Are Google's Best Days In the Past?

rsmiller510 writes "For a time, everything Google touched turned to gold, but lately a slew of bad press is creating a negative perception about the search giant."

Comments

Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[intellitech]

..does not mean they can't still turn a profit.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[ByOhTek]

Nor does it mean they can't return, possibly better than ever.

*cough*Apple*cough*

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[sakdoctor]

Google is clearly lacking in some key areas, most obviously social.

Google is still untouched in search. A core internet technology.
The glorified RSS feeds that are facebook and twitter have no relevance to that market.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Anonymous Coward]

Google would be fine without Larry and Sergey. I don't know how Apple could sell anything without Jobs.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Cheech Wizard]

Good products that "Just Work" sell themselves.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Anonymous Coward]

Compared to the other products on the market, Apple's only advantage is hype, losing their figurehead Steve Jobs, will put a damper on it.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Lumpy]

but their search is getting useless. link farms are still not being squashed, and they are allowing SEO scumbags to move results up the list for their clients who 9 times out of 11 dont have anything to do with the topic.

Google needs to do the Iron fist thing on search SEO's and put any SEO trickery or linkfarms at the BOTTOM of all search results. My exclude list for Google searching is getting ridiculously long.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Anonymous Coward]

Good products that "Just Work" sell themselves.

if only there was a company that sold those

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[somersault]

My [censored] is getting ridiculously long.

All those penis enlargement ads are good for something at last

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[bonch]

The Microsoft strategy of relevance.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Daniel Phillips]

Speaking as somewhat of an expert on the subject there is no question that Google has changed from the hypergrowth, exciting, quasi utopian place it was. But similar to an adult reaching maturity its best earning years are still before it. Google's vaunted ethical standard has, ahem, issues, but to suggest these problems are on the scale as Microsoft would be deeply wrong. Google's corporate DNA still includes ethics as a driver, unlike some other companies I could mention (Sony, Microsoft, I'm looking at you). I still own all my Google stock, that should tell you everything you need to know about my opinion of GOOG's future earning power. Like Microsoft before it, Google was once and is no longer the first choice employer for top ranked new grads. Unlike Microsoft, Google's corporate culture has not degenerated to the point of complete dysfunctionality, though there are signs it may head in that direction in the absence of enlightened reforms driven proactively from the executive suite.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[getNewNickName]

Sure, Google is still king of search, but it hasn't been able to get much traction in other areas (e.g. social networking). The article was written from an investment point of view not technological. As an investment GOOG has been disappointing for the past few years compared to other tech leaders. So this begs the question whether or not its "best days", as an investment, are past. It still remains to be seen whether Android will be able to contribute significantly to the company's revenue growth. The key word is growth, MS still continues to make tons of money, but their future growth prospects remain dubious which is reflected in their stock price.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Luckyo]

There is a subset of that thinking in usability (when studied as science). Textbook example is a sport wrist watch. On one hand, you can have one with a lot of features that can be accessed very quickly and a lot of info on the home screen, but requires a lot of buttons to control functions in a usable way.
Other is aimed at "we want something that just works" crowd (usually senior citizens), and has only one big red button and "just works" (and "illumination" button on the side for obvious reasons).

Reality - it "just works" for people who are willing to limit themselves to limited feature set given by the watch. It doesn't replace the one with many "confusing" buttons, and when it does it does it with a lot less efficiency.

Apple's advantage is that hype essentially steamrolls the "but the other features that are clunky/missing?" argument as hype claims that if iphone can't do it, you don't need it. Never mind that USB connectivity to a PC as an external drive, or ability to see email sender's name right from the home screen without having to go through "pretty" menus (to cite two of several obvious examples) have been a default feature in the smart phones for a long time. Apple is that "one button" watch that "just works" - so long as you're willing to accept that to even access and start timer will take you a lot longer that it would on a phone that does it the way "watch with many buttons" does.

And when hype will eventually run it's course and run out, you'll be left out with reality - that apple's version of "one button it just works" usability isn't all that good when you want to step outside those basic boundaries.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly don't understand the fundamental problem with "SEO trickery".

Allow me to enlighten you.
Google uses an algorithm to determine the relevance of pages. The problem is that SEO firms have reverse engineered that algorithm to the point where they can manufacture site rankings. As such Google's page ranking system can't tell the difference between a super relevant site, and a site that is lying about it's relevance but has the right answers to all the questions Google knows to ask.

It is similar to how a Rorschach test doesn't work on someone trained in evaluating the test (they know how their answers will be interpreted and can therefore give the answers that will lead the tester towards the conclusion they want to get). Another analogy would be a spy attempting to seduce a mark. Assuming they spy has done his/her reaserch they should know what the mark looks for in a partner and since they're lying they can appear to be the perfect date, while an honest person would likley have some flaw that compared with the fictional persona of the spy will seem less desirable.

There is no solution to that problem. At best Google can change their algorithm thus forcing the "SEO scumbags" to start over, but they will start over and they will again succeed. In truth the fact that it's taken this long for it to happen in the first place is rather commendable.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Kjella]

People need search engines. You can bitch about it all you want, but unless there's a different company that can squash SEOs better than Google, they'll still own the market. And looking at hitslink they have a very stable 85% of the market. Unless you're seriously suggesting it's so bad that people will not search the Internet at all?

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[ADRA]

And yet Google still remains my #1 used web site online. Some may only ever browse what others point you at, but I actually go out and find things. farms and SEO and the like may make searching more annoying, but it doesn't reduce my need to do so. Facebook or the like will never supplant that need.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[0123456]

At best Google can change their algorithm thus forcing the "SEO scumbags" to start over, but they will start over and they will again succeed.

Then Google will become less and less relevant as people move to other search engines with different algorithms, until they are also polluted to death by 'SEO scumbags'.

A few years back I could actually find something useful by searching in Google, now I have to wade through so much crap that it's often easier to go to the closest Wikipedia page and follow some links from there.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Bing Tsher E]

And yet Google still remains my #1 used web site online. Some may only ever browse what others point you at, but I actually go out and find things.

It sounds to me like you mostly browse where google points at.

Umm...

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[blair1q]

RSS is a broadcast medium.

Twitter and facebook are direct person-to-person communications media. More like glorified email than glorified RSS. Email was core internet technology long before search existed.

And don't underestimate their import. Neither of these companies has really commercialized its operations. Neither is public. Recent news indicates facebook just started a revolution in the middle east. I'm pretty sure search, even instant search, never did that.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[blair1q]

Apropos, I just this morning heard a commercial on the radio for a company that offers to ensure that positive results for searches for your company name appear in the upper results on Google, and negative information disappears into the nether pages.

This war is on.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[vux984]

There is no solution to that problem.

There are solutions to that problem. A human being can spot a link farm within seconds.

And when seo can produce websites that I can't tell are link farms, good, because that means they'll have the useful information that I want on them.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[FuckingNickName]

At best Google can use its billions to employ real humans to identify bad sites. But that's anathema to Google's flawed technocratic ideal and would lose them loads of ad revenue from the squatters and the scrapers.

Remember, if you're searching with Google then you're the product, not the client.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[symbolset]

It's a continuous fight. For every system there is, there are a bunch of people trying to game the system. Google has to keep up the good fight, and they are. But this press thing is paid attacks - a PR campaign with low-level astroturfing. There is no reason not to love Google. Their whole job is to search the whole Internet for everything we want.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[bberens]

I use Apple because their mouse has one button. I tried a two button mouse once, but I found it too confusing.

/old person
/not really
/Don't troll mod me, it's just a joke.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[drinkypoo]

RSS is a broadcast medium.

Twitter and facebook are direct person-to-person communications media. More like glorified email than glorified RSS.

Twitter and Facebook are both designed around the idea of one-to-many missives. Facebook has a little more Forum to it. Twitter is like an open forum expected to be conducted via morse code (why else have such short messages?) Facebook is like a partitioned/partitionable forum.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[blair1q]

Twitter and Facebook are both designed around the idea of one-to-many missives.

No, you have to opt-in to see the missives, and the other person opts-in or out at will. It's not a private message, but it's also not nearly as broadcasty as RSS, and it's a 2-way conversation, just one that other people can listen in on. RSS is between a high-bandwidth newspaper and a low-bandwidth radio or TV system. It lacks personalization entirely, and that limits the information it can communicate (there's a lot of meta-information in personal conversations).

NB: The reason for Twitter's short messages is that it is designed to deliver the text via SMS, which has a 140-byte payload limit. (Albeit the online data retrieved by apps on smartphones over IP is much more rich). The decision was purely technical. There's no psychological, social, or even economic meaning behind it.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Nick Ives]

Google is still better than their competition when it comes to filtering link farms; maybe it's just the things you're interested in that are heavily targeted?

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[brit74]

Funny, you could've spun the Apple situation in a lot of different directions. Of course, the slashdot crowd tends towards wanting features and complexity over simplicity and ease of use, so I guess I'm not surprised to see your comment and the upvotes. I think it's silly to suggest some kind of "complexity is better than simplicity" type of argument when society is made up of millions of different consumers with different needs and desires. And let's not forget that it's not just Apple; the Flip camera sells pretty darn well. Reducing it down to "it's just hype" is missing the reality of the market. "I know what all fifty buttons on my TV remote does, I don't know why people are too dumb or lazy to figure it out too. It's obviously superior to the five-button TV remote." isn't the correct answer for all consumers. Somewhere there's a guy who knows what every extra charge on your phone bill is for, and since you don't know, he thinks you're too dumb or lazy to figure out. Is he right? No, we all have a limited amount of time and patience to figure out what this or that thing is for. Technophiles are willing to spend the time. Most people aren't technophiles.

Perhaps that's the problem. Engineers are designing the devices, and engineers have spent thousands of hours pouring over the features. So, there's a tendency towards feature-creep and complexity as the devices are increasingly aimed at technophiles willing to spend lots of hours learning the device. I worry that Apple will move that direction like every other computer company has a tendency to do, unless there is someone at the helm steering away from the engineer's predisposition. (And, no, I'm not an Apple user. But, I happen to respect what they do and understand why it's a useful approach for them to take. I also don't look down on my friends who have little time or desire to learn the details of their electronic devices.)

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Nick Ives]

Google already derives $1bn/yr in revenue from Android, that figure can surely only grow.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Culture20]

I've admined hundreds of iMacs, a few Xserves, and dozens of Mac pros. The iMacs suck huge donkey balls. They overheat constantly and there is no way to lock them down. You can set an nvram password but that is trivially defeated mechanically (in a way that can't be physically locked down). The best you can do is use video cameras and restrict physical access to the machine itself with a keycard type system, the review the tapes religiously. The Xserves use cheap sata drives marked up 200%, and the Mac pros don't stack well nor fit sideways in a rack (or have redundant power). The only thing driving apple hardware sales is their software, and they know it.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Qwavel]

Their decision to stop filtering content in China (while MS continues) was widely reported, but something that I found more interesting was the internal documents that the WSJ released revealing the debates that top Googlers had about the use of personal information for advertising.

