1. Register a patent with the idea
2. Post the idea in the idea site
3. Wait for google to implement it...
4. Sue google for unlicensed patent use
5. Profit...

(i know it doesn't conform with the standard way)

Re:Profit...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Register a patent with the idea
2. Post the idea in the idea site
3. Wait for google to implement it...
4. Sue google for unlicensed patent use
5. Get laughed out of court as Google shows where you agreed to turn over all copyright and patents to them in the terms of service.

(i know it doesn't conform with the standard way)

There, fixed it for you.

At least they're honest

[elysiana]

They're being upfront about the policy, and it's not even buried in legal mumbo-jumbo - it's RIGHT THERE in the FAQ. If you were going to submit an idea to a corporation and were worried about compensation, wouldn't you try to find that info beforehand? FAQ is a great place to start, and bingo, there it is. Problem solved - if you're looking for compensation, you know not to go to Google with your idea. So where's the prob?

What meme?

[RulerOf]

I am really getting tired of this /. "google really is evil" meme.

It's not a meme, it's just the truth.

Until you can crack open their entire operation and show me, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Google doesn't abuse their position in at least one way (because that's all it takes, then I'd let go some of my skepticism.

After all, absolute power corrupts absolutely.... Of course though, Google does have the best kool-aid.

Re:What meme?

[LingNoi]

Until you can crack open their entire operation and show me, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Google doesn't abuse their position in at least one way

This is just dumb and shouldn't be modded up. I'm not going to spend anymore time writing on this, it's just plain paranoid delusional thinking.

Re:What meme?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to claim something, then it's your job to prove it, not the people trying to call you out on your tinfoil hat bullshit.

Re:What meme?

[RulerOf]

it's just plain paranoid delusional thinking.

No it's not, it's reasonable.

Google has shown that they are by far one of the best handlers of information on the planet. It's more than natural to assume that the average person would probably object to some form of "handling" that they perform with information related to you.

I never said they're the lapdog of Satan or big brother, but still, Google shrouds its inner workings in secrecy (more than is necessary, IMHO) for a reason that I'd wager goes far beyond protecting trade secrets.

I do, however, trust Google leaps and scores more than I'd ever trust Facebook.... that's an entirely different can of worms (though I may add, their kool-aid has been getting quite tasty with all their web 2.0 flavoring).

Re:What meme?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quid pro quo. You have been getting an awesome search engine for free. Can't they get a little in return you zealot?

Re:What meme?

[Mr. Slippery]

it's just plain paranoid delusional thinking.

If you're a zebra, it's not paranoid or delusional to think that a lion will eat you first chance it gets. It's the nature of the beast. Yes, you might have found the one lion in all the jungle that was raised in a vegan commune, or that doesn't have a taste for zebra; but that's an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.

If you're an ordinary citizen, it's not paranoid or delusional to think that a large for-profit corporation will screw you first chance it gets. It's the nature of the beast - the corporation that doesn't maximize its short-term profits by any means necessary gets hit by shareholder lawsuits. Yes, you might have found the one multinational corporation in all the world that has found a way to keep profits high without screwing anyone over; but that's an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.

Re:What meme?

[N1AK]

It isn't reasonable. No organisation is run in a completely open manner, with ALL communications (and everything else) logged and released. In fact I doubt any human lives a life with that level of transparency.

To say it is the truth that something is evil just because you don't have 100% access to information proving it is paranoid, as it is defining everything you don't know everything about as evil.

I never said they're the lapdog of Satan or big brother

You said they were evil, if that isn't what you meant retract it and state what you did mean. If you did then don't obfuscate the issue with irrelevant things you didn't call them ;)

Re:What meme?

[cephah]

So it's guilty until proven innocent, then?

Re:What meme?

[alvinrod]

Unfortunately, there are enough people with this point of view who will never be satisfied. It's almost akin to a conspiracy theory in that if things were made completely transparent and all the facts and evidence were laid out, some people would still maintain that a complete lack of any evidence of evilness or wrongdoing just proves that the organization is hiding something and really is evil.

