Google Wave Creator Quits, Joins Facebook

srimadman found an interview with Wave creator Lars Rasmussen where he talks about his recent decision to join Facebook, leaving Google behind. Apparently getting personally pitched by Zuckerberg helped. He says, "I've got a job description of 'come hang out with us for a while and we'll see what happens,' which is a pretty exciting thing." The article talks about Big vs Small companies, and notes that about 20% of Facebook's staff are former Googlers.

Comments

new boss, same as the old boss

[sakura the mc]

so he goes from a company that doesnt give a shit about user privacy to another that doesnt give a shit about user privacy.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? User privacy (or the lack thereof) is their main revenue stream!

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[trickyD1ck]

And why would these companies care, when users themselves don't?

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[blahbooboo]

Are you kidding? User privacy (or the lack thereof) is their main revenue stream!

I stopped putting anything of consequence on Facebook (including pictures) over a year ago. After seeing how much Facebook changed since I joined when Facebook was still a closed edu community (a LOT better back then too) and the endless crazy privacy settings I stopped using it. Privacy is now simple, there is absolutely nothing on facebook that I care about anymore. For example, if someone tags me in a photo, I immediately un-tag the photo.

By now, if you keep posting things about yourself on Facebook that you're concerned about it's you're own fault. Privacy is easy now for me on Facebook.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Opportunist]

Care or no care, it's not like you have a choice anymore. All you need is some friend who joins the "hand over your privacy" club and you're in too!

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[drsquare]

They don't give a shit about the privacy of users who consider their personal information so private they plaster it all over the Internet.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

If there was *ever* anything you cared about on facebook, then you still have something to worry about. You might not be able to see it any more, but it's still there.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[definate]

I just use a pseudonym, based on a famous person with a similar name. People can tag me all they want. I also lock down the profile so that no applications can access my data, and I don't keep any personal data on there. I lastly have different privileges for different groups of people, some don't get access to any tagged photos, photos I upload, or wall posts. No one gets to see which friends I have, that they don't also have.

I just use it more as a way to keep in contact with certain friends.

There's ways of locking it down, and this helps.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[necode]

Eventually trickle-up lack of privacy will catch up with these companies and they will suffer. And those who hang with Facebook (and Google) will have severe hangover. It's Moby Dick all over again, with Eric Schmidt (the "creep") - the new captain Ahab.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Chrisq]

I stopped putting anything of consequence on Facebook (including pictures) over a year ago.

Too late! I've seen the pictures. I don't know who I feel more sorry for, you, your sister, or the dog.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Anonymous Coward]

A problem my wife (elem school teacher) ran into and she doesn't even have a facebook account, is people posting pics of her or that include her to their facebook pages. She nor I have any idea it is even out there since it isn't tagged and then all of a sudden someone will mention a picture they saw of her on fb. We then have to track down the person and ask them to remove the pic. Her school is crazy about any photos of the teachers online and a few have been fired for something as simple as a photo of the teacher *holding* a beer bottle in a pic. It's insane and while I don't agree with the school, what can you do?

It's a real mess.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[poetmatt]

There's still cross site cookies, and no setting in facebook or outside of will fix the fact that you're tracked via facebook off of facebook. So while you've done "what you can", it doesn't do quite as much as you'd hope it does.

I welcome a facebook replacement as long as it's something that doesn't make as much a mock of privacy as facebook.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[CrashandDie]

Do you really believe untagging a picture results in a DELETE FROM... rather than a UPDATE TABLE ... SET public='false'?

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[clone53421]

Sounds like her workplace just wants her not to exist outside the school building. That’s completely reasonable... just get her one of those invisibility cloaks.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[diskofish]

No, but the data is no longer public.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[definate]

Overall it reduces your exposure, and besides instances like that, it makes it so someone just researching you, will have trouble finding more information. Someone who is using sophisticated methods like you're mentioning, is either going to be a business working with them, and less nefarious than you'd think, or someone who really desperately wants your information. The latter, has many different options, Facebook being the easiest. Though, since you're not keeping any usable information in it, it's not a big worry, only links to other sources are.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[OpenGLFan]

Eventually trickle-up lack of privacy will catch up with these companies and they will suffer. And those who hang with Facebook (and Google) will have severe hangover. It's Moby Dick all over again, with Eric Schmidt (the "creep") - the new captain Ahab.

Privacy is not, and has never been, a killer app. We still don't regularly encrypt email; we send it plaintext and leave it on google servers. NSA's pressure on Zimmerman didn't kill PGP email, apathy did.

People don't want privacy. People want Farmville.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[HAKdragon]

What about using the "Private Browsing" mode of modern browsers? If you only do Facebook through that, no other sites should know about your facebook account, right?

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[interval1066]

My solution to all these privacy problems is very simple, I don't use FB. Period. I have no presence on it and I feel *relatively* confident they don't have any personal data on me.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[GodfatherofSoul]

I have a friend who's a software engineer and was gleefully using Google's location feature that sends pings everywhere you go. Now, this is someone who *should* know better. Everyone else is much worse. From celebrities and athletes tweeting information they shouldn't to Google's Total Information Awareness, I think this is the new norm.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Raenex]

People don't want privacy. People want Farmville.

I'm not so sure they don't, but they're just not willing to give up convenience for it. If you asked users if they could magically have privacy without any cost, I'm sure most would opt for it. The problem with encrypted email is that it's not an easy default.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[fast turtle]

That's pretty much how I treat Facebook. No apps are allowed access to personal data, I don't have friends and the only thing I post is stuff that I don't give a rat about.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[necode]

In case you didn't notice people don't want privacy as long as this is done on their terms. When they realize that it's not they'll revolt and cool creepy companies will suffer.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[bberens]

You clearly did not read the GP's post which was about OTHER PEOPLE posting pictures of his wife. (redtube?)

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[bberens]

No, the data is no longer free as in beer. It's available to anyone willing to pay Facebook for it.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, suggest she gets a facebook account. Leave it blank if you wish, no information, no activity. It won't help with untagged pictures, but if she is there then maybe people will tag. At least then you have the possibility of getting notification.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[s73v3r]

That only works if you don't have any friends/acquaintances that use Facebook. As the OP said, his wife doesn't even have a Facebook account, and yet people are tagging photos identifying her in them.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Hognoxious]

Umm, how does not having a facebook account prevent people who have one from posting photos of you?

On facebook you're effectively as dumb (when it comes down to privacy) as the dumbest person who knows you. I hope I don't know anyone half as retarded as you.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[slim]

I have a friend who's a software engineer and was gleefully using Google's location feature that sends pings everywhere you go. Now, this is someone who *should* know better.

Perhaps they've thought about the implications, and don't care. I'm personally quite happy to see photos of myself drunk at parties on the public internet (Flickr pictures visible to everyone) but publishing my location in real time makes me feel a little queasy. And yet it's not for any tangible reason. I don't think burglary etc. is a realistic threat.

I suppose it's that if I were to stream my location, it would set a precedent such that if one day I want to go off-the-radar (I dunno, some traumatic personal episode. Abortion clinic? Court?) people would wonder why.

But perhaps your engineer friend has thought about these things, and genuinely is comfortable with the implications.

BTW doesn't Latitude let you limit the info to specific contacts?