This wasn't so much about what they could get away with - the way it would be at most other companies - it was a philosophical debate about right and wrong. And in the end, they let their values circumscribe their actions in their core revenue area.

So I agree, "Google's corporate DNA still includes ethics as a driver, unlike some other companies".

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Culture20]

"I know what all fifty buttons on my TV remote does, I don't know why people are too dumb or lazy to figure it out too. It's obviously superior to the five-button TV remote." isn't the correct answer for all consumers. Somewhere there's a guy who knows what every extra charge on your phone bill is for, and since you don't know, he thinks you're too dumb or lazy to figure out.

And the difference between you and him is that you don't rub your hands together in fiendish greedy glee thinking of all the pennies coming your way from the fools who can't work better remote controls. The phone bills are deliberately confusing. The remote controls are deliberately useform, but making them slightly user friendly is somewhere in the design process.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[lee1]

Too bad they haven't decided to stop filtering content in the USA.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[blair1q]

Did they opt-into letting you get them? Can they cut you off at will without cutting off a lot of other receivers? Can you send them a message back through the same channel?

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[RobertM1968]

Spoken like a true troll who never even used* an Apple product before.

* no, using a Mac for 5 minutes at an Apple store isn't nearly enough.

How about for ten minutes?

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[UnknowingFool]

The expectation of growth is what drives prices. Its why Apple's stock is so high. Up until last quarter, Apple didn't make as much revenue as MS but their stock price was higher. Both MS and Apple both had record quarters yet Apple is more favored than MS. It's because Apple enters new markets and makes money most of the time whereas MS doesn't seem to make money in new markets.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[PopeRatzo]

Can we have a show of hands? Who believes this story is a little bit suspicious and might be part of an organized effort to spread FUD about Google?

It could be competitors, it could be a hedge fund manager who just put on a huge spread of put options going out into June, or somebody with an iPad who's bored sitting in a waiting room waiting to get radiation treatments.

Anyone who believes that this handful of stories, out of the ocean of press that comes out daily in the financial and tech media, comprises a "slew" of bad press really is not paying attention.

And trust me, the first indication that Google's best days are in the past won't be stories in the news media, it'll be Google losing 30% of it's capitalization and it'll happen before you can even load the web page of your discount broker to try to sell your few shares.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Draek]

The problem of Apple is that they're designed around a "for dummies" philosophy but are priced as "feature creep" devices. I understand the appeal of a device you only need to read an illustrated pamphlet to understand its workings, but that's a market that the $10 'dumbphones' address far better already than the iPhone ever has.

That's also why I *do* look down on people who claim they don't have time and/or desire to learn the details of their electronic devices yet deliberately spend above the range aimed at them for its 'coolness' factor. I'm far nicer to folks that don't know how to operate their $100 point-n-shoot camera than morons that ask me where's the Auto mode on their $3000 dSLRs.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Draek]

Yeah, like a solution to the problem of chocolate melting in your hands is including a personal maid with every purchase that feeds you the chocolate herself.

It may be a nice fantasy to the average Slashdotter, but anyone with half a brain would realize it's simply not cost-effective at any scale whatsoever.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[sortius_nod]

As someone who doesn't own a Mac machine but actually has administered them (not just read specs off the Apple site and decided to write a troll post), I can agree that there are a lot of similarities in limitations with WinPCs.

I will say one thing, GP is full of shit when they claim that the iMacs overheat. The ONLY times I've seen them overheat is when cooling systems are blocked (either due to dust or PEBCAK [post it notes over air holes]). Unlike IBM machines which are predominantly passively cooled. Here in Australia, well, nice hot day and no one can work on an IBM.

SATA drives are standard for low to mid range servers, if you want SAS drives you're looking at top end servers or SANs.

I'd suggest the GP go back to Engadget to troll about Apple, some of us here are professionals who have actually worked in the industry.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Culture20]

I've admined hundreds of iMacs, a few Xserves, and dozens of Mac pros. The iMacs suck huge donkey balls. They overheat constantly

Kinda like way too numerous Windows machines? Toshibas were (are) notorious for this, as one for instance.

Nothing like them. The iMacs are having hardware failures of about 2% per month (while still under warranty). Any PCs I've seen do this are usually just past warranty or have dying fans. These iMacs' fans are working, they're just designed poorly.

and there is no way to lock them down.

Kinda like Windows?

Now you're just being trollish. Anyone with half a brain can lock Windows down sufficiently until the week before patch Tuesday.

You can set an nvram password but that is trivially defeated mechanically (in a way that can't be physically locked down).

Kinda like on the PC platform?

Now you're not trolling anymore, you're being stupid. To reset a bios password on a PC platform, you have to open the case and reset a jumper on the motherboard. The case can be locked. On an iMac, you just have to access the [censored]. The [censored] can NOT be locked (you can lock the iMac to a desk, but the [censored] is still easily accessible with a screwdriver).

The Xserves use cheap sata drives marked up 200%,

Wow, much like much of the "professional" cheapo servers from... Dell, HP and others?

No, more like the "professional" servers from no-name companies, except they charge only half as much as Dell, and only a third of what Apple used to charge. Dell and HP tend to use SCSI/SAS in their professional servers.

and the Mac pros don't stack well nor fit sideways in a rack (or have redundant power). The only thing driving apple hardware sales is their software, and they know it.

Wow, much like most of the machines out there in the PC world until you go into the 5 digit range (or mid to high 4 digit if you are lucky) or custom build?

What are you smoking? The only computer cases less stackable or rack-capable than mac pros are SGI machines. The only windows box I've seen that wouldn't stack and isn't some custom gaming rig also happened to be an SGI: the 320 abomination. To make a mac pro as stack/rack-friendly as any workstation offering from any PC company, you have to use a hacksaw and a metal file to remove those stupid handles/legs.

I'm not slamming the WinPC world... I am pointing out that what you are posting is irrelevant since it's a relatively even playing field in the areas you mention.

Quite relevant since I have actual experience in both worlds, and it's not an even playing field by a long shot. Even our end users are complaining about the iMacs compared to the 'doze PCs, and they're almost all Apple-heads.

Thus, you should be comparing Apples to WinPCs in OTHER areas... you know... the ones where the end results aren't the same for the comparison.

I am.

Then, perhaps you can troll one side or the other.

Enjoy your check from Apple this month, you shill.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Culture20]

I will say one thing, GP is full of shit when they claim that the iMacs overheat. The ONLY times I've seen them overheat is when cooling systems are blocked (either due to dust or PEBCAK [post it notes over air holes]).

Most of our machines are cool to the touch, about 20% are warm, and 4% are hot to the touch (jerk your hand back from surprise level, not pain level). Apple won't repair/replace anything temperature related until the machine shuts down because "overheating doesn't happen unless there has been a shutdown" So they send a replacement HDD, but not a replacement fan or mobo (for the temperature controller), because it's not in their script. I'm guessing you only admin about 40 or so in a small graphics design business and they're mostly used for MS Office and Photoshop. Apple didn't design these machines to run under full load for more than a couple minutes at a time, and they *do* overheat easily, even in cool rooms.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Surt]

The problem with the dSLR is that lots of people have discovered that the image quality on PAS cameras is crap. The DSLR has the larger sensor that makes pictures better, but then you have this maze of buttons. But no one will make a PAS with a huge sensor, which is why you have novices buying 3k dslrs looking for the auto mode.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[daver00]

I do IT support at my university, troubleshooting student problems all day probably fixing more macs than windows machines. The stuff about 'just works' is a complete load of bull, OSX is just as likely, if not more likely to randomly screw up as Windows 7. It is actually *more* difficult to do advanced tasks and the stuff about having an intuitive UI is skin deep at best.

Now I'm not on a mac bashing rant, actually I'm planning on getting a new Macbook pretty soon. I'm just calling it how it is, the GP is mostly right in that the stuff about Apple software being superior is more or less hype. They do make superior cases though, and put together nice selections of hardware inside those really good quality, good looking cases.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Surt]

Your comment is generally spot on, though Rorschach is completely discredited at this point, not just for someone who's 'trained in evaluating the test'.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Belial6]

Yes, they were being funny, but that doesn't make it any less true. Thinking that Mac "Just Works" any more than windows, or Linux for that matter is a myth. If you buy hardware that the OS knows about, all three will automatically install them. If you don't, they will all be a pain to set up. Yes, even OSX. As for day to day use, they all use the same basic paradigm. Yes, they may look slightly different, but nothing that will thow anyone that isn't willfully trying not to understand.

Smart phones are not a lot different. Dumping every application's icon on the desktop vs. having a home button that shows the applications that you don't see on the desktop is not a huge difference. Having a permenent back button vs. having the developers put a back button on every screen programatically again isn't a material difference.

"Just works" always was PR, and it still is.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[snookums]

That's also why I *do* look down on people who claim they don't have time and/or desire to learn the details of their electronic devices yet deliberately spend above the range aimed at them for its 'coolness' factor.

Owing to the fact that I work all day, I tend to have more spare money than spare time. Thus it makes perfect economic sense for me to spend a little more money on something that I can start using right away without investing time in.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[RobertM1968]

I'm no Apple shill. I dont even own one. But I AM and HAVE BEEN a computer technician for DECADES. You wrote entire nonsense above. Toshibas have a MUCH higher failure rate. Lately (the last 5+ years), so has Dell/Gateway/eMachines. I know... I work on them all the time. HP's failure rate has been absurdly high lately (largely due to major design flaws in hinges in two massive lines). As for Dell, Dell's failure rate is massive too, but Dell doesn't seem to count things like the stupid AC adapter identifier chip burning out.

MANY HP servers, and various IBM servers are NOT rackable easily and numerous DELLs are NOT stackable either.

As for case locks, MANY MANY WinPCs do NOT come with them. Additionally, a screwdriver in place of a key will usually open the ones that DO come with locks (been there, done that dozens if not HUNDREDS of times when a customer loses their keys and wants an upgrade or needs a failed component replaced).

Both Dell and HP/Compaq sell SATA servers (as does IBM). All three sell the SATA drives at a ridiculous premium.

Here's one from from HP that comes with either SATA or SAS depending on how you configure it:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF04a/15351-15351-241434-241646-3328424.html

As a matter of fact, EVERY PRE-CONFIGURED VERSION OF IT IS SATA:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/15351-15351-241434-241646-3328424-3984625.html

Should I post links to Dell, IBM and "Compaq" servers also to prove this point?