Google probably isn't evil, but that doesn't mean that they're saints either. There's a pretty large gray area between the two where most people, companies, and organizations tend to operate. Some people, for whatever reason, tend to blur these shades of gray into either black or white. Then again, "Google does some things that I don't like or agree with, but on the whole I find them to be a pretty good company," doesn't generate as many comments or page hits.

Re:What meme?

[Chyeld]

You must not be Christian. After all, aren't we all sinners in the eyes of the Lord? Google, being formed of many many people, must therefore be full of sin. Sin is evil. If Google is full of sin, then it must be full of evil.

Therefore, Google is evil.

And so am I... ;)

Re:What meme?

[jo_ham]

Proving a negative eh? Start with an easy one at least.

Re:What meme?

[smallfries]

Until you can crack open their entire operation and show me, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Google doesn't abuse their position in at least one way (because that's all it takes, then I'd let go some of my skepticism.

Ok, we get it. You think that Google is evil. But just so that we can judge the accuracy of your opinion, how many people / companies pass your arbitrarily high bar for evil? Can you name just one...

Re:What meme?

[_Sprocket_]

It's not a meme, it's just the truth.

Until you can crack open their entire operation and show me, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Google doesn't abuse their position in at least one way (because that's all it takes, then I'd let go some of my skepticism.

There's a difference between stating a definite and suspecting. If you want to claim the definite, then you need to have definitive proof. Producing that proof would help others to agree (or disagree) with your point.

Keep your skepticism. It's good to have. Blind faith is for suckers. But until you can show that something really is happening, don't fool yourself in to believing you're omnipotent. You don't know - you suspect.

Re:What meme?

[RulerOf]

how many people / companies pass your arbitrarily high bar for evil?

Plenty do, and yes, Google is actually one of them.

My point got a little lost in the tinfoil hat I appear to have landed on when I posted, but it was moreso that the general opinion is that Google is in no way evil, that they can do no evil, and will do no evil.

I was simply trying to say that by nature of their size and role in the world we live in, they've broken their motto at least once (their foray into the Great Firewall of China is a damn fine example) and that is all it takes.

I'm not saying that Google should be viewed as Evil incarnate, but for fuck's sake, they're not a shining star of morality, kindness, or goodwill either. It's when you compare it to other companies of its stature and influence that Google is the majority player in doing well by individuals, and I think that conveys a good message about them, but it doesn't overrule the bad one either.

Ah well, Karma to spare, eh?

Re:What meme?

[REALMAN]

All people are evil to a degree. The degree to which we are evil is almost always relative to the amount of power and/or wealth we have obtained.

Re:What meme?

[RulerOf]

You don't know - you suspect.

Truthfully, at least you can tell the difference.

Nonetheless, I firmly believe it's foolhardy to assume that there's absolutely nothing about the company to be suspicious of. It's not to say that Google is full of evil and their goal is evil veiled in wonderful consumer products, by no means. One evil act by anything or anyone makes a motto of "Do no Evil" broken by default. Is that not enough?

Re:What meme?

[_Sprocket_]

You don't understand. It's not that Google is evil. It's that they're run by space aliens and unicorns. And until you can prove otherwise, it's a fact!

Re:What meme?

[Hognoxious]

Yes, it's a CORPORATION. They use fictitious and invalid concepts like limited liability to escape the law, put flouride in the water and one even ran over my cat! Death to CORPORATIONS!

Re:What meme?

[_Sprocket_]

One evil act by anything or anyone makes a motto of "Do no Evil" broken by default. Is that not enough?

The Devil would be in the details. Was this act done by mistake or by a rogue employee? Or was it reflective of a general company policy? The motto is perfectly fine as long as its not a cynical veil for the true nature in conflict with it.

I understand the reasoning for being suspicious. But again, it's simply suspicion until you can show concrete proof of fact - no matter how well the odds are in your favor.