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[slim]

Her school is crazy about any photos of the teachers online and a few have been fired for something as simple as a photo of the teacher *holding* a beer bottle in a pic. It's insane and while I don't agree with the school, what can you do?

*This* is the problem, and it should be fixed in law, not by Facebook/Flickr/etc. Drinking beer (just an example) is perfectly acceptable behaviour, sharing photographs of your friends doing so is perfectly acceptable too. These are simply not reasonable grounds for firing someone -- nor for any other issues at work.

In Europe, the employer wouldn't get away with it. Americans might not be comfortable with the level of employee protection we get here (it seems that as long as you call it Freedom, people are happy to get screwed by The Man), but they should campaign for some reasonable minimums.

I've known UK teachers ask to have photos untagged because it might undermine their position as an authority figure (in some schools, teachers have to adopt a persona in order to maintain order); but it's never been a matter of their job being at risk.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[slim]

No, the data is no longer free as in beer. It's available to anyone willing to pay Facebook for it.

Source? Or is this baseless speculation?

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Jesse_vd]

To be fair, it sort of HAS to remember that you were untagged, to prevent anyone from re-tagging you. And it's nice that it does do that. At least other can't easily find the photos

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Danathar]

yea..the difference is a little creepy to a LOT creepy.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[bonch]

Users care. They're often simply not informed enough to know their privacy is being violated.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[beejhuff]

No they don't.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[mattack2]

Please correct my hypothesis if it's wrong:
Unless you _also_ go to the other sites in the same session that you go to facebook...

That is, I believe the cross-site cookies will persist during the private browsing session. So if you go to different sites that use them, they will still persist during that session (and be deleted when you quit and/or exit private browsing mode).

So in theory, if the other site sees the "you're using facebook" cookie, couldn't it set something on its back end to store that data and restore the cookie later?

So I think you'd _also_ have to allow cookies from at most "only sites I visit"... which breaks some real world useful sites IIRC (banking, etc.)

Again, maybe I'm wrong, and please correct me if I am...

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[bonch]

You're basing a conclusion about all users on some guy's lack of Facebook replies from "around 20 people" in a Starbucks.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Anonymous Coward]

This all seems very elaborate - I simply never created an account in the first place.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Hognoxious]

Americans might not be comfortable with the level of employee protection we get here (it seems that as long as you call it Freedom, people are happy to get screwed by The Man)

I look at it the other way - what they swallow hook line and sinker is that any law that protects the little guy is halfway to communism.

Having said that, in some European countries it's ridiculously difficult to sack people, especially in the public sector, even if they damn well deserve it plus a sound kicking on top.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, if someone tags me in a photo, I immediately un-tag the photo.

Because we all know that removing your name from a photo's caption removes the visual content associated with it.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[dudpixel]

Privacy is fine for me too.

I dont have any friends and I live in a cave. no one knows who I am or where I live. I live on the slugs on the cave floor and drink water that trickles in the cave entrance when it rains.

I'm so glad my privacy is protected. All those people on facebook must live such horrible lives...

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[mabhatter654]

At least they allow non-married teachers to ride in cars with boys... They even let them have babies now too.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[davester666]

Given the enormous 'yeah, whatever' the internet gave Google Wave, why would Facebook want to hire the guy responsible for it?

Other than just hire somebody who managed to organize a bag of cats to all work together to produce it...

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[drinkypoo]

I look at it the other way - what they swallow hook line and sinker is that any law that protects the little guy is halfway to communism.

What Americans have swallowed is the idea that communism is a bad thing. It's not inherently evil, it's just bad when you have too much of it, just like Capitalism. Either, in too great a quantity, will provide opportunities for evil men to do evil. One simple truth, however, is that all government is inherently communist, since it depends on (and hopefully but not necessarily benefits) a community of some kind, and its self-perpetuation depends on perpetuation of the community.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

I'm still not entirely sure what Google Wave was, but from what I do understand, it was an interesting technical idea, just not very useful.

He's also one of the two people responsible for Google Maps.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[bberens]

Facebook openly sells its data to advertisers. Where are you coming from?

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[slim]

Facebook openly sells its data to advertisers. Where are you coming from?

Aggregated statistical data, keywords for directing ads, sure.

Photographs? I'd like to see evidence for this.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[ukyoCE]

People didn't integrate Wave into their daily routine, but that hardly means the internet gave a "yeah, whatever". It was impressive tech without a clear purpose, nor enough bugfixes to make it usable full-time even if it DID have a full purpose.

I think any company would be smart to hire that guy or his whole team, especially if they were able to apply a little direction to their technical skills.

Re:new boss, same as the old boss

[mgiuca]

It doesn't sound too "easy" if you're constantly having to untag yourself from photos. There's still the problem that you're in the photos for the world to see, even if your name isn't applied to them.

There's also the period of time between each tag and your untagging. And the photos you've missed.

If you're concerned that there are photos of you online with or without your name attached to them, from a privacy standpoint, then you aren't winning.

You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[Anonymous Coward]

You got Facebook on my Google Wave!

Two suck tastes, taste suck together.

Google's better off.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[Game_Ender]

This is the guy that made google-maps as well, it is quite a loss.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[entotre]

His brother (the other guy who made google maps) will stay with google. So it seems that relations between the two internet companies, at least at the top, are not as hostile as they often are portrayed.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[Anonymous Coward]

So he took an idea that was already out there and made it more appealing to the young bourgeois? Sounds like he'll fit in quite well at Facebook.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[ztransform]

Just look at the dominant languages in Google: not C++ or C. Not serious languages.

Facebook is an extremely poorly written web application - extremely poorly written. From a chat client that has barely worked to privacy settings that don't work; where different views reveal information that has been explicitly marked as "private".

If you've ever tried to configure a "Google Web Appliance" targeted for the enterprise you'll appreciate just what a dodgy crowd Google are, too.

All in all, Google and Facebook are great bedfellows.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[Junior J. Junior III]

Yes, quite. If Google and Facebook are both going to allow this guy to keep his brother, they really must not be at each other's throats when it comes to competition in the market.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[entotre]

It was not implied that the two are anti-competitive.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[clone53421]

Not serious languages ... extremely poorly written ... barely worked ... dodgy crowd

Oh, sure... why don’t you try to design a website that’s used by millions of people every day? You make it sound like it’s easy or something.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[ztransform]

You make it sound like it’s easy or something.

Why do the apologists keep trotting this lame line out. You're a big company making massively huge profits. You can afford real software developers.

And sure, I'll work on a large website that's used by millions of people every day. Oh wait, I already do.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[slim]

Just look at the dominant languages in Google: not C++ or C. Not serious languages.

Google only normally permits their developers to commit C++, Java, Python and Javascript to their source tree.

(maybe now Go as well)

Without being snide about Javascript (since it's fairly obvious why they use it), which of these is not a serious language?

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[s73v3r]

Because C/C++ are the only "serious" languages around.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[shutdown -p now]

Just look at the dominant languages in Google: not C++ or C. Not serious languages.

Um, ever heard of Google's implementation of MapReduce? Given that it underlies their search, which is still the cornerstone of their business, I don't know how more dominant it can get.

As for the web apps part of it - why would anyone sane use C++ rather than Java for those?

And what the hell is a "serious language", anyway? According to your definition, it's either C or C++. I guess this means that there were no "serious languages" before 1972.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at the dominant languages in Google: not C++ or C. Not serious languages.