You really don't know what you are talking about - but then again, I'm not the only one who's told you that. Guess you could choose to keep on looking even more stupid or more like a shill or a troll - that's up to you.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Draek]

If you're doing prints the size where a p&s camera's limitations will be apparent, you should *really* spend some time and money on learning how to use that shiny toy of yours rather than say "screw it, I'll just buy one shinier!" as if it were magically gonna fix your problem.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Draek]

The point is that you don't, as the cheapest devices are, particularly in the case of cellphones, often the easiest ones to use by virtue being aimed at people that don't have the resources to take advantage of their more expensive brethren's capabilities.

So in the end, many people end up buying said more expensive brethren in order to look knowledgeable to themselves and their friends, then loudly bitch when their tools don't manage to be as simple as their sensible friends' vastly cheaper device, "in spite of" its superior capabilities when in reality it's "because of" them.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[LWATCDR]

No they are not. I have no idea what you are talking about their search is getting useless! When I read a news story first thing I do when I see something I have questions on is Google it.
For example when they said that the Aircraft that defected from Libia had fully loaded machine guns I was pretty sure that the Mirage F1 didn't have any machine guns but did have cannons.
I googled Mirage F1 and found the specs. Yes it does have 30 mm cannons. BTW thank goodness those pilots did defect and not attack the protesters.

Then some guys at where where talking about how slow their home computers where so I google Cray 1 and sent them a link along with a link I got when I googled Cray FPGA about a guy that made a CRAY on a FPGA.

What searches are you doing that is hitting link farms. I keep hearing about them but I rarely hit them. Can you give some sample searchs that fail because I almost never have a search bring up a link farm.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[zaivala]

They have plenty of social. They don't know how to sell it. Might not be the best social, but it has its features. Check out Orkut.com for instance...

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[exomondo]

Sure, Google is still king of search, but it hasn't been able to get much traction in other areas

Oh yeah, Android hasn't got any traction at all and no-one uses GMail, Google Maps or Google Docs. This must be your first trip back to civilisation for a while.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[vux984]

It may be a nice fantasy to the average Slashdotter, but anyone with half a brain would realize it's simply not cost-effective at any scale whatsoever.

This is the company that drove a van down every street on the continent.

There really aren't that many useful domains, and hundreds of them are registered to the same companies or point at the same sites or are parked, reducing the actual scale of relevant sites by an order of magnitude.

Its a big problem, but its not THAT big, and like the map of the continent ... its always changing, but most of it still stays the same for long periods of time.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Surt]

Think low light performance. Most PAS cameras are fundamentally unsuited to the task most people use them for.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[MrNaz]

Yeah, like a solution to the problem of chocolate melting in your hands is including a personal maid with every purchase that feeds you the chocolate herself.

Dude! Run for president!

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Draek]

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any situation that wouldn't be solved by a) using a flash or b) letting a more experienced photographer do it in the first place.

For social gatherings and such a flash is by far the easiest choice, and for events such as concerts and plays not only is there usually a professional photographer hired for the event, even *with* a shiny toy and shiny lenses, without knowing how to use them their photos inevitably turn out to be crap anyways, not to mention playing photographer diminishes your own enjoyment of the show itself.

So, can't think of any. Can you?

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Surt]

The flash on every PAS I've seen is utter crap. So yeah, every situation in which you'd use flash would be better served by a larger sensor, which is not to mention every situation in which flash is annoying, disapproved of, or forbidden.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Vegemeister]

Prints? Why? Don't you have a screen for that?

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Luckyo]

It's worth noting that anyone with actual common sense in above situation will invest in a 100-200USD flash over 1000+USD differential between a POS and even half decent DSLR with a flash. As you seem to essentially imply that the only way to fix the crappy flash problem is to buy a camera that is significantly more expensive... just for the flash which can be purchased separately for a fraction of the price.
Now if you actually know photography, and spent days, or even months on learning how to use that DSLR properly, then sure, it may be worth the extra money. But if not, then you're just another moron (and I don't use this term lightly) who massively overspends for image's sake.

Then again, you're in a good company. I believe about 8/10 or 9/10 people who buy an SUV never take it off road if manufacturers are to be believed, and drive a gas guzzling POC where a decent station wagon would've done a far better job, for a lot less money. All in the name of image.

And all of above doesn't make you any less of a moron. Just puts you in a company of other rich, clueless people who keep up an industry of advertising and packaging selling them crap they don't need.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[oliverthered]

if only there where a people interested in coming together to make them...

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[farble1670]

i use search for personal and work technical purpose throughout the day and i don't have any complaints. i occasionally end up on the sites that are just aggregating crap from other sites and adding ads, but that's the worst of it. i think in general most of us don't feel that search is "useless".

i also don't see any reason to think that this problem, if it actually became such a problem, is not solvable as you suggest. when you throw things out there like that, some explanation would be nice.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[farble1670]

It still remains to be seen whether Android will be able to contribute significantly to the company's revenue growth.

do android users perform searches from their phones? i think that should answer your question.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[oliverthered]

Where I live anyhow... facebook had a bit of a blip... but now it's a but mundain.. mostly people are into youtube and still search with google.

No I would organise an uprising that quickly on youtube or via search engines... but as they say the English plot the French revolt.

Google is more about business than pleasure, and currently, business is running the world, pleasure is just something to toy with and comes and goes.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[lee1026]

More importantly, if a human can do it, then it is possible to write a program to do the same.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[dudpixel]

Yeah, like a solution to the problem of chocolate melting in your hands is including a personal maid with every purchase that feeds you the chocolate herself.

It may be a nice fantasy to the average Slashdotter, but anyone with half a brain would realize it's simply not cost-effective at any scale whatsoever.

or perhaps the technology to do it isn't invented yet.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[dudpixel]

And yet Google still remains my #1 used web site online. Some may only ever browse what others point you at, but I actually go out and find things.

It sounds to me like you mostly browse where google points at.

Umm...

as opposed to?

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[dudpixel]

It still remains to be seen whether Android will be able to contribute significantly to the company's revenue growth.

um...where have you been?

http://www.businessinsider.com/android-revenue-2010-8

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2010/10/googles-android-starts-paying-for-itself-via-ad-revenues/

its 2011 now, and google own the worlds dominant smartphone platform...are you with us or what?

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[cavebison]

I'm just wondering why Ron Jeremy is writing tech stories these days.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[danielkschneider]

IMHO there must be a solution to that. As others pointed out, a human can spot "nothing-but-links-sites" AND "sites-that-grab-random-contents-from-other sites" fairly easily. To spot the second ones, one would have to come up with some pattern matching algorithm (find the source and rank down the copy) and also not index web sites that just show short paragraphs of information. True content is always longish and structured and it is linked internally. That kind of policy might hurt legitimate sites like DMOZ, Delicious and many blogs. So how about letting the user decide in the advanced settings: [] links sites (yes/no), [link sharing sites] (yes/no), [sites with with short contents] (yes/no) ? Of course, the war will then escalate. Crooks will just start stealing contents in order to have a google ranking again. Again, there are parades like giving extra points to sites that adopt the Wikipedia strategy (no follow links) or looking at the copyright of the source and blasting away web sites that don't replicate it (that could be more difficult). How about adding a BIG tag next to a suspect site that says "Google believes that this content ain't the original"?) I am not a real programmer but I am convinced that Google could do more. After all, they manage to run Google Scholar quite flawlessly. I just believe that Google as of today doesn't optimize content search, but revenue from google ads and this may kill them ultimately. Yeah they also should favor web sites that don't have ads ;) Final thing: Pages in webservers that we run in our little research unit (e.g. a wiki on educational technology) show up very high. Most pages are top 20, which is actually too high :). This means that Google still works for specialized subject areas. Or in other words: Google maybe should apply a different algorithm for "popular" phrases, i.e. be much tougher on link farms for everything that is popular.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[AmiMoJo]

Macs do overheat. There were major cock-ups like the early Intel MacBooks with too much thermal paste and that infamous cube thing, but generally speaking they are a bit worse than the average PC because they put so much emphasis on style. To be fair a lot of other manufacturers laptops have become like that too, with inadequate cooling and heatsinks that have very close together fins which clog easily, but Apple was the pioneer.

nVidia deserves a special mention. They said their chips could idle at 70C no problem so it is okay to run the fan slowly. Unfortunately the repeated heating and cooling causes the chip to come away from the motherboard.

Desktop wise the design of their iMac cases has always been terrible for cooling, although arguably because they design them to be placed on a desk rather than under it they get exposed to less dust and thus less clogging anyway.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Lumpy]

They need to look hard at patterns in people's exclusions and start deranking if a lot of sites get a bounceback very quickly from a lot of different people.

You cant SEO trickery around human eyes and brains.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[coolmadsi]

Yeah, like a solution to the problem of chocolate melting in your hands is including a personal maid with every purchase that feeds you the chocolate herself.

It may be a nice fantasy to the average Slashdotter, but anyone with half a brain would realize it's simply not cost-effective at any scale whatsoever.

If Google recorded everytime someone clicked a back button to get back to their search results, they can flag up the last clicked site for review by a human; if a user didn't like the first link they clicked on, there may be something wrong with it, so would imply a review of the search term and site mapping may be needed. That would reduce the scale slightly.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[FreekyGeek]

That's the way it would seem at first glance, and certainly true if Google tried to hire an army of people to look at each site in their index. What's needed is clearly some kind of human-moderated system just like Slashdot has, where you use a browser plugin or something to "Report this site to Google as a link farm/SEO abuse". Then Google can investigate the ones that get the most reports.

Overall, it would be a fantastic thing to have a general "user rating" for ALL sites on the web, and Google would be just the one to be able to pull it off and have the incentive since it would greatly improve their search results.

As 99% of you are doubtless about to point out, any kind of rating/reporting system is open to abuse. As soon as something were implemented, the SEO assholes would start finding ways to game the system with vote-bots etc. But I think it could be minimized/prevented with some combination of the following possibilities:

1) Negative reports only, so you could report something as questionable but NOT "vote it up". Link farmers would have no incentive to submit reports on their own sites.
2) Not allowing more than 1 vote per account per minute, to make robo-tools exceedingly slow.
3) Some kind of identity verification where you have to prove you are a real live human being to get voting rights for your account (and I don't mean captchas, I mean like address verification or something else difficult/expensive to spoof).
4) Charge one cent per report, or make the first few free with the cost going up on a sliding scale the more ratings you do.harge more per report. Normal users, who might report a half dozen or even fifty sites a month would find the cost laughably negligible, but anyone trying to do it on a large/automated scale would quickly run into some costs
5) A "karma"/reputation system where your trustworthiness and the weight of your vote is affected by what others think of you - though that might be a little too easy to rig.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Surt]

Actually, I think my post pretty clearly indicated that there are many situations where flash is not an acceptable solution. Nor would external flash be acceptable for any but a small handful of situations (once you have to carry around the bulk of an external flash, you may as well buy and carry a dslr instead, and then you don't have to use the flash in many of those same situations). What I (and large numbers of people) are looking for is an easy, pull it out of your pocket solution that will get good image quality without an annoying flash. Forced to choose between IQ and pocket-ability, we mostly own one of each, and are dissatisfied with both.

Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anrego]

My perception:

They are no longer the cool new guys tearing up the internet and being a company for the people. They are big, diversified, making money hand over fist, and have attracted the requisite controversy, criticism, and bad press that comes with being big and diversified and making money hand over fist.

Despite everything, I still see them as one of the good guys. I think there’s always a severe whip back when you suddenly discover something that you thought was awesome is now merely ok. Google looks terrible when compared to what it was, but compare it to everything else and it looks pretty damn good.

And (flamewar time) I continued to be baffled over all the flack they got over the stupid wifi thing. They came clean, admitted everything, co-operated with the investigations and people still tore them 12 new ones. Personally I think they should have been commended for admitting they made a mistake rather than going into full on cover up mode.

To get back to the topic, it really required a definition of “Best”. Are they ever going to be the cool trendy upstart they once were: probably not. Are they going to continue making money hand over fist and growing like a spider until you shave with google razor blades: entirely possible.

As for not innovating I still think they’ve got it in them. They’ve had a string of bad luck, and they’ve failed in the social area but I suspect they’ll pull something killer out in the next little bit.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anonymous Coward]

And (flamewar time) I continued to be baffled over all the flack they got over the stupid wifi thing. They came clean, admitted everything, co-operated with the investigations and people still tore them 12 new ones. Personally I think they should have been commended for admitting they made a mistake rather than going into full on cover up mode.

Maybe that reaction is why companies tend to go into cover up mode. If they really did make an honest mistake, what do they gain by fessing up and cooperating vs trying to hide it? The answer is nothing, and I think Google probably learned a bad lesson from the whole ordeal.

I hate to say it, but most consumers and voters are short sighted idiots.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[dstyle5]

You had me at fried potatoes...

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anrego]

I think Google probably learned a bad lesson from the whole ordeal

Yup. And anyone watching as well. I have a feeling no one is going to be as open as they were about a mistake again for quite some time.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with a lot of what you said. Especially the part about Google not being as great as when it was a start up, but still being pretty good. At least for me, I still have positive thoughts when I think of Google as opposed to some other tech companies, like Microsoft. Maybe it's just carry over from older days or because they talk a lot about open source, but I still like Google.

Also I feel like this article was solely written to attract attention. The title and beginning of the article paint Google to look like it might be crumbling and at the very end he goes back on himself and says that they are still an amazing company. It felt like he was writing a sensationalist article to get page views and I didn't really appreciate it.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad press means, they kick the ass of competitors willing to pay persons to smear them. In the beginning they had no real competitors.
Just look at the Smartphone. For Google that is just a trick. For Nokia it was vital.

If they want an open confrontation with Microsoft they can, just for fun. Put 30 Mio annually on Wine development and Windows is obsolete within 5 years. Or 50 Mio annually on Libreoffice and the Microsoft Office cash cow would get slaughtered.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Reapman]

"Google as the #1 simple search provider is over and in the past"

Oh? Who's the #1 simple search provider? Duckduckgo? Considering I've never heard of them, I doubt that. May be some argument with Bing or Yahoo but I SERIOUSLY doubt they come close to matching Google for searches, much less surpasing them. Duckduckgo sounds like an interesting competitor, and competition is great, but I think your overstating Googles decline in Search. That would be like saying because I use Ubuntu (love Ubuntu btw) Microsofts days as the #1 OS provider is over and in the past.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[BuR4N]

I agree with much of what you say, but diversified is not something I would label Google, they sell ads, and it accounts for +90% of their revenue, then they have a small cloud operation going, but if anyone would eat into their ad business they would be toast.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[bemymonkey]

I could hardly agree more.

In addition, as a heavy Google user (Android and about a dozen non-Android Google services), I've got to say that they're still innovating at a pace that's dizzying at times. Hell, 2-step-verification nearly gave me a nerdgasm... the latest Android version of Google Maps... Honeycomb...

I can't wait for more...

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[gstrickler]

Google Razor, the fast shave available.

Try new Google Instant Razor (beta), it starts shaving as soon as you pick it up.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[AvitarX]

But neither of them are that helpful to Google.

Mucking around with Office was a huge waste for Sun. Google is doing similar, but with a real chance at gaining from it (their docs). Perhaps if they could get truly seamless integration with the desktop app, and their cloud, it could be a win. But, I would think it's unlikely OSS is going to want to do that.

Wine could actually be something for them, as at least for now, Linux tends to default towards google searches (usually through the distro). Still, the money gained by people getting Google default - the money paid to the distro could be less than losing some to MS, but what they get comes fully to them.

I will say, it was the sponsorship money paid to Firefox that spawned Chrome more than anything else. Google was paying Mozilla lots of money every year (Mozilla gets 100 Million in search royalties). I don't know what Chrome costs, but it appears pretty reasonable they the reduced search royalty could fund the developement. At least for a while Chrome was primarily eating Firefox's market.

With an improved Wine, unless they make a real solid distro too, there won't be the reduced royalty that come with Chrome.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anrego]

Dunno if I'd say they're finished as the #1.

Certainly I think google and bing are going to go at it bare knuckle .. but I think google stands a good chance at staying on top.

That said, I think that #1 is probably going to get a lot smaller. Lots of those no-name search engines are becoming practical, and you are seeing a lot of people saying "I use x for y specialized reason" these days. duckduckgo will probably never get to the top, but it can certainly nibble on it.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[AlXtreme]

Thanks for the tip.

I was using Clusty before it got Yippified, after that Scroogle. I'll give duckduckgo a try.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[thijsh]

No, Google does just does not really qualify as 'simple' anymore. Once too many features are added it is not the #1 simple search by de-factor elimitation. I did not claim duckduckgo is the new #1, because that is a personal preference and clearly not decided by any majority like you point out. It's just that the thing that made Google great is exactly what it sucks at now... they may still have a huge search volume (and so does Bing), but that is beside the point. People who want a basic search and get to the best results fast are looking for the next Google...

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[bonch]

Google only fessed up because of inquiries from the German government. You can bet that you would have never heard about it otherwise. I can't believe people actually buy Google's story of "accidentally" archiving 600GB of personal data for four years.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[SmilingBoy]

Why is it that in various forums incl Slashdot in recent months, duckduckgo is always mentioned when it comes to search (invariably with a link)? I don't think they are that special to warrant that attention; they seem to be mainly using bing results.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[bonch]

That's the big fact that constantly gets ignored. I've seen it claimed more than once by people on Slashdot that Google were the ones who "came clean." No! Google at first denied that they were scanning any personal data -- only after being pressed by German regulators did they finally admit that they had scanned and stored 600GB worth of personal data over the course of four years.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Solandri]

And (flamewar time) I continued to be baffled over all the flack they got over the stupid wifi thing. They came clean, admitted everything, co-operated with the investigations and people still tore them 12 new ones. Personally I think they should have been commended for admitting they made a mistake rather than going into full on cover up mode.

Because what they did was still wrong. If someone admits to robbing a bank and returns the money and says sorry, you don't pat them on the head, tell them how good they are for admitting it, and let them go. You still punish them, you just punish them less than if they'd tried to hide it. Likewise, the reaction to Google for the wi-fi thing was less severe than it could have been if they'd tried to cover it up. But it still had to be negative.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[bloodhawk]

And (flamewar time) I continued to be baffled over all the flack they got over the stupid wifi thing. They came clean, admitted everything, co-operated with the investigations and people still tore them 12 new ones. Personally I think they should have been commended for admitting they made a mistake rather than going into full on cover up mode.

What is there to be baffled about? They broke the laws in literally dozens of countries, laws that send other people to jail. They are supposedly one of the best technical companies out there yet they blundered so incredibly badly from a technical standpoint. Do you let a murderer or thief off just because they came forward and are incredibly sorry for their actions? While intentions do allow a certain amount of lenancy, ignorance has never been an acceptable defense.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[afabbro]

but I SERIOUSLY doubt

Whoa...like..SERIOUSLY?

When you put it in all caps like that, the rest of us really sit up and take notice.

I mean, you're not just doubting it, you're SERIOUSLY doubting it.

Whoa.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[syousef]

Despite everything, I still see them as one of the good guys.

Do you believe in Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy too? Companies aren't a force for good. They're a force for making a profit.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[thijsh]

Slashdotters generally care about their privacy and like to use simple tools that do one thing good so that's why I link this site here.
I agree their regular results are not always the very best, but the box at the top is for 50% of my searches what I need if I type something into the search bar... And I love the !bang syntax!

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[TheEyes]

They are no longer the cool new guys tearing up the internet and being a company for the people. They are big, diversified, making money hand over fist, and have attracted the requisite controversy, criticism, and bad press that comes with being big and diversified and making money hand over fist.

Specifically, they're taking fire from all sides these days. It's been revealed that Microsoft is astroturfing against Google by paying "partners" to shill against it; no doubt other companies are doing the same. At the same time, media companies are scared of Google TV, Google News, Google Books, and other initiatives to increase customer choice in the media market and weaken the stranglehold that media conglomerates have over the US media landscape, and so are quickly joining on the anti-Google bandwagon. You can see the results: more people are worried about Google accidentally recording wifi data--and then attempting to destroy itwithout letting anyone else fish through it--than they are about the government conducting warantless roving wiretaps. Ridiculous.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[mrrudge]

I think Google's OS plans are to replace the need for Windows on a lot of devices and for a lot of people completely.

A perfectly working Wine extends the life of Windows by (not) emulating it, and Microsofts biggest customers are still likely to buy the 'official' version, especially when the FUD starts ?

I'd rather spend my millions working towards my customers using my product than an approximation of a rivals.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[TheEyes]

Wrong; Google announced the accident themselves, then proceeded to be jumped on by every news media agency (who coincidentally all happen to be pissed off that Google News is turning them into a commodity). The German government didn't get involved for months afterward.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[synthespian]

Currently my favorite too. Less noise.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[drinkypoo]

Google bought themselves considerable goodwill from thoughtful nerds who help influence purchasing decisions, and if it would have come out eventually anyway then this didn't cost them anything.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[TheEyes]

Correstion: there was no evidence that it was anything othergood; no corporation of any size can remain truly good for long. Google has, however, gotten closer than any other hugely successful tech company has in recent memory. Their only real mistake was to piss off the people who measure printer ink by the barrel--that is, the media companies--and are suffering the consequences: stupid nonsense "news" stories about how Google is evil, and idiots who blindly parrot what the magic talking box tells them to say.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[BlackSnake112]

Did google ever answer why they were collecting the data in the first place? They were making maps. So pictures and GPS coordinates should be taken. Why were NAT addresses of people's routers (and other things) taken? Something is up. If microsoft had done this, people would be calling for heads to roll, microsoft be sued then burned to the ground. What is google planning?