Re:What meme?

[myth_of_sisyphus]

Google did refuse the Justice dept's demand for user search info. That is admirable. While Yahoo and MS handed it over.

Re:What meme?

[mysidia]

Do you have one scintilla of good evidence that Google has abused their position in any way?

What do you define as abuse?

oh sorry a small mistake

[shakuni]

This is MSFT initiative wrongly posted as Google one....

please change your comments accordingly.

inconvenience caused is regretted

What?

[Dreen]

Maybe Im blind or something but I only see a brainstorm directory for mobile apps. for normal ones they say "While we're kicking off this initiative with Google Mobile, we hope to extend Product Ideas to more Google products in the coming year." Am I missing something?

Wait, what?

[KingJ]

A way to finally contact Google? It's so difficult to get in contact with them normally - even if you're paying them (in the case of AdWords). Perhaps we can finally start talking to real people at Google, or at least have them read some of our grievances.

Re:Wait, what?

[binaryseraph]

You hit hte nail on the head. Trying to find a real person at google is almost like looking for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I have friends who work there- so at least I have some kind of confirmation that real people do exist- but I wonder if they have phones at their desk. Google really does create good products, I will give them that. But I find that the followthrough for some of their products are a tottal crapshoot. But that what you get for free software. As for their mining the minds of the user for new products- business wise its a brilliant idea. Not paying users who submit ideas that eventually get used and make millions for Google, I think is crap. But should be no surprise- especially if anyone else paid close attention to what happeend to Doubleclick after it was acquired by Google(Product support was all fired and replaced by no one, developers had to re-interview for the job they had for 10 years, etc. etc. etc.)

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah that's a new way of looking at it.
Come on everyone, SHOUT OUT for KingJ:

Google will finally listen!! Amen!!

No, not sarcastic.
They took four years to make Custom Search popular and more detailed. Pissed me off when I wrote that and they did nothing about it. Hope the TAT is better this time :-) especially with the shout outs :-P

Re:Top Secret Money Making Formula (improved)

[orasio]

...
3. Have a friend submit the idea to Google ...

Re:Read as: "We've got tons of talented engineers.

[Kent Recal]

What a truckload of nonsense.
Google has quite a few serious products lined up next to search and if you look really hard even you may be able to find them.

Re:Read as: "We've got tons of talented engineers.

[slim]

Can you imagine, with the talent Google has, what they could do with Open Office (or build a new platform with the same goal)

I think Google would much rather you used Google Docs than Open Office. I would characterise Docs as a 'serious product'. Sure you can't use it offline, but Google works on the assumption you're always online.

Actually here's Google's interests:

• Anything that attracts users to see Google Ads
• Anything that causes users to provide clues for the ad targeting algorithms (search terms, email contents, page contents, doc contents etc.)

Which reminds me - I didn't include Adsense in the list of Google services I use - and from a Google revenue perspective, it's the most important one.

Or You Could Pay a Small Fee and Own It

[RobotRunAmok]

http://www.wired.com/culture/design/multimedia/2008/12/pl_create

Feature Requests

[Ixokai]

The story itself is moderately interesting.

The summary is the kind of batshit crazy that is kinda making \. annoying in some respects lately -- not that its more batshit crazy in some respects then before, its just getting on my nerves lately.

Can we please have someone rewrite vitriolic summaries? A little?

What Google is doing is what countless companies do; its nothing strange or new. At my company those "ideas" are called feature requests. If we decide its a worthwhile enough idea to be good for more then one customer we'll do it for free -- and consider that we give it to the requester free more then ample compensation.

If its a niche idea they'd like, then THEY have to pay US before their idea becomes a reality.

Sheesh. A company with the possible will and ability to execute your idea may just do so-- IF you CHOOSE to give them that idea because you yourself do not have either that will nor that ability. How horribly evil and unethical of them.