Because C and C++ are the sum total of all "serious" languages? I'm sure all the old-hand assembly programmers (many who predate the existence of C) would like a word with you.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there was FORTRAN.

Re:You got Google Wave on my Facebook!

[mabhatter654]

I though early versions of basic used only the blinky lights and switches... what wimps use character input?

Google What Now?

[Rogerborg]

Seriously, can anyone explain to me in words of two syllables or fewer what Google Wave is/was (other than a Firefly reference) or why I should have bothered to find out for myself?

Re:Google What Now?

[AnonymousClown]

Google's version of Facebook - only they put a "business" spin on it.

Re:Google What Now?

[aicrules]

beta

Re:Google What Now?

[markhb]

It was the missing link between "Steal underpants" and "PROFIT!!!"

Re:Google What Now?

[Enderandrew]

Email + IM/Chat + Wiki Functionality all rolled into one.

Re:Google What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Loud, self-important ignorance is sexy as hell.

Re:Google What Now?

[hodet]

From the demo I saw (I never actually tried it), it looked to me like an online collaboration tool for groups. You could chat with the whole group, launch shared screens for collaboration etc etc. You could add and remove users from the wave as you go. It tried to blend all kinds of things into one platform hosted on a central server. Google were never really able to convince people why they need this tool (myself included). I remember after looking at the demo, thinking how painful it might have been to actually use in the real world.

Re:Google What Now?

[tapo]

"Real-time message board for projects."

A few friends of mine have been using Wave for developing a game and game toolset, and its a weird mixture of wiki, message board, and group whiteboard, they usually discuss the latest project milestone on Skype while having running meeting minutes in a Wave. If someone can't make the meeting, they come along later and comment. There's long waves about everything from programming standards, to models and art assets, to release notes.

It's been so damn useful for project development that Google is planning to ship "Wave in a Box" so small teams like ours can deploy it on our own server, even after Google kills official support. And we will, we can't go back to wiki, it seems so damn archaic at this point.

Re:Google What Now?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Wow. The people on it must have gotten nothing done.

Re:Google What Now?

[sitarlo]

WOW, that's amazing! Oh boy those Google people are sooooo brilliant and creative! Really, who cares about Wave? It's just another hack "product" from a company of hacks.

Re:Google What Now?

[drinkypoo]

google should have marketed it as an IM which had additional features, or as a facebook replacement with same. Instead they tried to advertise all it could do and confused people. I was only confused as to why I should use it when no one else would, and I was right.

Re:Google What Now?

[alen]

it was slow, deathly slow. and a resource hog. with public waves Google Chrome would eat up over 500MB of RAM.

it was like email, IM, internet forums, newsgroups all rolled into one and google would keep track of typos so they would know everything you did

Re:Google What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

It tried to blend all kinds of things into one platform hosted on a central server.

It wasn't meant to be hosted on one central server. Google released a federation protocol that was going to be used to allow Wave platforms on other servers to intercommunicate just like email. It just never got that far because it was chock full of bugs and forced users to learn an entirely new system to do the same things they were already doing.

In my personal opinion, Wave had a lot of potential. It's great for collaboration (when it's not freaking out from all the bugs). I think one of the main problems is that Google just tried to roll too much into it. It was email + social networking + collaboration tools + IM --- all updated live. If they would have dialed back a few features, didn't hype it so much, and worked out more bugs before they released it, I think it would have done a lot better.

Re:Google What Now?

[Enderandrew]

Supposedly Google used it internally for meetings.

Someone would create a wave of the meeting agenda and invite the people who were going to attend.

As the meeting went along, everyone could edit the wave in realtime collobaterion. The agenda evolved into the meeting notes.

And if you missed the meeting, you can re-play the wave and see the steps of every comment and note as it went along.

The failure of wave as I see it isn't that it couldn't provide killer new features, or a failure to boost productivity.

The problem was that if I want to email or IM someone, I can do so through Gmail and every contact I need is there. With Wave, only so many people had it, so I couldn't colloberate with the people I needed to.

Re:Google What Now?

[jitterman]

To be fair, they ARE brilliant, but even brilliance doesn't always result in "wow, awesome!" A case in point, Wayne Cherry designed both the 1970 Vauxhall SRV and the Pontiac Aztec.

It's true that Wave made almost no ripples (sorry, bad pun), but I very much doubt "hacks" defines the vast majority of Google's workforce.

Re:Google What Now?

[jon3k]

Sure, I can try anyway -- it's a communication tool that attempts to combine the best of IRC, instant messaging, e-mail and web forums into one streamlined interface.

Personally I think it failed because it was overly ambitious and was overly compromised. It was too clunky for real time communication and didn't offer enough new features for it to supplant e-mail. It was a _very_ interesting exercise and something that needs to happen. I don't know about you, but I spend all day logged into IRC (and IM via bitlbee, gtalk and AIM) as well as sending e-mails and browsing the occasionally message board. I think the next "big things" will be merging all these disparate communication mediums.

Re:Google What Now?

[PGillingwater]

Real world experience? I found this tool was excellent as a collaboration tool for software development and project management. It's great for tracking changes, and documenting implementation details.

I for one, and many of my colleagues will be sad to see Google Wave pass on.

Re:Google What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a fancy collaboration tool to create wiki-like documents with both real-time editing and continuous tracking of document history. If you can't deal with many-syllabic words, you don't need to know.

Re:Google What Now?

[jimicus]

Thing is, it wasn't an IM tool as such because you had to expressly set up a wave and invite people to join.

I looked into it myself - and while it was a very nifty bit of AJAX, I really thought it was a solution looking for a problem which didn't exist.

Re:Google What Now?

[gratuitous_arp]

It's funny how everyone who uses Wave on a team can't live without it, and everyone who has never tried it can't see the point in it. Directed at the replies to the OP.

Re:Google What Now?

[hyperizer]

canceled

Re:Google What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are a small theater company with important staff spread over a large region who can't often meet together.
We use Wave to modify our mission statement, edit job descriptions of potential new hires (resumes are shared via email) and integrated with google calendar plan our season.
We have also had members 'phone into' a meeting via the live typing option.
It's been pretty great for us.

Re:Google What Now?

[sitarlo]

Search -> Yahoo
Android -> Apple
Maps -> MapQuest
Mail -> HotMail
Chrome -> Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera

Yes, Google has improved on some of these things (except smartphones), but they seem to fail to bring anything entirely new and revolutionary to the market. Apple has released more innovative stuff this last year than Google has in a decade. Even their top "research" phd-holding peeps don't come up with much these days. The researchers at Microsoft are winning awards for all kinds of cool stuff while Google is getting left behind. Those little text ads are really the only thing they have going for them. I maintain my assertion that Google is a hack company based on web advertising, existing behind a veil of academic, elitist, technobull. Right now they are scrambling to buy companies because they know they don't have anything to bring to the market. Top employees are jumping ship. I give them 5 years before their stock is down 75%+.

Re:Google What Now?

[oiron]

So apparently, every idea that anyone ever comes up with should be absolutely unique and have no predecessors in your view?

