Google: Ugly Facts on a Beautiful Story Path
Did anyone believe that Google will be the leader among the search engines and later become the leading Internet company in the world? Hardly. Even the founders themselves, Larry Page and Sergey Brin , could not imagine such a thing, and back in 1997 they tried to sell their search engine to AltaVista and Yahoo! And they refused the offer, because they believed in it even less. But as they say, everything that is done is for the best.
Now AltaVista has sunk into oblivion, and the search engine Yahoo! It cannot be compared with Google search, not to mention other company projects: Gmail, YouTube, Google Chrome, Google Maps, Google Analytics, Google AdSense and many others. In 2014, a record number of Android-based smartphones were sold (1.2 billion). Their market share was 81%.
On the face of tremendous progress. It would seem that this is an unconditional victory. However, in 2011, the company changed course, and gradually more and more disgruntled reviews about various Google projects began to appear.
Maybe Google is trying to grasp the immensity in its quest for world domination? The number of projects is growing, but what happens to their quality? Is all development being completed?
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Sometimes quality does not keep up to such an extent with the quantity that projects have to be closed or terminated development indefinitely. So, in mid-January 2015, the company announced the failure of glasses Google Glass . Their sales will be stopped, and work on the project is temporarily stopped. When it resumes is unknown.
Some innovations do not even reach the final stage of development and are considered unpromising. For example, this happened with the draft jet pack , which, as it turned out, could not be made ergonomic: it flew with a deafening roar and its fuel ended very quickly.
Even with some existing projects that were initially successful, something amiss is happening. In this sense, the example with Google Chrome is indicative. His appearance caused a total failure of other browsers in favor of the latter. Due to the high speed and ease of use, he quickly became the leader among browsers.
But gradually it began to work worse: there were a lot of errors and problems with Flash Player, the speed of work fell, the browser began to hang periodically. And lately, it is difficult to work in it without dancing with a tambourine.
Facebook has even boycotted Google Chrome and no longer recommends using it to sign in to a social network.
In fairness, it should be noted that some projects were closed solely due to changes in the company's priorities in 2011. Google is not trying to remind people of the past anymore, but lives in the present and looks to the future.
The Google Books project was created in 2004 with an ambitious goal: to digitize all known books. However, its activity has actually been frozen for the past several years.
Google News Archives, a project with historical news 200 years ago, was created in 2006 and closed in 2011.
Also in 2011, the site was closed for experiments with small projects of Google Labs.
And in 2012, within the framework of the same rate change, it was decided to cancel the 20% rule , according to which, each employee of the company had the right to spend 20% of working time on the development of third-party projects not related to the main activity.
The Google Plus social networking project, based on the ideology of the “circles,” demonstrated the company's attempt to better understand users, to give them a more convenient means of communication, close to real life. This ideology was proposed by Paul Adams, an employee of the Google Research Center. He proceeded from the fact that real relationships between people are not built in the same way as it is organized in other social networks.
However, according to analyst firm Bime Analytics, about 83% of users of the new social network Google Plus showed no activity and visited it no more than once a week.
According to StatCounter, in August 2011, the share of Google Plus in the social networking market on a global scale was about 0.19%, which is similar to the share of VKontakte and exceeds the share of MySpace, Delicious, Classmates, but inferior to Facebook.
Intentions were noble, however, looking at the statistics, there is an assumption that Google did not find out the main thing for users: do they really need a new social network?
Another reason to think was the termination of the Google Talk service on February 16, 2015. The point is not even Google Talk, but that all users of this service are automatically redirected to the Google Hangouts messenger. Automatically means without their consent. That is, the company needed to expand the client base of the new messenger, which, apparently, did not enjoy such popularity as Google Talk. But expanding the customer base is not an end in itself. Google plans to combine three types of communication in one service: voice, video and messaging - that's what this is all about.
Then the question arises: what about people who want to continue using Google Talk and don’t want to go to Hangouts? Accept the terms of the game, which the company dictates or leave.
As reported by StartCounter, in 2014, the number of Google users in the US has already decreased to the 2008 level.
And now, probably, another wave of user outflow is expected.
But despite all this, the company is following a course aimed at innovative solutions and innovative technologies. Perhaps for the sake of this, Google is ready to close its eyes to a slight decrease in profits. This is a powerful corporation - it's up to them. Perhaps, the opinion of users is not decisive now.
Today's Google is compared to Microsoft since the 90s. Microsoft then also produced not entirely successful projects, but at the same time had a huge profit at the expense of old products. In addition, fuel for fire adds the fact that the majority of Google employees - former employees of Microsoft. And this is not only about ordinary employees.
Can Google slow down or change the direction of development now? It is probably not easy. When such heavyweights accelerate, it becomes harder to control.
In an interview, CEO Larry Page acknowledges :
“It seems to me that we manage companies somehow wrong. If you read reviews about our company, or about the high-tech industry as a whole, you will see that everything is presented as a competition. Do you really think that the best thing to do is to come to work every time and try to defeat all competitors? This approach leads the company to collapse. Because then the company does the same as the competitors, but tries to be one step ahead. And in our industry it is too slow. The changes should not be consistent, and the movement does not necessarily have to be directed only forward, because you can go sideways. ”
Google doesn’t adhere to simple arithmetic, it doesn’t betray how many projects failed, and how many projects took off. They probably set themselves more meaningful goals for which they have to sacrifice something. We can believe or doubt their chosen course. We can consider the company a monster and a threat to humanity. But for Google leaders, it’s more important what they themselves believe. Remember, because at the beginning of their journey almost no one believed in them.