Re:Feature Requests

[Anonymous Coward]

But this seems more like an open call for everyone's ideas. And the way it will work is that they'll go through them pick out a few of the more interesting ideas that might yield them something profitable and run them to ground. Would you also not see anything wrong with a Hollywood studio using ideas for scripts, sitcoms etc simply because they had a seemingly innocent website? Further, I would suggest that your own analysis is flawed and imperfect. If your company implements feature requests it is because you have a working relationship with your customer. The customer is paying you are they not? So, the customer gets what they want and you get what you want. Sounds fair to me. That's a different relationship then the one that Google is proposing - an arrangement where users come up with ideas and they'll make ALL the profit.

So what?

[Todd Knarr]

Google wants product and/or feature ideas. So what? That's a long way from actual implemented products. I'm minded of a comment by a published author to one of those fans with an "I've got a story idea, if you'll write it we can split the money 50-50." request: "You have a story idea? So do I. They're easy, I come up with a couple dozen story ideas a day. Actually writing it, spending 8 hours a day for the next 6 months hunkered over a keyboard hammering it into a full story and then into a finished manuscript ready for publishing, that's the hard part. So you want me to do the hard 95% and give you half the results? What, do I look crazy?". Google's basically asking "What do you want to see?", and if some of the suggestions look good they're do the hard part of developing and implementing them. I don't see a problem there. I might have heartburn if they were asking for actual implementations they could use, but it doesn't sound like they are.

Re:So what?

[juliuswinfielderving]

That's true enough. The idea is just the start of the thing. After coming up with the idea there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done. Of course that remaining work is basically pretty simple isn't it? I mean, how many competent writers are there out there? And how many best selling authors? But I guess I agree with your basic contention, if they just want feature ideas that's pretty innocent.

Wow, the standard for E-villllll..

[bogess]

...must really be low now. I remember the good old days when evil involved ( for companies ) crushing someone elses dreams, or secretly withholding patents so that some much needed improvement to the well being of all was held back. Now it just involves what amounts to a bs session that you volunteer to be part of, with all the 'gotchas' clearly listed UP FRONT. Amazing.

Slashdot wants you to be its unpaid editor!

[Vexorian]

Meh, did you notice that since firehose, we are getting a lot more ridiculously anti-google stories? It makes sense to criticize google about privacy and stuff, but for example, check out the post about google's christmas bonuses, along with this one...

On the other hand MS boosters are getting more frequent, huh?

I don't really see a problem with this

[Man Eating Duck]

I submitted an idea to them a while ago where I proposed that they include exchange rates in Google Calculator. A few weeks later, the feature was there.

While this is such a simple idea that they've probably gotten hundreds of requests for it, I am grateful that they included it.

In fact, I never considered that I should be rewarded. They also stated so clearly on the submission page (which I can't find right now). I use the feature frequently, and am glad it is there. It's a benefit for me as well as for Google.

I think you don't understand yourself

[Kupfernigk]

If you think I'm naive - well, consider:

First, I was commenting on the "unpaid muse". The Muses, the ennead, were daughters of Zeus and so, of course, they didn't get paid. Which was the basis of my (feeble) joke, but was making the serious point that the original idea (inspiration) was attributed to them, while human beings did all the work.
Second, your point about drama, even if correct, is badly made because I did not include the Muse of Drama in my list, as I was making a joke about the RIAA. My point, in fact, was that there is hardly any original music about nowadays, it is almost all derivative, so why does it deserve copyright protection?
Third, your point about drama is just plain wrong. In Athens, plays were put on by nominated rich citizens (if you thought someone else was richer and should put the play on instead, you could swap possessions with him if he refused to agree - an interesting tax system). The rich citizen paid the didaskalos, the chorus, the actors, the musicians and, presumably, the playwright. The prize money nowhere near covered expenses. This was, after all, a religious festival.
Fourth, you have completely missed my point anyway. If someone else has an idea (Hey, Aristophanes, how about writing a play in which jurors are represented by wasps?") Aristophanes does the actual dramaturgic work, and he and his sponsor win the prize. Exactly the same as envisaged here for Google.