To take just one thing, I don't know if you remember web search before Google - there's a reason that "to Google" is a verb these days... Of course they've taken existing ideas and improved on them - that really is the basis of innovation. You can keep going back further and further to prove that nothing in that little list of yours is really "new" (Android -> Apple -> Palm -> Newton -> ... -> PADD from Star Trek -> ... -> A pocket notebook -> ... -> a bunch of palm leaves or papyrus and so on).

As to the rest, I think we can summarize it thus: "Google is dying - Netcraft confirms it"

Re:Google What Now?

[bhartman34]

I don't think there was much similar to Facebook in Google Wave.

Wave was interesting (to me, at least) because it offered collaboration and sharing in real-time, in a way that would've been much more powerful than what I've seen in current collaboration tools (e.g., SharePoint) -- if it had worked well as advertised. The problem I always saw with Wave was that the damn thing was slow. I mean, dear God was it slow, sometimes! If you can type faster than the text can be rendered in an application (by several seconds), there's a serious problem.

I'm sort of surprised the summary leads with Google Wave as Rasmussen's claim to fame. Maps was less ambitious, perhaps, but it was much more successful.

Re:Google What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was kind of like a persistent chat room / IM program. Threads could be watched in real time, and you could reply to someone's message to start a subthread, but it was also persistent.
It was pretty cool, but incredibly slow, and the scrollbars sucked.

Re:Google What Now?

[Schadrach]

Not really. It's more like what you get when you put email, wikis, and IM in a blender and set it to puree.

Really, the Firefly reference was intentional, and similar to their goal -- a combined communications "thing" that's kinda like e-mail, but multimedia and capable of being real-time.

It seems like everyone calls everything Google has done recently their "version of Facebook." Wave was, profiles were, even Buzz is, apparently. =p

Re:Google What Now?

[Enderandrew]

Yahoo wasn't the first search engine. And Google is still the king of the hill in returning relevant results. They innovate all the time with things like instant search, image search, etc.

You're trying to criticise Google for piggybacking on the innovation of others, and you're going to credit Apple for inventing the smartphone? Wow.

And Android as a smartphone OS blows the competition out of the water.

Google Maps blew MapQuest out of the water with innovative features, such as dragging the route to re-route, street view, etc.

And you're not honestly comparing Hotmail with Gmail are you? Labels, threaded conversation, massive storage, search that works, etc.

And Chrome is more than a basic WebKit browser. They created the V8 Javascript engine, seperated each process, put plugins in a sandbox, improved garbage collection, and started the trend of cleaned browser UIs. You'll note every major browser on the market is copying from Chrome these days.

You're suggesting Google has never done anything revolutionary. Either you're a troll, or you really don't pay attention.

Re:Google What Now?

[sitarlo]

"And Android as a smartphone OS blows the competition out of the water."

I develop on both Android and iOS and I can tell you with 100% certainty that this is not true at all.

Re:Google What Now?

[bhartman34]

It seems like everyone calls everything Google has done recently their "version of Facebook."

This has become a tech media plague, really. Just because Facebook is wildly popular doesn't mean that any site that aspires to have more than 2 members that can talk to each other is a "version of Facebook".

Re:Google What Now?

[turbidostato]

The business definition for "innovation" is not "producing innovative things" but "making somehow innovative things to produce tons of cash". Yes, I know that's not what you mean by "innovation", but that's what business mean and related to business that's all that counts.

Now, recheck your list under the business "proper" meaning for innovation:
Search -> Google
Mobile -> Apple, Google
Maps -> Google
Mail -> Google
Browser -> Microsoft, Mozilla

That puts Google on 3.5 out of 5. So, yes, Google is a true innovative business from business point of view.

Re:Google What Now?

[Gulthek]

It's a video, but a very well done post-mortem tutorial on what Google Wave was and why it was (potentially) awesome.

http://www.cracked.com/video_18209_google-wave-pissed-off-tutorial.html

"Google Wave: You Don't Deserve It"

Re:Google What Now?

[VGPowerlord]

To take just one thing, I don't know if you remember web search before Google - there's a reason that "to Google" is a verb these days... Of course they've taken existing ideas and improved on them - that really is the basis of innovation. You can keep going back further and further to prove that nothing in that little list of yours is really "new" (Android -> Apple -> Palm -> Newton -> ... -> PADD from Star Trek -> ... -> A pocket notebook -> ... -> a bunch of palm leaves or papyrus and so on).

I'd update the GPs list a bit, but getting to the point:

You mentioned innovation, but the problem here is that every product that Google makes that is successful in any way, shape, or form is almost identical to something that someone has already done, but slightly improved.

At least RIM (notice I'm not mentioning Apple here) added applications... to a cellphone! No one had ever done that before! Android has added... spplications... to a cellphone. 12 years after RIM released the BlackBerry.

Web browser? 14 years after Netscape. For a browser that cherry-picked features that the other 4 browsers already had.

Web-based email? 8 years after Hotmail.

There's a certain form of irony that we're talking this in a thread about Google Wave. Wave was, in a way, an innovative product. It faced several major problems that it never surmounted:

1. People already had email and IM clients.
2. Closed Betas limit the number of people you can use it with.

Re:Google What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

The other problem with Wave is that they released it at the same time as Buzz, and gave Buzz all the attention. I thought Wave was spectacular, but apparently I was the only one.

Re:Google What Now?

[sitarlo]

Google stock has gone up 450% sing IPO. Apple's has gone up 1500% in the same amount of time. True innovation drives the market and Google is failing to bring anything compelling to the table. Your description of "business" innovation is spin bullshit. True innovation changes the way people work, play and live. Google has helped people slack at work and school by providing an extremely rich web search engine, but beyond that, their products haven't been the impetus for any paradigm shift. Apple, on the other hand, revolutionized computing decades ago and they are doing it again now with their devices and software. True innovation trumps "business" innovation.

Re:Google What Now?

[Godskitchen]

So if Wave was/is the Google Facebook, what is Google Buzz? Is that their attempt at Twitter?

Re:Google What Now?

[butlerdi]

Was was an implementation of the protocol-one, operational transformation (OT) and protobuf projects developed as an extension of XMPP The demo app was fairly dire however the protocol is excellent for collaborative editing of data. We use it for M2M stuff with autonomous agents and it is great.

Re:Google What Now?

[Raenex]

collaboration

5 syllables. You just crashed the parent poster's brain.

Re:Google What Now?

[Raenex]

Google has helped people slack at work and school by providing an extremely rich web search engine, but beyond that, their products haven't been the impetus for any paradigm shift.

You've got to be kidding me. Google totally owned search. It used to be you'd have to sift through pages and pages of AltaVista for anything specific, or look at Yahoo for big items. They turned that into usually a one-page search for everything, with a simple, clean interface (back in the time when everybody was putting up loads of crap and flashing advertisements on their home pages, trying to be a "portal"). That's why they dominated the existing leaders of the day.

Google Maps and GMail revolutionized those two areas. They got everybody on the road to Ajax. Before then maps and mail on the web were clunky.

Chrome got everybody moving again in the browser, addressing long-standing issues. Firefox was stagnating, and IE was just trying to catch up with Firefox.

Android, I would agree, is extremely derivative of iPhone, but at least they moved in an open direction and made an interesting play by fixing up Java for phones.

