James Whittaker: Focus on Ads and 'Social' Destroying Google

theodp writes "In June 2009, Google welcomed James Whittaker as its newest Test Director. In February 2012, Whittaker rejoined Microsoft. On Tuesday, Whittaker explained why he left Google: 'The Google I was passionate about,' Whittaker writes, 'was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus ...The old Google was a great place to work. The new one? -1.' Welcome to the real world, quips CNET's Charles Cooper in response to Whittaker's still-awesome-even-if-a-tad-naive rant." More from from his post: "It turns out that there was one place where the Google innovation machine faltered and that one place mattered a lot: competing with Facebook ... Google could still put ads in front of more people than Facebook, but Facebook knows so much more about those people. Advertisers and publishers cherish this kind of personal information ... Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong. Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+. It was an ominous name invoking the feeling that Google alone wasn't enough."

Comments

huh?

[MickyTheIdiot]

So he moved back to Microsoft? Huh? Don't get it.

Now he'll experience a "corporate mandate called $variable"
where $variable = { "the cloud" , "Windows 8" , "whatever marketing thinks up next" }

Re:huh?

[Phics]

In my youth, I moved back to a company I had left for a couple years. For me, it was simply a comfort thing - I was familiar with the policies, people, and surroundings. I'm not saying those aspects of the company were any good, and it turned out to be a terrible move; I was much happier elsewhere in the end. I'm also not saying that is why Mr. Whittaker returned, but humans tend to find some solace in familiarity - especially if the pay is good.

Re:huh?

[IamTheRealMike]

Hi, I work on the Google accounts team (on spam and security).

I just want to clarify something. We don't merge accounts using non-explicit / ambient information like you are suggesting. I suspect what happened is that at some point, you used your Gmail account on YouTube and we noticed you already had a YouTube account (you were logged in to both). When YT was acquired it obviously had its own account system and over time, that has been integrated with the regular Google account system. As part of that accounts have been merged together. It may be that you don't remember this happening, but we definitely don't try and spot related accounts and merge them without some explicit user action.

I'm not sure why you think people would be able to see your YouTube viewing history. That's a private part of your account, it's hard to imagine that ever changing. Unless your account gets hacked nobody else can see it, and we put a lot of effort in to try and stop account compromises (it's what I work on all day, in fact).

Anyway, a lot of peoples concerns about privacy boil down to (a) transparency and (b) control. That's what BasilBrushes concerns seem to be about and it's completely understandable. The Dashboard (www.google.com/dashboard) might help. This stuff is discussed in the privacy principles document, which is the official voice of the company on the topic. I actually think Google has got a lot better at these principles (transparency, control) over the last few years - we have made things like Chrome incognito mode, the Dashboard, the Ads Preferences Manager, added better security against hackers (no.1 privacy threat) etc. But peoples expectations have gone up even faster, so there's still lots of work to do.

Normal lifecycle...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exciting startup with a couple of people does exciting things, attracts excited developers because they can do exciting things.
Over time company gets big, has to worry about shareholders and lots of internal politics with growing levels of management.
Company is grown up, things slow down, life becomes boring, bored developers seeking excitement move on to next startup.

Are there any exceptions?

When will the users start leaving?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has gone nuts with the ads. A few years ago there were plenty of text ads: nice and non-intrusive ones, but noticeable. Then they moved to images and then flash! It used to be the innocent child of the web, now it is the creepy old man hanging around the playground. I have been gradually moving away from their products - my default search engine is duckduckgo - but gmail still has me by the balls. Its only a matter of time though.

Re:Google missed an even bigger opportunity

[dzfoo]

They didn't miss that opportunity, they dismissed it. They went on the path of becoming a search appliance, back when they were trying to find a stable business model. The 20% was also a way to fund research and development into new or orthogonal markets, and it made their employees happy to boot.

For a while it all looked good and the strategy seemed solid.

Then the advertising money started flooding their profit margins. All of a sudden, it became clear which direction they should go.

From that day on, they became a one-trick pony.

It's not that they sucked at everything else, it's that nothing that they have produced so far could match the rate at which advertising fills their coffers. There was no way to return to being an engineering or technology company if by doing so they had to lower their profits.

It didn't matter if they could succeed, they needed to make more money!

Eventually, this brutal mentality trickled down to the engineers and the rest of the crew. It's clear to most people now that, for all their perks and occasional technical brilliance, Google is no longer a technology company.

            -dZ.

Smart people can be dumb.

[mcmonkey]

Google could still put ads in front of more people than Facebook, but Facebook knows so much more about those people.

Knowing nothing of James Whittaker other than what is in the summary, and having not RTFA, I'll assume he is a very intelligent and successful person.

He is also missing the obvious (and he's not the only one).

Facebook knows more of what people want other people to know. Google knows about what is really going on with people. People lie in surveys, whether it's to say what they want to be true or what they think is expected. Facebook is like a survey you create yourself.

Facebook has your holiday photos, knows you've been to an island, like partying on the beach. Google knows you're reading up on herpes treatments.

Maybe Facebook knows you're married. Google knows you're trying to find a divorce attorney.

If Google is relying on + to compete with Facebook, it has already lost the battle.

Re:The Punchline

[dzfoo]

Because, love them or hate them, Microsoft is a software company trying to apply engineering to diverse software problems.

Ultimately, they make their money through the sale of products, so their interests tend to align with their users'.

Google, on the other hand is an advertising company trying to apply engineering to, um, data mining algorithms; and acquiring start-up companies for the purpose of increasing data collection and improve the targeting of ads.

Ultimately, they make their money through better and more targeted advertising, so their interests tend to align with those of advertisers'.

      -dZ.