So, in summary, my reply to you has to be "brek-ek-ek ex, ko-ax,ko-ax!"- which as everybody knows is what the frogs said to Dionysius.

Plenty of "prior art" for this one....

[macraig]

Google can hardly file a patent for this strategy: certain game and other software developers have been doing this for some time. They release unfinished skeletal software and then rely on the eager-but-clueless users of the product to identify problems and shortcomings and suggest future evolution. The users become unpaid Q&A or R&D staff without ever being the wiser. They don't even get business cards to flash at parties.

Re:Idea

[TaoPhoenix]

Now you're cookin! Ideas, man!

Wouldn't it be cool if Google earned a Googol pennies...

Wasn't there a guy in a Russian novel Nikolai Googol?

You could do it for breakfast! I'm Googol for GooglePuffs!

I have no idea how any of that can make money. But they're ideas!

Offtopic, but I had to say something.

[bennomatic]

Love your sig. Very funny, but it carries some inaccurate implications and ignores some realities.

In reality, wolves are always deciding what to have for lunch, and if they're looking at a sheep, s/he is not alone but part of a flock. It's not democracy because even if the entire flock votes against the wolves, there's no guarantee that one of them won't be taken. If the sheep really did wander off alone from the flock into the wolves' clutches, the sheep has effectively voted with the wolves, by proxy.

Freedom is what exists in reality. The wolves aren't evil or wrong. They are not dictators. They rolls their dices and takes their chances and they'll go storming into a flock, eyes on what they think is the easiest prey. That prey has the option of running, and sometimes, if it's a little one, a parent might actually face off with a wolf and scare them away (if the wolf isn't hungry/motivated enough).

And of course, if your definition of freedom is to let the sheep be well armed, then what's to stop them from oppressing the wolves? Should they be well-armed, too? In that case, two well-armed wolves could take out the sheep from a distance and still have their lunch.

Your point, I'm sure is that popular vote should not determine all things, but neither should individual destructive power. There should be a delicate and always evolving balance between the rights of the many and the rights of the few.

I'm sure Joe the Plumber would agree wholeheartedly, but the world just isn't as simple as your metaphor. To wit: Democracy is a flock of sheep and two wolves voting on what the wolves are allowed to eat. Freedom is a hungry wolf noticing a stupid lamb wandering off from un-attentive parents and thinking of her own pups starving back in the den.

Re:Offtopic, but I had to say something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like most other sound bites, his sig is really not very deep. You should not have over-analysed it like that.

Still, you definitely hit the nail on the head with this part:

Your point, I'm sure is that popular vote should not determine all things, but neither should individual destructive power. There should be a delicate and always evolving balance between the rights of the many and the rights of the few.

Re:Offtopic, but I had to say something.

[phayes]

I had to edit the sig down to fit signature /.'s limits. It is a statement on group dynamics but is much too short to express my true opinion. Your far fetched conclusion on what I mean by including it thus way off the mark.

If you find the sig interesting I suggest you google it to find the original source & enlighten yourself.

Re:Offtopic, but I had to say something.

[bennomatic]

Thank you for the "sig"gestion. I may just do that.

Re:Offtopic, but I had to say something.

[bennomatic]

Found the quote.

"Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote. Those rights are spelled out in the Bill of Rights and in our California Constitution. Voters and politicians alike would do well to take a look at the rights we each hold, which must never be chipped away by the whim of the majority."

I absolutely agree with this, and I think it parallels my statements which you classified as being "way off the mark". Your inclusion of the part about the well-armed sheep changes the meaning entirely from the original quote, so there's no way I could be more "on the mark" about the original quote.

So, care to enlighten me as to what you mean by including the second portion which was (according to the source I read) not part of the original quote?

Re:Offtopic, but I had to say something.