What's so innovative about Apple iPads? Companies have been trying to sell tablets for decades. The only thing Apple added was touch, and rode on the success of their other products. I mean how many iApple devices do you need? iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. Ridiculous. The iPod, which started this whole iApple device craze, was just a fashionable MP3 player. I do give them credit on the iPhone, that was revolutionary.

What about the Macs? Revolutionary? Hardly. Maybe back in 1984, but not since then, and they got a lot of their ideas from Xerox PARC.

Re:Google What Now?

[slim]

google should have marketed it as an IM which had additional features, or as a facebook replacement with same. Instead they tried to advertise all it could do and confused people.

But it was really neither of those things. It was nothing like Facebook. IM was a secondary feature.

It was a BBS with Etherpad-like collaborative editing; which could segue into an IM-like realtime experience if two users happened to be on the same Wave at the same time. ... and it had a plugin architecture that so that you could communicate using more than just text. (sketches, maps, polls etc.)

Re:Google What Now?

[bhartman34]

Wave is (since it's still operable until the end of the year) a real-time collaboration tool. It has elements of wikis, e-mail, and even chat capabilities that hearkened back to Unix talk. It's got about as much in common with Facebook as Gmail does.

Buzz is probably a closer fit to Facebook than it is to Twitter. Twitter is kind of limited (e.g., to 140 characters), and Buzz is a good deal richer.

Re:Google What Now?

[geekoid]

Long time real collaboration with apps.

Google wave was awesome.

Re:Google What Now?

[geekoid]

no, it was NOTHING like facebook. Why do people make that comparison? In fact, I think that comparison is its downfall. Set the expectations wrong.

Re:Google What Now?

[slim]

I remember after looking at the demo, thinking how painful it might have been to actually use in the real world.

The difficult bit was "Hey we'll use Wave... Oh you're not on Wave? I'll have to send you an invite, and then we can wait a few days, and maybe you'll get an invite, and then you'll get a signup link from Google, and then we can start using it..." multiplied by as many people you wanted to collaborate with.

Once you were on, it was easy and pretty self-explanatory.

It was a threaded BBS, much like the Slashdot comments system; and you could use it exactly that way. ... except that if someone else was typing as you were looking, you could see them writing it live... and you could modify other people's comments (with history and annotation)... and there were plugins for rich media such as photos, sketches, maps, polls, etc.

It was good. But that issue of getting people on board was serious enough to kill it.

The other issue was that it was a complex GWT app that put a lot of strain on the browser. Performance improved toward the end of its life, but by then many people had made up their minds.

Re:Google What Now?

[slim]

Wave was a bit like Etherpad. OK that's three syllables.

But never mind, imagine Etherpad -- you are typing into a text area; so is someone else on another browser; you can see each other's edits. The document is persistent. If nobody else is there, you can still work on it. If others are working on it, you needn't stop.

Now imagine that as well as that, you can "reply" to a text window by creating a new one below it. Just like this Slashdot reply. That reply is also group-editable.

Now imagine that it's rich text, and can have embedded HTML widgets, like maps, images etc. There's an API so that anyone can develop a widget.

And that, in a nutshell, is Wave.

A typical use case might be that you're collaborating on some sort of document. For example, let's say you're writing a press release; or planning a holiday; or a party; or architecting some software. You'd treat one text area as the press release -- everyone makes changes as they see fit. There is a change history, annotated with who made the changes. Below that, it's a forum-like discussion of what's going on. Except you can see the forum update in real-time, as if it was IM. If you join late, or if you go away and come back again, everything's there.

The other bonus, is that it has support for robot agents -- with all the editing powers of a human user, but working through an API. Their standard spellcheck worked this way -- it would watch the conversation, notice misspelt words, and update the message on the fly with HTML to implement a spelling correction pulldown. Google had robot agents that did all kinds of things: live translation, Eliza, etc. and again, any developer could write their own.

Re:Google What Now?

[cforciea]

Your definition of "innovation" seems to be "taking existing ideas that already have niche markets and polishing them into toys with wider market appeal for yuppies." It's not like there weren't smart phones, tablet computers, or MP3 players before Apple got into the game. And those are really only things I can think that anybody could really claim they have innovated in the past decade. But if what Google has done to webmail and web searches are merely incremental and not true innovation, then I can't imagine how anything Apple has done is any better for any honest definition of innovation.

Re:Google What Now?

[cforciea]

I use an iPhone 3G and I can tell you with 100% certainty that it pisses me off. For a while, something would end up running on it even with no applications open that would cause it to heat up to be hot to the touch and have about 1.5 hours of battery life. I constantly have basic applications like Google maps crash on it. My battery is getting worn and there is no easy way to swap it out. And more damning than anything else, the cell reception sucks. And before you blame my phone network, my other phone is also on AT&T, so I have something to directly compare it against. How can somebody sell a phone that costs hundreds of dollars that can't even do well the one thing all phones should unequivocally be able to do? I shouldn't have to switch to my Samsung phone that came free with service to make a phone call.

Re:Google What Now?

[sitarlo]

You really need to watch Apple's last two keynotes. They have revolutionized music, movie, book, and software delivery. I know there are a lot of complaints about how they do it, but they have created huge online content markets that didn't exist a few years ago. As an indie developer I've made thousands of dollars through their dev program. I've made significantly less through Google's. Google is following Apple's lead at the moment, and so is Microsoft - period. Google may be on top in years to come, but I doubt it. They just don't "think different" enough to set them apart from the rest of the tech noise.

Re:Google What Now?

[red_dragon]

At least RIM (notice I'm not mentioning Apple here) added applications... to a cellphone!

Actually, RIM added a cellphone to their Mobitex-based two-way pager. Many of the Blackberry's features (and apps) were already present at that time, however I can't recall if the old pagers allowed users to install custom apps.

Re:Google What Now?

[cforciea]

Wait, I have to watch keynotes to know that according to Apple, they have revolutionized digital distribution? They weren't the first to market with all (any?) of those things. Just off the top of my head, Rhapsody has been around longer for music distribution and the App store doesn't do anything that cell phone stores and/or *nix repositories like apt and yum haven't been doing for ages. How can you criticize Google for making incremental improvements when that's been Apple's entire business model for years?

Re:Google What Now?

[hey!]

Gosh, I remember having to explain what "email" was to people. Their reaction: "Why would I send some kind of computer message? If I'm in a rush, I'll phone. If I'm not, I'll send a letter. If I'm in a rush and they need a record, I'll fax." Hell, when radio was introduced people thought of it as wireless telegraphy. You could locate a telegraph office anywhere without running wires. Speaking of telegraph offices, many people imagined that we'd be going to the telegraph office to pick up written messages transcribed from the telephone.

We evaluate new tools in terms of how we use familiar ones. If all we've known is the hammer, then we're pretty shrewd about evaluating the latest innovation in hammer technology. But then we look at the first screwdriver and see nothing more than a very awkward way to drive nails.

Re:Google What Now?

[weicco]

I thought the purpose of agenda is that you have an agenda in the meeting and you prepare for and discuss about things in the agenda :) If everyone can change the agenda the meeting can disorganize rather quickly.

Re:Google What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 Talking out of your ass.

Re:Google What Now?

[Enderandrew]

I'm assuming they still followed it on order. So as they discussed topic A on the agenda, people could add notes and comments to that topic immediately. It wouldn't make sense to change the futher topics until you got to them in the flow of the meeting.