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[symbolset]

And if pigs had wings they'd be pigeons.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anrego]

What is google planning?

Lets assume evil. I'm of the opinion that it really was a mistake, but just for the heck of it, lets say that google was totally doing this on purpose. What _could_ they do with the data. This was never really talked about (at least not that I saw). What could an evil google do with the data they collected?

This isn't meant to be a troll or even an argument... but a legitimate point of discussion. Nothing which would be of much value really comes to my mind that they couldn't easily collect or are not are already collecting through all their other services. What would google do with the occasional username/password or fragmented data that would financially make sense?

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Threni]

> Try new Google Instant Razor (beta), it starts shaving as soon as you pick it up.

Until you turn it off because it's annoying and because you don't want a razor which starts as soon as you pick it up!

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[AvitarX]

I agree.

But there is more money in it for them to work on their documents products. I imagine with full-on HTML 5 they could make it happen pretty well (I know gmail worked well in offline or flaky connection mode, and I don't see why they can't make the documents more interface rich than they are).

Investing in Libre Office allows some migration to Linux, which may or may not be profitable for them (depends how many people use google even with bing being default vs how much they pay in royalties to Linux distros).

Investing in wine is very similar, allows more Linux, but it may cost them money as they pay more royalties (and has the risk you mention).

Having a Chromebook I predict it is dead in the water, it's nice, but not necessarily nicer than an Android tablet would be. It really needs some type of local storage. I really hope they get around to rebuilding the offline mail for gmail (had to disable it when allowing multiple signons). The ability to save shots from the camera, and upload from the included SD slot would be good. And they really need to get skype going on it somehow.

Android would just be a lot more useful.

Fighting MS for spite is not google's style, they want ad revenue, and will focus on that.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[MushMouth]

Please cite a source for this big reveal.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[iserlohn]

Google's majority of voting shares is still owned by the founders together with Eric Schmidt. As such, the company is a reflection of their wills as they effectively have tenure.

This will change eventually and there is a possibility that the whole corporate ethos may change for the worse. Cadbury ran a pretty ethical organization for over 180 years (partly derived from the founding family's Quaker roots), until Kraft bought them out. Especially despicable was Kraft's promise that the Keynsham factory was not to be closed if the merger went through. They reneged on that promise a few months after the acquisition was completed.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[aztektum]

It's more likely they'd stuff Android on laptops/desktops to unseat MS if they ever felt it necessary.

"All your favorite apps from your phone now available on your laptop/desktop!"

And why would they support LibreOffice when they are trying to build business around Google Docs?

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[losfromla]

+1 funny, lmao

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Aighearach]

Mucking around with Office was a huge waste for Sun.

In the end, once their business had evaporated then that wasn't a useful way to spend money. The best argument you could make would be that they didn't spot early enough.

In olden days, (the 90s) there were lots of places full of Sun workstations. Having some kind of Office package was important. It didn't need to be that great, it just needed to let engineers and other Sun users interact with the occasional document sent them by somebody using MS Office. It meant the difference between those workstations being all that engineer needed, and having to put 2 boxen at every cube.

Indeed, me using SunOffice on linux wasn't helping them. Probably didn't hurt them, either. The most expensive part is probably keeping up with printer drivers, and the printers look the same to any *nix.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Unkyjar]

Correction.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[exomondo]

The worst thing is that people with no idea were broadcasting their unencrypted data out into public spaces, anyone going past could capture and analyse that without any special equipment whatsoever.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[bonch]

And then I get silently modded down by a biased moderator. God, Slashdot's comment section sucks.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[AvitarX]

Considering they purchased StarOffice in 1999, I would say they were a little late to the party.

I could be wrong, but there appeared to be a lot of MS hate from Sun, perhaps justified, but that doesn't mean they need to retaliate. I would say remote desktop/citrix made the whole separate office suite irrelevant (WRT your explanation). They should-of just really pushed that (note, not actually used rdesktop, but it appears to be supported on Linux as a client).

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[dudpixel]

well who says they failed at social? they did orkut but never really marketted it (not in australia at least)...possibly because they knew it wouldn't win.

but youtube is the world's most popular video sharing website, and it certainly comes under the "social" banner.

So they failed at things like wave, and then buzz isn't what it could have been due to a few blunders, and they're not competing with facebook (yet).

but I dont think we've seen the end of google in this area. There's a lot of social aspects to google that people use without realising it. Google allows you to share your data in a lot of ways (google apps, picasaweb, docs) - its just that it hasn't tackled facebook/twitter head on yet and won...

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anrego]

I did kinda pause... but being a programmer I can see how stuff like this (even crazy "how the hell did that get by review" stuff) can make it out the door. Their explanation seemed perfectly reasonable, and the fact that they co-operated with all the investigations and didn't appear to be hiding anything gave them a lot of credibility in my opinion. I also could never come up with a reason why they would want to do it maliciously in the first place.

This isn't meant to be a troll.. I'm legitimately curious. What do people think an evil google (or any other company) would do with this kind of data? Seems like a lot of work for information people are already providing them en-masse.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Requiem18th]

It's worth noting (of course IMHO) that the reason they've failed at social networking has much to do with their refusal to be evil. They could have forced buzz on the vast, vast userbases of gmail and youtube. And used its immense search powers to build social profiles for everyone else, prepopulated with friends even.

Compared with facebook, Google has been squeakily clean.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Requiem18th]

Except it doesn't work. We find out anyway and they just end up looking dumb and evil instead of just evil. As much blackslash Google got because of the WiFi thing, it is still regarded higher in the Do No Evil department than its competitors.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Aighearach]

Only in retrospect. At the time it was not at all clear that they were late, and they were still selling lots of workstations running Solaris.

Heck my ISP was still running SunOS 4 on the user shell server.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[yuhong]

Yea, I always considered Google one of the better big companies.

Gee!

[hjf]

Gee! Some attention-whore journalist/blogger (I think that's redundant) claims google is dead, it MUST BE TRUE!

I won't believe it until Netcraft confirms it.

Re:Gee!

[Anne_Nonymous]

Tragedy today, as former leading search engine Google was eaten by wolves.

Re:Gee!

[idontgno]

Really.

Is this the first time the "Steven King is dead" slashtroll got onto the front page? Seems to me it isn't, but I may have mercifully forgotten specifics.

Re:Gee!

[bonch]

I bet you'd consider the article a piece of accurate journalism if it was favorable to Google.

Re:Gee!

[Patch86]

It's a troll, and not a particularly clever one.

Google is still untouchably dominant in search (their bread and butter). They're still the number one in online advertising (their juicy, profit making sandwich filling). Their mobile OS is now outselling most of their rivals (er... their sturdy lunchbox? yeah, I'm going to leave this analogy now). One of their executives arguably just triggered the overthrow of the Egyptian dictatorship (how many Silicon Valley firms can say that?). They're incredibly wealthy, incredibly powerful, and have (moderately succesful) toes in almost every aspect of online life (with the possible exception of social networking).

So they've not crushed Facebook or Twitter under their thumb, and Apple are still making a killing in the mobile space, and Microsoft are still stubbornly clinging to their share of the web search market. They're still doing pretty darned well, by most standards.

Re:Gee!

[vux984]

Pretty much... I mean the article boils down to this:

"Look no further than the recent uprising in Egypt. No one was scrawling Google's name on building walls as they did with Twitter Inc. and Facebook . As I wrote last week, even though a Google executive was at the center of the story, it was Facebook and Twitter that got all the attention. Google's lack of social tools was on full display."

So was Nike's and Nintendo's and Sony's and Disney's and Apple's and Groupon's ... wait... why the fuck is this relevant?

Secondly, I see the headline News story on CNN is that some American's on a hijacked yacht were killed by pirates, And get this, facebook wasn't even mentioned. I guess facebook is dead. Its social networking tools weren't on display at all here. How can it thrive and survive if even one event that has nothing to do with it doesn't somehow involve it anyway?

Re:Gee!

[hjf]

Seriously, no. I'm tired of advertisements in disguise. I'm not pro-google, pro-microsoft, pro-whatever. I use whatever suits my needs. I don't have a problem running cool and trendy open source "apps", or commercial products if they do what I need.

I'm a photographer, so I use Windows and Lightroom (where I live Macs are expensive).
I like games, so I have an XBOX.
I have a smartphone: it's a Motorola Milestone.
I have a server: it runs Oracle Solaris 11 Express
I manage other servers: they run Debian.

See what I mean?

Re:Gee!

[hjf]

LOL, but seriously, macs are way more expensive, because they're not imported or supported by Apple. The cheapest one is $2000 while I could get something similar from HP for $1000 or Asus for $800 or less.

oh rly.

[Anonymous Coward]

You expect me to take a google critique seriously from someone running asp.net?

Re:oh rly.

[SQLGuru]

Actually, it look more like Classic ASP. I don't see much in the source that would indicate otherwise. (ASP.NET tends to be -- isn't required, but tends to be --- .ASPX, not .ASP).

So, not only is the guy running on the Microsoft stack, he isn't even that current in it. I'm not sure I'd put too much creedence in any topic he discusses.

Whats with the google articles today?

[Reapman]

To answer the summary: No

I'd elaborate, but decided to go with the same depth this "summary" provides.

Re:Whats with the google articles today?

[DrgnDancer]

I think this was actually more informative than the article. Let alone the summary. "People in Egypt are not naming their babies "Google" therefore it is dying." ?!?

Re:Whats with the google articles today?

[heptapod]

Gotta be a conspiracy since there were two JRR Tolkein-related articles posted yesterday!

Re:Whats with the google articles today?

[nzap]

What happened to golden days of slashdot where you could feign reading TFA by instead reading TFS?

Marketshare

[Sockatume]

Not to rip on an article that's just a bunch of one-sentence summaries of other articles and a saucy eyebrow-raise, but the 1% drop cited in the article is in search marketshare. The total value of search ads went up by about 10% in the same period, meaning that Google's revenues almost certainly grew over that period. It's just that they grew slightly more slowly than the newcomers.

Re:Marketshare

[magus_melchior]

That's about the same level of detail and attention span as the typical day trader, who chases after the latest get-rich-quick scheme that flashes something shiny or sexy.

Nuance and sense are not part of that thought process, unfortunately.

WTF?