[phayes]

So, care to enlighten me as to what you mean

What exactly in my truncated sig makes you think that my position is the opposite of yours? You post stating that my sig is all wrong, I say go google it, you find out that you don't disagree with the full quote & then you still don't intuit my position? I hope a lightbulb just went off over there...

The summary is the worst I've read in ages

[Anonymous Coward]

You write like a small-town gossip columnist pretending to be from New York.

Aborting brain-children?

Drama queen!

Re:Eat me !!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait for school to start again.

No Pay

[Arivia]

Muses by definition are unpaid. If anything, they might be seduced instead of outrightly raped by the "artists" once or twice. Welcome to feminism, folks!

Open Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahaha, all you open source zealots don't care that Apple and Google rip you off (then charge you exorbitant fees to use their software in the case of Apple)through your willingness to do free work for them.

-derChef

Bug fixing

[jammed]

Wow, does this mean finally there is a way to tell them of the bugs in there existing products? Would finally like to be able to display more than the default number of images on the image search.

Engineers @ Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google never had, and most likely never will have real "Engineers" working for them.

Programmers != Engineers
Coders != Engineers
Code Monkeys != Engineers
Developers != Engineers

Engineers have the necessary background, schooling, and license to be called as such.

The run of the mill code-monkey, developer, programmer, coder, etc does not.

Google does not have to follow IEEE practice, as probably nobody on their staff is fit to be an IEEE member.

It's the same reason Microsoft chooses NOT to hire real engineers. They have a code of ethics, and a rigid reporting structure.

Engineer who fscks up can be sued into the ground.

Code monkey who fscks up can just be fired, or usually at worse, forced to write the service pack or hotfix, and then demoted to tester.

Golden Ticket?

[Venerence]

It looks as though people are overlooking the worth of being 'shouted out' by a billion dollar company. If you created an idea that Google put into implementation and gave you credit for, it's a golden ticket into the IT industry. You couldn't pay someone to give you better resume stuffing.

Not suggestion box, but confirmation tool.

[Anonymous Coward]

MSes + PhD's + Google + www + *inside access* to search engine + intranet idea portal == ???

  (scroll down for answer)

.
.
.
.
.
.

all your ideas are _already_ belong to us, by origin.

We're actually just confirming from our users that those we made on the intranet are actually agreeable and acceptable to our user base.

Read "Google Story" before commenting on Google methods.
They rock.
They do everything like PhDs and hackers would and do.
They have many more ideas than your limited human brainstorming could ever hope to produce - both quality and quantity.
In fact, if not for the product idea confirmation aspect, I'd say this was a ego-boost game to entertain sad laid-off coders. But then Google is a traded stock, Inc, face of evil in the last few 100s of years.
Anyway, thoughts and ideas come to everyone and the more you read and are qualified (honestly...), the more you find getting ideas to be a **routine chore** rather than the "great spark of genius".
All successful business ideas have a "right time". Figuring that out is the big thing, which too many can do quite easily.
In short, if you feel too lonely think up and idea submit to Google, feel good that they took notice and others' jaws dropped.
Nothing more.
If you want ca$h, write the [code].
This was clear to me much before I started giving ideas to online databases of idea and thought objects, but that was another story misrepresented and its only an old drag now...
Revenge is for war mongers.

universities too expensive?

[recharged95]

Google, who along with other SV powerhouses tap their next biggest ideas from the universities, Stanford in particular. This move is definitely out in left field.

.

Weird? maybe. Expected? likely. My [conspiracy] theory is that the VCs have realized that most of the academic-based ideas really don't reflect what the true public/consumer wants (i.e. ideas that don't make money). Google outsources idea generation to the universities, hands down. Google trying to go free/public ideas is just a focus group approach, basically, data mining and getting business intelligence from the consumer. That's what brick and mortar companies do in the biz dev dept (which is why the biz dev folks and P&G get paid millions).

.

Hence, could this be a sign that Google's 'raw resources' of PhD superstars in the universities have finally dried up (not that it was a gold rush of successful ideas in the first place). Could it be that Google, who solely bet on academics folks for the next big think has realized it was costing too much in the first place?