Re:Google What Now?

[dakameleon]

I'd put Google on the list for Browser too. Chrome kicked everyone's ass on javascript speed and individual process plugins to make it less crash happy.

Re:Google What Now?

[drinkypoo]

But it was really neither of those things. It was nothing like Facebook. IM was a secondary feature.

So?

It was a BBS with Etherpad-like collaborative editing; which could segue into an IM-like realtime experience if two users happened to be on the same Wave at the same time. ... and it had a plugin architecture that so that you could communicate using more than just text. (sketches, maps, polls etc.)

Try telling my mom that. Or my girlfriend. Good luck! Wave was pointless because you had to get people to use it, and they didn't have any good way to do that. If they had pitched it as the next great social network where they wouldn't rape your mom then they could have got people to sign up, then hit them with the cool features of wave when they're vulnerable. Once they're using it, they'll figure out how to explain it to other humans.

Re:Google What Now?

[weicco]

Ah. So it's more like a distributed minute book and not agenda. Interesting idea.

Re:Google What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

are you some kind of alter ego of node3? One less elegant and more delusional?

You're the living example of how Apple really innovates: their fanboys come in flavors! lolololololo OH I'm SO buying a new iphone when I know almost 90% of the developers of the Jesus phone are as douchebags as you.

A nokia 1100 is more revolutionary than the iphone, the thing helped to make cellular telephony accessible to millions of people. Oh no wait, we all know the iphone is the first and the only phone in the fucking whole universe

Re:Google What Now?

[slim]

Try telling my mom that. Or my girlfriend. Good luck! Wave was pointless because you had to get people to use it, and they didn't have any good way to do that. If they had pitched it as the next great social network where they wouldn't rape your mom then they could have got people to sign up,

These would be good points if:
(a) Wave was a social network - it isn't
(b) It was aimed at your mom (or my mum) - it wasn't

Re:Google What Now?

[drinkypoo]

These would be good points if:
(a) Wave was a social network - it isn't

Uh, Wave is a social network. It's a network, and it's social.

(b) It was aimed at your mom (or my mum) - it wasn't

Wave needed users. Google canned it for lack of them, so clearly it needed your mom, and mine too. Because the whole point of a collaborative network (collaboration is a social activity, by the way) is to collaborate, and collaboration with yourself is something you do in private.

Re:Google What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

correct me if i'm wrong, but reference is 3 syllables XD

Re:Google What Now?

[Sardaukar86]

Thanks for a deeply insightful comment that I felt compelled to forward on to several non-slashdot friends. :)

Re:Google What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't the only one. I loved it, as well, as did a couple of my coworkers.

What's the attraction

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, what's the attraction of working at Facebook? Is it just the money?

Re:What's the attraction

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you think being a prostitute is popular because these women like to have sex?

Re:What's the attraction

[GaryOlson]

Company paid trips to SpringBreak^W marketing opportunities with Hot Young College Girls^W^W^W^W Facebook's target market.

Re:What's the attraction

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also a lot of coke, if you get to hang out with the Zuckerberg like this guy.

Re:What's the attraction

[slim]

What, you think being a prostitute is popular because these women like to have sex?

Oo-hoo, what a tangent!

1. Is being a prostitute "popular"?
2. I'm sure there are lots women working as prostitutes, who don't enjoy it but can find no alternative.
3. ... but they wouldn't be the only people in the world who don't enjoy their job
4. Yet equally, some people enjoy their jobs, and they tend to be the ones who are best at it
5. So I bet there's women working as prostitutes who have alternatives, but enjoy the sex (as well as the money) and are good at it

I have never been a prostitute's client, but if I were to, and I could afford it, I'd want it to be one who enjoyed her work.

(OTOH I believe there are men who get off on the exploitation and misogyny)

Re:What's the attraction

[drinkypoo]

I have spoken with a couple of kinds of sex workers and they've seen all kinds. But without going into specifics (which can be juicy but could also be personally identifying so let's just skip them) most of the sex workers who are not being pimped are doing it because they enjoy some aspect of it, or at the least, because they enjoy it more than working at McDonald's.

Certainly there are those people who like to have a lot of sex and aren't too picky about partners. Why not get paid, if there is a market? Further, some of them are exhibitionists, and these are the people who ought to be doing porn. Indeed, you can usually tell who they are, because you can tell they're having a good time. Which brings us back to your closing point...

(OTOH I believe there are men who get off on the exploitation and misogyny)

Ugh. Nothing worse than a porno (I've never paid for sex either, but I have paid for porn which is similar but abstracted) where the women obviously had to be drugged to do the deed. But clearly there is a market for that kind of material...

Should have seen this coming...

[digitaldc]

"I think if you were to ask me two or three years ago if Facebook was going to be this big, I wouldn't have picked it. And I have a great deal to learn there from Mark and his team," he said.
And a great deal of cash to earn, hey Mark is a 24-year old billionaire and they need me.
WAVEs goodbye...

Re:Should have seen this coming...

[Kilrah_il]

Wow, you found out that a top Google programmer is being hired by another company for money. Oh, and he agreed to switch companies because he is being paid big bucks. Yep, you sure deserve the Insightful mod.

Most people here dream about doing a good enough job to be hired by one of the top companies and being paid big bucks for it, but when we see someone with a proven track record getting paid for it: Sellout!

Re:Should have seen this coming...

[AnonymousClown]

Mark is a 24-year old billionaire...

If he invented some incredible green energy break through, I'd be thinking way to go!
If he found a way to eliminate much of the poverty and sickness in the Third World, I'd say way to go kid! You deserve every penny!
If he came up with some sort of medical breakthrough that eliminate breast and ovarian or prostate cancer, I'd be really happy for him.

No, he didn't.

He became an instant billionaire by selling what is basically personal web pages that broadcast updates automatically.

Tesla did more for humanity and he died penniless.

Excuse me, I'm having an attack of mumbling "Bullshit!"

Re:Should have seen this coming...

[IndustrialComplex]

That website helped me connect and stay in touch with people that I normally would not contact as I'm not a 'phone' person and they are not 'letter' people.

It's been of use to me. If you can create something which becomes useful to millions of people, you don't see THAT as being worth some money?

Granted, I think people are insane in setting the potential value so high, but it's certainly worth several million. (In general, I think that advertising expendatures have become a self fulfilling prophecy. Just because it is/was self fulfilling doesn't mean that it isn't now the reality)

Re:Should have seen this coming...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't let his anger hide his jealousy from you.

Re:Should have seen this coming...

[xtracto]

Yup, Facebook allows me to stay in contact with friends of the 5 cities (in 3 different countries) in which I have lived.

It is good to know there is a way to "feel" in contact with the people, even if I don't check daily the site.

Re:Should have seen this coming...

[slim]

No, he didn't.

He became an instant billionaire by selling what is basically personal web pages that broadcast updates automatically.

Tesla did more for humanity and he died penniless.

Excuse me, I'm having an attack of mumbling "Bullshit!"

You can mumble "bullshit" all you like; he became rich by creating something people wanted. It's not the first time "worthy" and "profitable" failed to overlap, and it won't be the last.

Re:Should have seen this coming...

[jojoba_oil]

Wow, you found out that a top Google programmer is being hired by another company for money. Oh, and he agreed to switch companies because he is being paid big bucks. Yep, you sure deserve the Insightful mod.