Now AltaVista has sunk into oblivion, and the search engine Yahoo! It cannot be compared with Google search, not to mention other company projects: Gmail, YouTube, Google Chrome, Google Maps, Google Analytics, Google AdSense and many others. In 2014, a record number of Android-based smartphones were sold (1.2 billion). Their market share was 81%.
On the face of tremendous progress. It would seem that this is an unconditional victory. However, in 2011, the company changed course, and gradually more and more disgruntled reviews about various Google projects began to appear.
Maybe Google is trying to grasp the immensity in its quest for world domination? The number of projects is growing, but what happens to their quality? Is all development being completed?
')
Failing innovations
Sometimes quality does not keep up to such an extent with the quantity that projects have to be closed or terminated development indefinitely. So, in mid-January 2015, the company announced the failure of glasses Google Glass . Their sales will be stopped, and work on the project is temporarily stopped. When it resumes is unknown.
Some innovations do not even reach the final stage of development and are considered unpromising. For example, this happened with the draft jet pack , which, as it turned out, could not be made ergonomic: it flew with a deafening roar and its fuel ended very quickly.
Google Chrome boycott
Even with some existing projects that were initially successful, something amiss is happening. In this sense, the example with Google Chrome is indicative. His appearance caused a total failure of other browsers in favor of the latter. Due to the high speed and ease of use, he quickly became the leader among browsers.
But gradually it began to work worse: there were a lot of errors and problems with Flash Player, the speed of work fell, the browser began to hang periodically. And lately, it is difficult to work in it without dancing with a tambourine.
Facebook has even boycotted Google Chrome and no longer recommends using it to sign in to a social network.
Change course
In fairness, it should be noted that some projects were closed solely due to changes in the company's priorities in 2011. Google is not trying to remind people of the past anymore, but lives in the present and looks to the future.
The Google Books project was created in 2004 with an ambitious goal: to digitize all known books. However, its activity has actually been frozen for the past several years.
Google News Archives, a project with historical news 200 years ago, was created in 2006 and closed in 2011.
Also in 2011, the site was closed for experiments with small projects of Google Labs.
And in 2012, within the framework of the same rate change, it was decided to cancel the 20% rule , according to which, each employee of the company had the right to spend 20% of working time on the development of third-party projects not related to the main activity.
Google user relationships
The Google Plus social networking project, based on the ideology of the “circles,” demonstrated the company's attempt to better understand users, to give them a more convenient means of communication, close to real life. This ideology was proposed by Paul Adams, an employee of the Google Research Center. He proceeded from the fact that real relationships between people are not built in the same way as it is organized in other social networks.
However, according to analyst firm Bime Analytics, about 83% of users of the new social network Google Plus showed no activity and visited it no more than once a week.
According to StatCounter, in August 2011, the share of Google Plus in the social networking market on a global scale was about 0.19%, which is similar to the share of VKontakte and exceeds the share of MySpace, Delicious, Classmates, but inferior to Facebook.
Intentions were noble, however, looking at the statistics, there is an assumption that Google did not find out the main thing for users: do they really need a new social network?
Another reason to think was the termination of the Google Talk service on February 16, 2015. The point is not even Google Talk, but that all users of this service are automatically redirected to the Google Hangouts messenger. Automatically means without their consent. That is, the company needed to expand the client base of the new messenger, which, apparently, did not enjoy such popularity as Google Talk. But expanding the customer base is not an end in itself. Google plans to combine three types of communication in one service: voice, video and messaging - that's what this is all about.
Then the question arises: what about people who want to continue using Google Talk and don’t want to go to Hangouts? Accept the terms of the game, which the company dictates or leave.
As reported by StartCounter, in 2014, the number of Google users in the US has already decreased to the 2008 level.
And now, probably, another wave of user outflow is expected.
But despite all this, the company is following a course aimed at innovative solutions and innovative technologies. Perhaps for the sake of this, Google is ready to close its eyes to a slight decrease in profits. This is a powerful corporation - it's up to them. Perhaps, the opinion of users is not decisive now.
Today's Google is compared to Microsoft since the 90s. Microsoft then also produced not entirely successful projects, but at the same time had a huge profit at the expense of old products. In addition, fuel for fire adds the fact that the majority of Google employees - former employees of Microsoft. And this is not only about ordinary employees.
Can Google slow down or change the direction of development now? It is probably not easy. When such heavyweights accelerate, it becomes harder to control.
In an interview, CEO Larry Page acknowledges :
“It seems to me that we manage companies somehow wrong. If you read reviews about our company, or about the high-tech industry as a whole, you will see that everything is presented as a competition. Do you really think that the best thing to do is to come to work every time and try to defeat all competitors? This approach leads the company to collapse. Because then the company does the same as the competitors, but tries to be one step ahead. And in our industry it is too slow. The changes should not be consistent, and the movement does not necessarily have to be directed only forward, because you can go sideways. ”
Google doesn’t adhere to simple arithmetic, it doesn’t betray how many projects failed, and how many projects took off. They probably set themselves more meaningful goals for which they have to sacrifice something. We can believe or doubt their chosen course. We can consider the company a monster and a threat to humanity. But for Google leaders, it’s more important what they themselves believe. Remember, because at the beginning of their journey almost no one believed in them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/286038/
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