Re:Read as: "We've got tons of talented engineers.

[Assmasher]

What a truckload of nonsense. What 'product', not entirely related to search, does Google have?

Re:Read as: "We've got tons of talented engineers.

[Assmasher]

No offense, but I think we differe a bit on what we term a 'product.' Google docs is a great start to a possible future product; unfortunately, it has egregious shorcomings. Does Google say its ready? No, so it's ok that it's missing incredibly basic features (see http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_docs_fail.php for an example of many ridiculous things you cannot do - although Google has fixed a couple of these over the past year.) The spreadsheet app is the best of the lot from Google and it still needs TONS of work to be an actual product (ignoring the very serious issues of expecting people to trust a public company with private data more than they have to.)

hi step mom

[suuutch]

This submitter reminds me of my step mom. She decided to cut her long hair off for a shorter style and demanded that her hair be thrown away after being asked if she would allow the store owners to use it(to sell or donate as a wig). Why the waste?? If you have something you won't use or can't implement (an idea), why keep it away from someone who will?

Nothing New

[TheJeffLewis]

At least now they admit they are borrowing ideas. Google takes product ideas from interviews as well. I gave them a detailed suggestion for what became the Browser Sync Product during a phone interview. For your reference - this was rolled into google toolbar and abandoned since.

Some ideas should be compensated

[Mandrel]

As long as a company makes it clear that they are under no obligation to compensate the people who are first to post each component of an idea that profits the company, they shouldn't rule out such compensation. Fair compensation generates goodwill all round.

While some unrealised and unsuccessful good ideas have been imagined many times before, and are just looking for someone with the nous, persistence, and capital to make it work, other ideas are truly innovative. Once these latter types of ideas are made known, thousands could turn-the-handle and make it happen. But without the spark nothing happens.

It's these type of ideas that Google would be evil not to compensate, as long as the idea is not already known to them. They could at least make a charitable donation in the person's name.

Re:Read as: "We've got tons of talented engineers.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to be competitive if your engineers spend 20% of their time on something other than the product you want to deliver and you can't simply scale a software engineering project by adding people.

In the industry, there's been measured differences in productivity between full time programmers of 100x - that's 10,000%. The 20% is a drop in the bucket; assuming it increase morale or decrease stress or whatever, it can easily pay off handsomely, even assuming the 20% never give anything back to the business in a more direct fashion.

depends how u think.......

[Anonymous Coward]

old ppl....we r still living as primitive humans....
thus we r doing natural selection
=> global competition
but actually....
internetization brings global cooperation...
and we human.....only survives by cooperation...
competition only make us killed...
thinks global warming.....
it's time to re-define the position of human....
when technologies already replaces it...though slowly

and this is different from other companies... how?

[speedtux]

Where do you think most of Microsoft's "ideas" (such as they are) come from?

Re:Read as: "We've got tons of talented engineers.

[Kent Recal]

Google Maps/Google Earth, Google Docs, Google Mail, Google Calendar, Android, Picasa, YouTube, Google Talk, Google Gears, AppEngine...

Obviously everything (not only google's products) is related to search to some degree, but saying that all of the aforementioned are "entirely related" to search is just nonsense.

Get over it!!

[deodiaus2]