Nice of you to point out the obviousness of another's comment, but I'm sure there's more to it than just the money. If Wave was his brainchild, how do you think he felt when Google announced that they were killing it? The time-frame seems to indicate that Lars Rasmussen began looking to hop employers about the time that Wave was discontinued. And it makes sense: If he has to start on a new project anyway, why not one over at Facebook?

On a side note, why is Rasmussen included in the spell-check dictionary of Chrome? Outside of this post, I'm probably never going to mention that name again...

From TFS

[Anonymous Coward]

notes that about 20% of Facebook's staff are former Googlers.

Wow, 80 % of facebook's employees have never googled anything?

Money is nice

[Enderandrew]

Google has the company policy where 10% of every employee's hours are to be spent on projects of their choosing. They're known for providing their employees tons of flexibility to explore new ideas.

Lars is suggesting he is jumping ship to Facebook so he can have the freedom to see what happens. I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with money.

Re:Money is nice

[Kilrah_il]

And if in addition to the great opportunity he gets money for it, what's the problem?
He is a good programmer and Facebook thinks he is worth the amount they pay him. He, OTOH, gets a good salary (I presume it is more than what he got at Google) and an interesting job - seems like a Win-Win situation.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it is not such a rare occasion that programmers move from one company to another in the IT business.

Re:Money is nice

[LWATCDR]

Not money yet.
Google already gone public Lars probably got a bunch of stock options from Google but those are going to get harder to come by now.
Facebook has yet to go public. Lars is getting a bunch of stock options and when Facebook goes public $$$$$.
I wonder if anybody has gone from Yahoo to Google to Facebook. If so they are probably well past set for life at this point in time.

Re:Money is nice

[Enderandrew]

Except if it is proven that Paul Ceglia owns 84% of Facebook. Zuckerberg is handing out stock after a judge said he couldn't distribute or sell company assets. What if a judge rules the stock Zuckerberg gave you, he didn't have a right to hand out?

Re:Money is nice

[Enderandrew]

I'm not faulting or judging him. I'm just saying that money probably played a larger factor for his leaving than the story he gave.

Re:Money is nice

[Macka]

A colleague of mine used to work at Google and told me there is considerable pressure put on you to come up with something concrete and constructive from that 10%. It's not a free time to just dick about with whatever takes your fancy, it has to be for the betterment of Google.

Re:Money is nice

[alen]

too many interests to lose facebook. and Paul may have screwed himself by waiting so long to collect on such a small debt. he may walk away with nothing just because he waited so long.

Re:Money is nice

[Woogiemonger]

It's 20%, not 10%.

Re:Money is nice

[houghi]

You make it sound if the money part is a bad thing.
What if this is not OR/OR but AND/AND? AND he can work on a project that he is passionate about AND he earns more money.

Re:Money is nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has the company policy where 10% of every employee's hours are to be spent on projects of their choosing. They're known for providing their employees tons of flexibility to explore new ideas.

Lars is suggesting he is jumping ship to Facebook so he can have the freedom to see what happens. I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with money.

10% isn't a lot. In my engineering job in a giant corporation, my peers and I allocate 50% of our time to developing our own ideas, and from what I've seen that's the norm. Maybe the notable part of Google's 10% is that it applies to non-PhDs?

Re:Money is nice

[IICV]

Well but that only makes sense - it's still time you're at work, even if you're not working on a management-blessed project.

Re:Money is nice

[rreyelts]

It's 20%, not 10%. You mostly have carte-blanche as long as it doesn't boil down to the equivalent of "play World of Warcraft during company time". There are also escalation routes if you run into trouble getting manager approval. The only real requirement is that you must define some measurable goals. I usually enjoy what I'm doing so much (for example, building App Engine for Java), I don't have a lot of spare time for 20%.

Speaking for myself and not my employer.

The best part of being at Facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

We get to do evil now! Yeah!

Re:The best part of being at Facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

and i'll be damned if the darkside doesn't have cookies.

Facebook doesn't have all those restrictions

[milonssecretsn]

Yeah, sweet gig. He doesn't have to be tied down by all of google's restrictive rules like "not being evil".
He won't have those problems at facebook.

Seriously though, it is pretty sad to see him go. Bright mind.

I'm surprised they killed Wave

[No. 24601]

I'm surprised Google killed Wave when they haven't killed many other long-standing projects they have going that are much less popular with users and, as a result, much less lucrative. I think it was a clash of heads between Rasmussen and the top over what his priorities should be. They probably wanted something that would be as instantly popular as Maps. Wave did have potential especially if they marketed it alongside Google Apps for Business, but it's definitely not going to drive the kind people who use Facebook to start switching in droves to using Wave instead -- that's a bit unrealistic. If that's what Lars was looking for, everyone's probably better off with him at Facebook.

Re:I'm surprised they killed Wave

[jimicus]

Wave did have potential especially if they marketed it alongside Google Apps for Business, but it's definitely not going to drive the kind people who use Facebook to start switching in droves to using Wave instead -- that's a bit unrealistic. If that's what Lars was looking for, everyone's probably better off with him at Facebook.

They did. You could enable Wave for your domain quite easily.

We tried it and rapidly concluded it was a lookgran product.

Tail end of one wave to tail end of another?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It feels to me that Facebook may be a sort of once-in-a-decade type of company," Rasmussen said.

Unfortunately, that decade was the previous one.

20% of Facebook's staff are former Googlers

[sootman]

If you notice Google becoming less evil in the coming months, this will be why--they're all going to facebook. :-)

Loyalty

[slasho81]

The value of loyalty is completely gone in today's organizations. No loyalty to the company; No loyalty to the employees, and no loyalty between employees. I'm not advocating blind loyalty, but when people change companies every couple of years for a slight bump in salary, or a shinier title, or just so they don't appear "stagnant", it's a problem. And it's a problem first and foremost for the employees themselves.

Re:Loyalty

[Chowderbags]

What do you expect when businesses stopped being loyal to their employees? There used to be things like pension plans and long term job security. Now companies might match some portion of your 401k and at a slight downturn in the economy they might lay off hundreds or thousands so that their numbers look a little bit better. If they're willing to toss workers overboard for slight profit, workers are well within reason to toss their company overboard for their own slight profit. Give people a good reason to stay and you'll get loyal employees, otherwise you get what coming to you.

Re:Loyalty

[dcherryholmes]

Yeah, it's that "stagnant" part that I now fear. I stayed for 10 years with one company (University hospital, technically) because the work was interdisciplinary (therefore interesting), I liked every one I worked for/with *a lot*, and it was just generally a low-bs environment. Then I got married, started planning a family, and the moolah suddenly started looking a lot more important to me, so I jumped. Turns out spending 10 years with one place is a big stigma with some people. So, if you jump a lot, that's bad. If you don't jump often enough, that's bad too. I guess there's some sweet spot, but I don't know what it is. That or, more likely, interviewers will just fish for whatever BS they think they can hang a low-balled offer for salary on.

Re:Loyalty

[Matt Perry]

The value of loyalty is completely gone in today's organizations.