[doubleplusungodly]

A pretty large majority of the article went into arguing that just because Google lacks good social networking tools, it is declining. What kind of logic is that?

Re:WTF?

[bigstrat2003]

Hell if I know. When I found out that was his "reasoning", I stopped listening to him. Oh noes, only social networking sites can run a successful business! Because people aren't raving in the streets about how great Google is, they're on death's doorstep! This author is an idiot.

Re:WTF?

[kiwimate]

If you see social networking as being a genuine paradigm shift rather than just a segment of the market, then it's pretty solid logic, actually. It's the same kind of logic that said Microsoft had no choice but to bolster their game when it became apparent they were lacking on the internet side of the game, back when Netscape Navigator was king.

* And yes, I used the word paradigm because it's appropriate in this context. Don't attack the supposed buzzword; respond to the argument I make, please.

Re:WTF?

[calmofthestorm]

(begin all caps) zomg social networks are going to replace email, search, im, subversion, ssh, and dynamically loadable kernel modules!!! singularity lol! (end all caps)

Social networking is clearly an important and growing field, but let's try to keep things in perspective.

Re:WTF?

[pz]

A pretty large majority of the article went into arguing that just because Google lacks good social networking tools, it is declining. What kind of logic is that?

Especially since Google owns Orkut, a, um, social networking site.

http://www.orkut.com/About.aspx

And, actually, it was one of the first, and I understand it to be big in India and Brazil. According to the Wikipedia article on Orkut, the social networking site that the author of the OP's article is ignoring is flirting with the top 100 most visited sites in the world.

The conclusion? Poor journalism. Again. What is up with Taco these days? He knows better.

Re:WTF?

[drinkypoo]

Especially since Google owns Orkut, a, um, social networking site.

You mean, a Brazilian social network invitation spam mill? I was using Orkut briefly before Brazil discovered it and then it became unusable...

Re:WTF?

[hey!]

Actually, can somebody explain to me what is so specieal about facebook and its services?

Not to denigrate the work facebook engineers have done in scaling the service, the operation of facebook seems horribly broken to me. Privcy is, of course, broken, but it's broken because the service itself is so crude.

even his face seems like the face of the troll

[mapkinase]

http://img.lightreading.com/internetevolution/RonMiller.gif

look at the smugly smile.

What the heck is Google?

[aplusjimages]

Never mind I'll just Yahoo it.

Re:What the heck is Google?

[waldonova]

Is Yahoo a verb now? That's my measure of a good search engine. I remember the heady days when things were Alta Vistilated.

Re:What the heck is Google?

[Torvac]

OMG let me yahoo that for you i mean
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=is+yahoo+a+verb+now
and to be totally funny google returns as No.1:
"Is google a verb now? - Yahoo! Answers"

Re:What the heck is Google?

[calmofthestorm]

not sure, let me Bing that for you on Google.

Best Days... for who?

[Anonymous Coward]

For me? For you? Or for Google?

Re:Best Days... for who?

[dudpixel]

exactly. I'd say their best days in terms of users worshipping them are behind them...but their best days in terms of their company's success are still to come.

Youtube

[Anonymous Coward]

They certainly took the glory out of youtube with their lame advertising.

Re:Youtube

[redemtionboy]

You mean by turning it into a profitable business? Or should things remain like twitter and just be a giant money pit for the pleasure of the proletariat.

Re:Youtube

[Kosi]

I do not see any advertising on youtube, maybe because I put some glory in my browsers (often called AdblockPlus). :)

Every time I have to see the web without a proper ad- and flash-blocking solution (mostly FF with ABP, NoScript and RequestPolicy) , I wonder how people endure that annoying ads (often animated, with sound, and sometimes even more amount than the real content) everywhere all the time. I don't even watch "free" TV (just in case someone doesn't understand: meaning the ad-financed TV stations that do not require subscription, not pay-TV like Sky or gov't financed TV like BBC) because of the increasing annoyancy factor (not only because of that, the content is much too often too worse at the former). You can't even get around the commercials by recording and skipping the ads because they blend in fidgeting stuff all the time, and in the USA it seems to be even worse.

At least they don't cut out so much of the violent scences (which has nothing to do with ads, but is another TV annoyancy here in Germany), it can happen that after a cut two people just miss from the scene without anyone - except those having seen the full movie - knowing why (and that was IIRC Robocop at 20:15 or even later, not some sunday afternoon family movie). In opposite we are not so moronic to believe that the view of a naked breast can do any harm to anyone. Wasn't it Jack Nicholson who once said something about how stupid it is in the USA, that there's not a problem when he smashes an axe into a woman's head, but it is when he passionately kisses the woman (anyone a link for that?)?

OK, running a webserver costs money, (maybe) providing the content will cost, too. But since we left the times of the single, static and silent ad-banner on top of the site (and maybe some little ads on the right and left of the page, which is not restricted to a fixed column-size), the ad companies completely lost me.

Oh, and for you "blocking ads is killing websites"-idiots out there: Exactly how many printed magazines perished in history because people just flick to the next page when they see an ad (which is what most people do)? And how many TV stations got broke because people zapped or went away during commercials? Yes, it's exactly zero!

To say it in other words: "we've already paid for your damn ads, so watch them yourself or go and torment someone else with them!"

Mentality

[redemtionboy]

Google is successful and will continue to remain successful both in a quality product sense and a fiscal sense because of one thing, they continue to think like a startup instead of a conglomerate. Things like 20% time have been major assets to their success, and as long as they keep that focus on fresh ideas from within, Google will continue to be successful. A few stumblings here and there aside.

Re:Mentality

[Shadow Wrought]

A few stumblings here and there aside.

True. If you're not trying something new then tehre can't be a stumble. Google is willing to try new things and take risks. When they are no longer willing to to do, when the fear of failure overcomes their desire to improve, that's when they will have their best days behind them.

that is what happens...

[Mr.Fork]

...when you have the best search engine, tied to the best internet ad support, tied to great free thought-provoking-industry changing office products, map tools, tool bars for your browser, chat tools, phone tools, and it all comes from ONE company. What else can you do when everyone is watching every move, ever senior management comment, every action?

Then again, it does beg to ask, is this typical media bullsheit with typical negative stories that are solely geared towards making money rather than a balanced approach to news reporting? When does the news cross the line when it starts focusing on areas that it's owners have a vested interest in ensuring their 'enemy' is bashed at every opportunity? Is this really a sponge-worthy story?

Re:that is what happens...

[ph1ll]

Reminds me of when The Economist was predicting the doom of Google:

"Punters would be much wiser to read about Google’s IPO than to invest in it, if only to tell their children about a company they haven’t heard of because it no longer exists." - April 30 2004

"But Google has another disadvantage ... competition is fierce, not only with Yahoo!'s advertising arm, Overture, but with smaller players such as FindWhat.com and Kanoodle." - April 29 2004

"In trying to morph into an operating-system firm or online ad agency, Google is less a leader than a novice." - April 29 2004

These quote seem laughable a few years later but some people just don't seem to get it. Google isn't going away anytime soon.

The weird thing is why people keep saying it is.

Re:that is what happens...

[williamhb]

...when you have the best search engine, tied to the best internet ad support, tied to great free thought-provoking-industry changing office products, map tools, tool bars for your browser, chat tools, phone tools, and it all comes from ONE company. What else can you do when everyone is watching every move, ever senior management comment, every action?

On the other hand, 12 years into its life Google still gets the vast majority of its earnings from its original product. And despite telling the world for a decade that it gives its employees 20% time so the "next big thing" will come from within Google, almost all its other successful products (including Docs, Maps, and Android) have been acquisitions rather than internal inventions. Like Microsoft since the late nineties / early 2000s, they are desperately trying to leverage into new markets to keep growing. Sometimes they will manage it. MS built their XBox business long after they had ceased to be seen as "at their peak" as a company. But even as MS muscled its way into the games console space, would people have said they were "as innovative as they once were"?

Google's Bad Press

[thestudio_bob]

Google's bad press? Well, they do want to be like Apple. It comes with the territory.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Not a great article

[Jim Hall]

I read the article (it's not that long) but let me save you the trouble: it's not a great article. In fact, it's pointless. You don't need to read very far before he presents his conclusion:

While Google is still clearly riding high in the general consumer market, it seems to have lost its innovative edge, the one variable that always seemed to help it stay ahead of the market. But whether the company has peaked or not is still an open question.

Emphasis mine.

So the tech writer (Ron Miller) doesn't know either. He presents both sides, and seems totally unsure about what he's talking about. To summarize the article:

• Facebook and Twitter got the tech attention during the Egypt riots, not Google. [Not sure what his point is, here.]
• JC Penney's tampering with their search results
• Google might lose ground to vertical search in the future
• Google dropped 1% in comScore

But:

• Google still controls 2/3 of the market, and 1% not a trend.
• Google doing well with Android
• Bing not a threat
• It's all about perception, anyway.

So yeah, this was a pointless article.

"Bad Press" == MS sponsored smear campaign?

[walterbyrd]

Political Games Against Google

Re:"Bad Press" == MS sponsored smear campaign?

[walterbyrd]

Forgot to include this:

CNET Shows Anti-Google AstroTurf (‘Consumer’ ‘Watchdog’) is Connected to Edelman, “Microsoft Goes on the Offensive” Against Google

Re:"Bad Press" == MS sponsored smear campaign?

[nschubach]

Yeah, don't forget Glenn Beck! I still cringe when I think my Dad just asked me for a new email provider because Glenn said to quit using Google...

Quick! Someone tell m$

[phonewebcam]

They need to create a search engine.

Depends on what Google does.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Google's not dead yet, and as long as they continue to dominate search and a few other niches(Maps, email), they'll be alive.

This would be like asking if Apple's best days are in the past when they were going through their revolving door of CxOs. If asked then, the answer would've been overwhelmingly "yes."

Re:Depends on what Google does.

[0123456]

Google's not dead yet, and as long as they continue to dominate search and a few other niches(Maps, email), they'll be alive.

The problem is that they're trying to dominate search by making it 'smarter', with the end result that it increasingly sucks. Most times I look for anything out of the ordinary using very clear search terms I end up with 90+% of the results being crap I don't want because it 'intelligently' decided that I wasn't looking for what I was asking it to search for.

So I'm definitely looking for a better alternative for searches which isn't trying so hard. Yeah, I know I can put magic characters in the search thing so it actually searches for the thing I asked it to search for, but I shouldn't have to do that.

Re:Depends on what Google does.

[CAIMLAS]

I started using a minimalized Bing search recently because I got tired of the seeded and mostly useless Google results. It seems to be doing better for technical esoterica than Google has in the past year, though I'm not sure how much of that is due to Google breaking their search and how much of it is due to the ad placements.