Well, there are a couple of incidents which I'd like to bring up.
In the mid 1990's, I read an article in Newsweek about a young Eastern European intern student [young and naive] who worked at Tampa Bay Electric. His task was to find some economical and environmentally friendly way to break up calcium deposits in water pipes. He was not all that successful during his six month or so position. However, the problem intrigued him and he thought about it afterward. A couple of years later, he tried out some ideas and hit upon a solution. He tried to patent his idea, but Tampa Bay Electric intervened and claimed that the idea was protected by his official employment agreement with them. He claimed that they had given up on the idea, and discarded further interest in pursuing a solution. What he did was outside their region of interest, or so he claimed. He had some notebooks, which Tampa Bay Electric claimed were theirs as well. He refused to turn those over to his former employer and was subsequently jailed on contempt issues.
Another story was one that I had seen on "60 Min". This young student claimed to have discovered or had certain ideas about making artificial diamonds. He with the help of his graduate director, set up an appointment with GE. GE listened to his ideas but never really pursued employing him, or compensating him for his efforts. Later on, GE developed certain technologies which used those ideas. GE claimed that what he had suggested was something which they were pursing. Maybe they were. After all, ideas are a dime a dozen. However, sometimes, the confirmation is what you need to get things going in the first place.
Most of us go on to create business ideas which depend upon our previous experience and accumulated knowledge. I never saw a follow up on the story, nor know the outcome of those events. Does anyone have any leads on this story? I have been trying to find a follow up to this story for years.
One of my friends made a joke. Highly educated people give away their knowledge freely, as if to show off their depth of understanding. Yet, you take the stupidest plumber and ask him were to get such and such a part for your sink, he will shut up. If you happen to bring the part to him, he will charge you a surcharge because you are depriving him of potential profit. Actually, I listened to a http://www.youtube.com/ interview with Harlan Ellison (the guy who sued for the rights to "The Terminator" because the studio plagiarized his idea from his earlier stories for Outer Limits TOS, "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand"). Ellison basically said something interesting, that "Amateurs give away their craft, while as professionals know the value of their contribution."
Lawyers on the other hand, charge you for their time, whether or not they will or lose. (I hear that many management consultants do the same. Seeing that the US taxpayer is bailing out our industry to the STARTING SUM of $700B, I have to agree.) There is no such thing as a FREE consultation. You are in their office not for FREE advice, but as an attempt to get you to sign on with them. They might say a multitude of reasonable things, but its the going to court task that will cost you money!
Years ago, I use to write proposals for work with the US government. For each project bid phase, many vendors would submit their ideas and work. Some government liaison officer would read the proposals, and assign the project to one of the submitted vendors. The winner would have access to all the other ideas presented in the proposals. Maybe you might have lost the bid on one concept, however, you might have been right on some other concepts. The winner of the project was free to incorporate all submitted ideas into the deliverable.
The Wright brothers were far more successful in their ideas with planes than Curtis. However, the government [in anticipation of The Great War] decided to force the Wright brothers to sell out and merge with Curtis. Curtis

hehehe This is how bill gates started out

[The Seventh Sign]

Bill gates was on the stage helping introduce the macintosh.

is google sure ti want to go that route?

TSS

Suggestion box?

[lpq]

How is this different than a suggestion box (i.e. a real one, not the kind that routes to the circular file)? Many companies used to have these things -- it was called "getting ideas from customers about what they would like to see". Was advanced stuff at the time... Most companies you have to pay to give advice to now days -- be on a support contract or pay for an incident.

There's a flip side to this.

[maidix]

As a web developer, I'd like to suggest that there is a flip side to this. Not a week goes by where someone doesn't come to me with an "idea." It will be a vague, general idea, and often fairly obvious... something along the lines of, "Hey, why don't we make a FaceBook-killer?" Or, "Hey, why don't we make a site where local pizza shops can accept on-line orders?" By "we," they mean, "You do all of the work. I'll contribute that initial idea, and collect 50% of the money, and act like you're my employee." Hence, I have become practiced at telling people that I don't work on speculation. Perhaps Google's route is better -- I could just direct people to my "idea submission" page, which would spell out my terms.

Rather simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look if you have a million dollar idea and are discussing it with a friend in a bar and someone over hears you then rolls with your idea they don't owe you a dime.

Face it, Google is as much an 'evil empire' as Microsoft and have taken others ideas and done better with them. In this instance they're just openly telling you about it. Frankly, a shout out is about all one should expect - since they'll put forth all the capital and all the effort to get it working - it may even be a little much.