It should have never been there in the first place. Employment is a business transaction for both the employee and the employer. Employees have long fantasized that it wasn't, but are now waking up. Why shouldn't both parties attempt to maximize their returns? For the business this usually means getting what they are paying for. For the employee it might mean better pay or benefits, or it could be for more intangible returns such as achieving personal goals, helping others, working on interesting things, that shiny new title, etc.

Re:Loyalty

[slasho81]

You are either an economics major or under 25.

Employment is more than just business in the real world. It's a social activity and organizations are social structures rather than ideal friction reducing "infrastructure" that some academics think they are.

The economics revolve around society and not the other way round.

Re:Loyalty

[Anonymous Coward]

He was there something like six years. That's a fair amount of loyalty compared to most in the high tech world. He also probably did not get just "a slight bump in salary". I wouldn't be surprised if it was something more like an order of magnitude.

Re:Loyalty

[Matt Perry]

You are either an economics major or under 25.

Wrong on both counts. It's been more than 30 years since I was under 25.

Employment is more than just business in the real world. It's a social activity and organizations are social structures rather than ideal friction reducing "infrastructure" that some academics think they are.

It may be a social activity for the employee but it's most certainly not for the employer. Businesses are all about business transactions either by design or due to legal obligations imposed by government.

In any case, we are discussing loyalty between employer and employee. A business is not a person and employment is not a marriage. Expecting to stay with an employer out of loyalty is absurd. Ultimately, the relationship between employee and employer is one of cost and benefit. Are both parties deriving benefit? If so, there's no reason to change anything. But needs and desires change. The business may change direction which could lead to redundancy in employees. The desires or needs of the employee may change which might facilitate them leaving for another business.

Speaking for myself, I have been thinking of making a career change within the next five years. I am creeping up on retirement age anyway, but have a desire to work with a non-profit for which I have been volunteering over the last several years. It would mean less pay but far more job satisfaction. At my age, with a paid off house, plenty of retirement savings and a vested pension, I am willing to make that sort of change because the benefit of accomplishment and happiness outweighs my financial desires. I can assure you that the situation was reversed when I began my career 30 years ago.

Should I stay with my company out of some misguided sense of loyalty? Am I arrogant enough to think that this company can't continue to function without me? Of course not. I am replaceable and I know that. I have a lot of company knowledge in my head but others can cover for me and a replacement can be trained. I will do what is best for me and, if I leave, make the transition happen in a responsible manner for all concerned.

I suspect that Lars is in much the same situation. He created something interesting and sold it to Google. I imagine that he's quite financially secure. Now he has other priorities and wants to pursue those things that interest him and this opportunity is what he decided to pursue. Should he be loyal to Google? If so, for what reason? The company will survive without him. There are plenty of smart people at Google with many more clamoring to get in. Meanwhile, Lars only has one life and I can't fault him for wanting to live it.

Maybe this is one of those things that can only be understood with age. As you become more financially secure and the kids grow older and leave home, your priorities change. You'll experience it some day, I'm sure.

Re:Loyalty

[DerekLyons]

There used to be things like pension plans and long term job security.

In some fantasy past where the grass was always green, the sun always shining, men were men and women were women. (And small fuzzy creatures from Alpha Centauri were small fuzzy creatures from Alpha Centauri.)
 
Seriously, those weren't exactly common unless you worked for a truly large company or had a union job or both. Almost nothing has changed. (Beyond a growing sense of entitlement among the workers.)

Re:Loyalty

[DerekLyons]

You are either an economics major or under 25.

And you're either a starry eyed idealist or an idealist.

Re:Loyalty

[gmor]

What do you expect when businesses stopped being loyal to their employees?

Your description is the exact opposite of the way Google treats their fulltime employees. Their 401(k) match is at least 50%, they pamper employees with food and other benefits, and the few layoffs have been handled with delicacy. People are leaving despite a company that does its best to do the right thing to their employees.

A small bet

[wonkavader]

I will bet anyone an imaginary nickel that he's there for just about exactly one year.

Ok, I'll be the dumb one.

[wonkavader]

What's a lookgran product?

Re:Ok, I'll be the dumb one.

[jimicus]

"Look at what I can do, Gran!"

"That's nice, dear".

Homepage: Facebook

[ovette_pta]

Well, around here you dont see much people who are online that doesn't have a window or a tab reserved for Facebook. Even on most internet cafe's Facebook has become the homepage and for most pc/laptop owners too. I guess for Lars jumping in just added up more reason for facebook fans to watchout for whats coming.

We help Americans find jobs and prosperity in Asia. Visit http://www.pathtoasia.com/employment for details.

Dark Side

[Anonymous Coward]

So it sounds like Zuck basically said, "Lars, come to the dark(er) side and we'll rule the galaxy as founder and Rasmussen".

Sneaky Google....

[balaband]

They probably sent this guy on purpose to doom the Facebook with new wave-like interface.

I can almost hear diabolical laughter from Google offices....

That's Orkut or Buzz

[SteveFoerster]

Wave was nothing like Facebook, nor was it intended to be. Their social networkign serves are Orkut, and now Google Buzz.

Wave was... something else. Something really exciting, where you could do anything. Sort of like Zombo.com.

Re:That's Orkut or Buzz

[mabhatter654]

but it was for things like document collaboration, the next step in using all the "social" for actual work better than current business software does. at least that was the idea I got from the pretty pictures.

Facebook

[geekoid]

skimming the top most evil people at Google.

Real-time Collaboration

[jDeepbeep]

Real-time collaboration. Sorry about collaboration being 3 syllables over your limit.

Exciting

[StikyPad]

...'come hang out with us for a while and we'll see what happens,' which is a pretty exciting thing.

A deal with the devil? How exciting! What could possibly go wrong?

In a related story . . .

[cashman73]

A chair was seen thrown from the top floor of Google HQ today, and supposedly, the voice of Google CEO Eric Schmidt was heard saying, "Just tell me it's not Facebook. F**king Mark Zuckerberg is a f**king pussy! I'm going to f**king bury that guy! I have done it before, and I'll do it again! I'm going to f**king kill Facebook!"

Wait...

[Red_Chaos1]

So "about 20%" of Facebook is made up of people who went from "Do no evil" to "Sucks to be you." I guess it's better they aren't at Google anymore, but now I have to wonder how many other people still work at Google that just don't give a fuck.

yea

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people who care know enough to care about privacy are too boring to have anything to keep private.

! True

[Anonymous Coward]

The value of loyalty is completely gone in today's organizations.

Long live social Darwinism! The One True God.

My highly inteligent contribution to the topic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck facebook... why this is worth any money is beyond me and most likely AT&T or any other corporation out there seemingly sitting on their hands while some young maniacal "Bill Gates" wannabe dude comes by and entices a collective bunch of intertards together into what amounts to a large BBS forum, but the the possibility of reaching these intertards with potential advertising to by shit they don't need, utilizing cheap labor in China for crap shipped halfway around the globe in bulk containers powered by petroleum products derived from a geo-politico region that is just about as sable as a as three-legged chair manufactured from a timber from trees of the Amazon all for the sake of slightly increasing the returns on investment portfolios belonging to many current day corporate working drones and/or entitled trust fund elitists, the elitist that must do no other than to invest their money in something that will give them greater than marginal returns, whilst the greater populace is struggling to keep up with inflation and decreasing wages, all the while when corporations are posting profits... I could go here but my point is already made.

Anonymous 1 : Internets 0