Bing Maps, likewise, blows the ever loving shit out of Google Maps at this point - if you want to print it or have a bird's eye/overhead view of the target. Compared to the bird's eye on Bing, the Google sat view is a useless gimmick.

Re:Depends on what Google does.

[Kosi]

https://www.duckduckgo.com/

Best USENET archive days are long-gone

[davidwr]

I can't speak for the rest of Google but the days when I could rely on its USENET archives are long gone.

Anyone else remember the pre-Google dejanews.com?

Re:Best USENET archive days are long-gone

[Kosi]

Yep, that's how it often goes when big money buys smaller firm with cooler products. Not that big money's products become cool because of the bought knowledge, more often the products lose their coolness. Just think of Symantec destroying everything the name Peter Norton ever stood for after buying the company. And it's a pity to say that the story's headline makes much more sense when you replace "Google" with Usenet.

btw, what's going on in the Usenet these days? Haven't been there for years now, once in a while I still have attacks of murderous rage against the asshole at M$ who decided to put newsgroups into Outlook Express. :)

Re:Best USENET archive days are long-gone

[yuhong]

There were once a time where the search was broken, and it was painful for a user of Groups search as big as myself, but that seems to have been mostly fixed by now.

Whoopdeedoo

[cstanley8899]

It's a search engine. Who cares? Honestly, Google has to be the most overrated company in U.S. history. Perhaps it is more like "People stop caring as much about overrated company". In that sense I have to say "Congratulations America!"

Re:Whoopdeedoo

[geminidomino]

It's a search engine. Who cares?

These days, google is a search engine the same way emacs is a text editor (see this comment)

--A vi user

Re:Whoopdeedoo

[d4nowar]

So simulate the experience of vi on any search engine, open a new window and slide your face across the keyboard a couple of times, then press enter.

--An emacs user.

Schmidt ?

[unity100]

isnt this why sergei and larry sacked schmidt recently ? because he was taking google away from the principles, and causing anti-consumer scandals ?

Re:bleat!

[bazmail]

Oh god, a google fanboy. Is that even a thing?

They're "The Man" in my eyes

[GodfatherofSoul]

The insane privacy violations, hand-to-mouth relationship with the Feds, crappy search results, blah blah blah. There are a lot of corporations run by douche bags that I'm forced to interact with every day. Will I still use Google? Yes? Do I have my Applehead loyalty to them any more? No!

Re:They're "The Man" in my eyes

[Tuan121]

Will I still use Google? Yes? Do I have my Applehead loyalty to them any more? No!

Well, will you still use Google?

Re:They're "The Man" in my eyes

[GodfatherofSoul]

lol smartass YES

Re:Waiting for that 404

[DrgnDancer]

Whatever next? Microsoft sucks? Nah. They know who pays them bar bills.

And man can Microsoft pay a bar bill. Went to Supercomputing06 in Tampa. Microsoft rented an entire (small, but upscale) *mall* for their show party. Everything was free: live music all night, open bar (and not just well stuff, Bombay Sapphire and tonic? Sure!)... It was awesome. Of course, I still didn't want to buy their cluster computing OS, but it was a Hell of a party.

Turned to gold, eh?

[LeoZ]

So everything that Google's touched has turned to gold? Like Gmail where you can't sort emails by sender or by subject? Where emails whose subject lines match existing label filters still end up in the Spam folder? Where searching doesn't always work in the spam folder? Or Google Groups where (last time I checked about a year ago) you couldn't integrate a Google Calendar into your Google Group and, instead, had to use an external link? Or Google Documents where you can't create columns in a text document? Or Google Maps where, up until this year, you couldn't clear your search results without having to refresh the page? My point is that Google starts projects but doesn't finish them. When Google actually decides to focus on completing existing projects then they'll start turning things to gold. Until then....

Re:Turned to gold, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

.... you will keep complaining over trivial features.

Re:Turned to gold, eh?

[Archangel Michael]

Sort Emails by Sender ... "Labels"
Sort by Subject ... "Labels"

Labels are much more powerful than "sort", at least to me. Labels create a multisort capability that no classic email can provide. If you take the time to build your Labels correctly, they'll do everything you want and more. I've stopped using Thunderbird for Gmail a long time ago because it just felt clunky.

IF you want to use a classic email interface, use Thunderbird or Outlook Express, and you'll even get the benefits of being able to read your email when offline!

Re:Turned to gold, eh?

[LeoZ]

Trivial features? The ability to sort email is a trivial feature? The ability to create columns in a Word Processor is a trivial feature?

Re:Turned to gold, eh?

[LeoZ]

No, I can't name similar flaws from their competitors. I can create columns in Word or OpenOffice. I can have a calendar within my group in Yahoo groups. My point is that Google is creating products and selling them (like Google Docs) to people yet they are aware that the feature sets are severely limited. They need to devote more time and energy to fleshing their products out methinks.

just because their best days aren't past

[poetmatt]

Doesn't mean that their competitors wouldn't want to refer to google as dead or nonexistent.

In the meantime, google has had it's screwups, and had it's successes, and is doing far better than it's competitors because competition is fucking lazy and doing a bad job. Surprise? Not really.

Chrome and Android

[kwishot]

The numbers speak for themselves:

Chrome release: September 2008
Chrome market share; Dec 2009: 4.63%
Chrome market share; Feb 12011: 10.7%

Android release: September 2008
Android smartphone market share; Q1 2010: 9%
Android smartphone market share; Q4 2010: 33%

Once upon a time...

[gstrickler]

Many year ago, I used to bookmark various search engines. Everyone knew Yahoo, Google was only for the "in the know" crowd. If you didn't find it there, you went to Alta Vista, or Excite, or lycos, or some other engine that I bookmarked because I never used it enough to remember the name. I don't bookmark search engines anymore, I just Google it. Even even if I need a Babelfish translation, I Google "babelfish".

Gmail beats yahoo mail. While yahoo seems to do a pretty good job of filtering spam from my yahoo mail acct, some makes it through, and some legit messages go into it's spam folder. I never get spam on my gmail acct, and the web interface is about 2x as fast.

Google Maps beats Mapquest and Bing maps. Fast, reliable, flexible, and easy to read. Not to mention funny (try getting directions from Japan to China or Japan to Los Angeles).

Gee, I guess Google's best days are in the past. How could I have missed that?

Oh wait, Chrome is new, and fast. It's faster than Safari, even on Mac OS. It includes Adobe Flash built-in, so I don't have the Flash Player plug-in installed on my machine for any other browser. If I want/need to use a site that requires Flash, I use Chrome for that site. If it doesn't work in Chrome...actually, I haven't encountered that yet, so I can't say for certain what I would do.

Re:Once upon a time...

[gstrickler]

Oops, I left out Android. From 0% to ~33% market share in 2 years. Yep, Google is definitely on the way down.

Re:Once upon a time...

[EpsCylonB]

interesting that none of those things by themselves would generate much money

would you pay to do a google search or would you just use a free alternative instead?

Re:Once upon a time...

[Hatta]

Google is still better than any other option by a longshot. That doesn't mean its best days aren't behind it. Google today is much less useful than Google 5 years ago. If you only ever look for things that are easy to find, Google is great. Finding an obscure piece of information in the sea of forum posts, ecommerce sites, and straight up spam is becoming harder.

Re:Once upon a time...

[gstrickler]

interesting that none of those things by themselves would generate much money

Google's bottom line suggests otherwise.

Re:Once upon a time...

[gstrickler]

How is Google less useful today than it was 5 years ago?

Re:Once upon a time...

[Hatta]

Read the two sentences that follow that assertion.

Re:Once upon a time...

[gstrickler]

Those two sentences don't actually say anything about how it's less useful today than it was 5 years ago. While data in forums may be harder to find than some other types of data, that was no better 5 years ago. Personally, I don't have any trouble finding information in forums using Google.

So, I ask again, how is Google less useful than it was 5 years ago?

Re:Once upon a time...

[Hatta]

No, I mean the google results are clogged with irrelevant forum posts, blatant copies of wikipedia etc. Five years ago, if you were searching something obscure you'd get the usual highly rated links at the top. You'd ignore those because you're looking for something obscure, so you'd go to the next couple pages of results. Back in the early 2000s, you could actually find useful things beyond the first page of results. Not so much anymore.

Also, in the past 5 years Google has been increasingly returning results that don't contain the search phrase. Even if you mark the query with quotes and plus signs. I don't have an example handy, but it happens frequently enough.

Also, Google has started thinking that it's smarter than me. It's been returning results for the query it thinks I should have asked instead of the query I actually made.

All of these things add up to a significant quality drop in the past years.

Re:Once upon a time...

[gstrickler]

Thanks for the clarification. I find the biggest issue to be duplicated info from different sites, I don't usually find it to be a problem. Occasionally, it makes a search a little more difficult, but even when it does, a slightly more specific search usually gets results. Overall, I can't say that I find it significantly worse than 5-10 years ago.

My perception

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

A site that has an article telling us how "nosql databases go mobile" isn't one that I take too seriously.

From 0 to Market Leader in the phone industry...

[PinchDuck]

in 2 years. Yeah, they're moribund.
Whatever.

Google's revenue...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html

Considering that Google posted a 24% revenue increase last year, I really cannot recognize a Google "in decline". IMHO, it is still the best search engine out there.

Predict everything!

[Drunkulus]

This "journalist" is simply following the tried-and-true method of hacks like Roberts Scoble and Cringely. Predict every possible outcome, then in a couple years sit back and point out what an incredible track record you have.

No, blogging's best days are in the past

[Animats]

The article is from some clueless blogger type, and reads like something from a content mill.

Google does have problems. The biggest one is that most of their "products" lose money. YouTube finally has become ad-heavy enough to make money, the first product other than search to go into the black. Google buys market share by giving stuff away, but revenue usually doesn't follow. Being #1 in giving away mail service isn't a business. Android, as a business, loses money. Google has never had a second killer profitable product, and not for lack of trying.

On the search front, Google's defenses against spam are weak. That's technically fixable, but fixing it would cut into the 30% of revenue that comes from AdSense sites, most of which are junk. Google's recent bad press stems from their addiction to revenue from junk sites.

As for "social", that looks like a bubble. Facebook is way overpriced as a company. Facebook already has so much obnoxious advertising that it's hard to see where they can generate more revenue without becoming even more annoying. Facebook tried a phone once; it was called Helio. Didn't work.

Google does have a "social" system, Orkut, It's #1 in Brazil but nowhere else, much to the annoyance of Google executives.

Re:No, blogging's best days are in the past

[marcosdumay]

Orkut is losing ground to Facebook at Brazil.

Re:No, blogging's best days are in the past

[Animats]

Check your facts, Android makes money, it's in the black

That article says it has revenue, not profits. There's a difference.

Google is close to its all-time highs

[symbolset]

On the Real-time top 500 GOOG is number 6 and threatening to knock Microsoft out of the top five. Yeah, they're not growing as fast as they once did, but they bounced back from the recession nicely and people who bought the dip are doing fine. Microsoft, on the other hand, isn't.

Yeah, there are other stocks that are better to be in - HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, AAPL. But Goog has great prospects too.

Re:She isn't dead, and she isn't slow

[synthespian]

Hey Anon, you just made me realize something: say IBM uses Watson-derived tech to put searches into our phones, using our voices? In that scenario, Google is not so cutting edge.

In the future, they be just a company selling phone (as the other search engines get better), or a company selling data (like Google Street View).

The GOOG thinks they're eternal. But we know the truth: only IBM is eternal. ;-)

Clearly, Yes.

[mfh]

Google caters to the dregs of internet marketing. I'm not speaking about the good companies out there who just want to promote their services. I'm talking about the SEO types who spam and break any of the rules they want, to turn quick bucks on poor schmucks. Google pretends they aren't in league with these guys but Google profits from that money as probably the largest chunk of cash they generate from search. There are many stories of Google freezing adwords/adsense assets of reputable and degenerate folks alike -- refusing to pay out, and playing all kinds of games when it comes to money that would otherwise deplete Google's bottom line. Google does not reimburse these funds so it's free money for them or perhaps they charge some of it off as service charges.

At any rate, Google is not the paragon of value it once was. It's too big to have a clear vision. It's clear Google has abandoned it's motto of doing no evil, because that's kinda impractical to their opportunity, and therefore the organization is in decline from its original greatness. Many evil companies turn very high profit today, so we may continue to see profits from Google -- but we cannot expect to see them in the forefront should a paragon company surface and gain momentum. Google is relegated to the moral equivalent of Yahoo.

The fundamentals speak to the rise or fall of an organization so I foresee an eventual decline in Google if we can get a Mark Zuckerberg to launch something disruptive in the search market. P2P decentralized search is probably the best idea going as of right now and it wouldn't be controlled by one organization, only a group of open source developers. That would be paragon enough.

Open Standards

[Lorien_the_first_one]

I agree with you but wanted to add and maybe emphasize a point: open standards. I can't think of another big company that is pushing open standards in the same way with the same enthusiasm as Google is. They are helping to foster diversity in the browser market in a way that no other for profit company has done before (if you can think of a better example, let me know, really). Whether or not Chrome takes the lead in browser market share doesn't matter to them. What mattered to them, and me, is that they made open standards an important part of the debate over internet standards. I consider their actions regarding open standards to be an offering of goodwill that tends to get overlooked.

I think that attitude will extend the life of the company and very likely point the way towards better days ahead.

I would go so far and say this

[Asaf.Zamir]

Google 2003 = Microsoft 1998
Google 2011 = Microsoft 2006
Facebook 2011 = Google 2003

American culture.

[MaWeiTao]

Culturally, Americans seem to have a problem with leaders. They have a strong inclination to rally behind the underdog, or at least whoever manages to continue effectively marketing themselves as such.

The perception is that Google is a leader, so it's inevitable that we're starting to hear that their best days are supposedly behind them. I don't know how the hell Apple pulls it off, but they continue to maintain this perception that they're an anti-establishment underdog.

I can appreciate the desire to root for the small guy, but people sometimes take it to the point of being irrational, especially when people are completely ignorant about the reality behind all the marketing.

Re:American culture.

[caywen]

You mean, we Americans like to keep our leaders in check? Yeah, that's a serious flaw.

Re:American culture.

[sydneyfong]

I don't know how the hell Apple pulls it off

Unless if you ask the collective minds of the hoards of Apple Haters on Slashdot that is.

Where does the bad press come from?

[miffo.swe]

As always when someone competes with Microsoft, where does the bad press stem from originally?

Microsoft has been working hard. First they tried to paint Google as privacys biggest enemy, despite generally much better policies than most competitors.
This never took off once people started to compare the different privacy policies and found out that Google is infact pretty decent amongst the others.

Then Microsoft tried to and still tries to drag Google into monopoly scrutiny. This isnt bad, Google should be checked and scrutinized, but coming from Microsoft its just silly. None of the accusations has sticked so far so most if not all seems like nothing but hot air from Redmond.

Personally i see it as if Microsoft is waging a PR battle against Google. As long as Google is viewed upon as the generally good guys Microsoft cant compete, especially not in the social network and cloud services area where trust is number one.

Hard to read

[sproketboy]

Too many instances of Ron Millers face.... blech...

They haven't peaked yet

[Maudib]

I don't think negative press means squat. The success of Android means that their best days are ahead of them. As their tools become more pervasive, their knowledge of us all grows. The more google knows, the more ads they sell and the more money they make.

Is Google's presence in your average person's life going to increase or decrease? Thats the direction their profits are going.

Are Microsoft's Best Days In the Past?

[ozbird]

Fixed that for you. Worst. Astroturf. Ever!

BS!

[hesaigo999ca]

Ok, how much is M$ crapola paying you to come up with these stupid articles, I mean come on, really?
Think to write some stuff to slam google even though there is no credible thing you are saying in your article, just makes you look plain dumb!
And citing a website that is owned by an former M$ employee that is now self employed as a blogger sure amounts to wishwash if you ask me...do you know how to WHOIS? Of course I will get blasted by all those who favor M$ but then again, guess what.....IDC

Their revenue is as fragile as Microsoft's

[caywen]

Google is in some danger from Bing. Bing is nearing a point of critical mass in quality and usefulness that could translate into market share momentum. In the end, companies will divvy their ad spend accordingly. Handset search is also on, and it's a pitched battle in a high hardware turnover environment. Apple and Microsoft dislike each other, but they both are fostering a special hate for Google. Google has to out-innovate both of them like hell, and while it's doing a fine job, it must be taxing to say the least.

Bad press because the press has a stake this time

[dbIII]

They came clean, admitted everything, co-operated with the investigations and people still tore them 12 new ones.

In my opinion they got incredible amounts of bad press, mostly in the Murdoch press, because Rupert Murdoch sees them as a major competitor for the advertising dollar and will rip them "12 new ones" any chance he can get.
Did you notice it happened in the middle of his international roadshow where he's been going around trying to convince governments to restrict the net and stifle such things as Google and BBC online?

Re:TEH GOOGLE IS LIVING IN THE PAST !!

[haruchai]

It's not that they won a Grammy - it's the category. Jethro Tull was an awesome band back in the day. I'm not familiar with too much of their stuff after the early '80s and not at all with Crest of a Knave but I would never class them as Hard Rock, which is what they won. So new categories, belatedly, were created after something of an uproar.

Re:"a slew of bad press"...

[ibsteve2u]

I tend to concur...it is what google did that created "the bad press".

And what is up with this anthropomorphizing corporations, anyway? "Google" didn't do squat - but the people running Google did.

Anthropomorphizing corporations only makes things worse, 'cuz although it is the people who run those corporations that do the bad things, if you have a corporation wrapped around you then suddenly you're immune from responsibility for what you have the corporation do. And then with the Supreme Court and Citizens United coming along to make it even worse by naming corporations "people" who can spend money to influence the course of America's government when any jackwagon knows that it is really a handful of people in the executive suite who are spending that corporation's money to get what they want....

It's getting weird out.

Re:In the snow, uphill both ways...

[Surt]

I'd have to disagree. I know how to search. My results from Google have been steadily headed downhill over the last two years.
Yes, the result I want is still in there. But no, it's not usually on the first page of results any more.

Re:what does old friend Chris Dibona say?

[Kosi]

Is that you, Chris? Or why else are you posting as an AC? :-)

No

[WindBourne]

Their problem is that they are not paying attention to all the dirty pool that MS is up to. They need to do the same back-behind-the-scence kind of work that MS does against them.

Re:In the snow, uphill both ways...

[RocketRabbit]

No, Google's results have tended on a downward curve for years now. Composing a search which does not include SEO results involves endless iterations of this process:

bananas, bananas -viagra, bananas -viagra -cialis, bananas -viagra -cialis -prescription, bananas -viagra -cialis -prescription -poker

and so forth. What doesn't help matters is that many of the sites that are clearly SEO spam also have Google-based ads, so why would Google be interested in removing them? They make money every time you click on one of their pathetic results whether or not the result is topical to the search.

Re:Waiting for that 404

[drinkypoo]

Of course, I still didn't want to buy their cluster computing OS, but it was a Hell of a party.

Nobody knows how to give away alcohol without converting anyone to their cause like Microsoft.

Re:In the snow, uphill both ways...

[Belial6]

I have to agree with this. I keep hearing how Google searches don't work anymore, but other than a few specific cases, Google is almost always spot on. Even the few specific cases I can think of are actually on topic, they are just behind a paywall, and I am not prepared to pay for the information the site has.

Re:In the snow, uphill both ways...

[symbolset]

This is because Google searches are personalized now. Stop searching for male enhancement drugs and online casinos and it will change. You have managed to convince Google that's what you're interested in.

Re:In the snow, uphill both ways...

[dudpixel]

With little basis to go on, I'd have to say this is a perception problem, and was guaranteed to happen.

Back in the early days, search wasn't that great. Google simplified it and beat the others by a smarter algorithm.

Now that everyone is used to it, they expect to keep getting that same improvement, year on year.

When it doesn't happen, suddenly Google appears to be stagnating when in fact it just isn't advancing like the users want.

Otherwise it should be easy for some other search engine to just do what google did 3 years ago and profit. This isn't happening...so maybe people aren't searching for the same things, or there is more crap on the internet, or what was relevant years ago is no longer relevant now...and vice versa...

I think your diagnosis is too narrow. How do you judge search engine relevance? There are no criteria, really.

Re:In the snow, uphill both ways...

[RocketRabbit]

Sure, buddy.

Try this from a "new" ip, or from a public library. The results are just as bad.

Re:In the snow, uphill both ways...

[Lumpy]

Some of their "advancing" can be letting me add in permanent exclusions to my searches when logged in.

let me have a line where I ad in my -SEOscumbaglinkfarm.com -expertanswers.com etc..... and they are applied every single time I search until I change them.

Re:In the snow, uphill both ways...

[toddestan]

Google search is broken in the sense that it returns results not for what I searched for, but what it thinks I wanted to search for. That mostly means words that are spelled similar to my search (but have nothing to do with it otherwise), or results that contain only some or none of the terms I searched for. Now, I don't mind Google suggesting alternative searches based upon words I might have misspelled, but I prefer the actual results match the actual search terms I typed in. Yes, I know I can force it by using '+' in front of the terms, but lately I've been using other search engines that behave like what I expect without trickery.