
Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else - benjlang
http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/24/larry-page-to-googlers-if-you-dont-get-spyw-work-somewhere-else/
======
danilocampos
A few decades from now, when someone writes up an HBS case study on Google,
how will it read?

My suspicion is that Google is going to treat us to a very painful object
lesson: what happens to your business when you compromise the values of a
beloved core product.

Here's the thing: having the most complete, most accurate, most relevant
search results means never having to say you're sorry. You can add ads, you
can do additional products, you can add a kind of clunky single-signon,
whatever. Because at the end of the day, the user _needs_ the thing you have
that no one else does.

Now, Google had this. But one day, maybe around 2009, something happened.
Where once I was delighted with Google's search, it started getting annoying.
Things like automatically showing you a SERP for a different spelling of your
query, because Google thought you were looking for that. Then they started
matching to synonyms (tear and rip, say). And so this tool that used to do
exactly what it was asked became too clever by half.

Meanwhile, SERP quality began to deteriorate as well. We suffered for
something like 18 months under the regime of those Stack Overflow scrapers and
their ilk, with plenty of equivalent nonsense in other verticals (hello,
ebooks!).

So, already, Google took its eye off the ball for the one thing that
previously had been inviolable. And now there's the comically titled SPYW.

Google's not stupid: they get that the rise of mobile and specialty
apps/services that go with it are going to whittle away at the searches
they'll be asked to do.

They've bet the company on Android and Google+ giving them an out. Android was
a good call, as it puts them in the driver's seat for a lot of this mobile
action. But they need the web, too. Can they get away with compromising their
search with this nouveau portal strategy?

My hunch is that they're going to pay dearly in the process of finding out the
answer is no. They're too big and too smart not to make the transition to
whatever the next big thing is after search.

But boy – screwing with the golden goose that earns both reputation and cash?

Well, give 'em this: they're willing to take risks.

~~~
joebadmo
I disagree with your premise. The two previous "compromises" you cite are both
examples of giving you what you want, instead of what you said you want. While
your anecdotal data says that you are annoyingly misled by that, I'm sure
there's a measure of selection bias there, and I'm sure Google has a lot more
than anecdotal data.

I'm a bit confused by the recent outcry about relevance. Do people disagree
that social signals can add to relevance? If not, then how does Google get
these social signals, if they're locked out of FB and twitter?

It seems like a pretty clear strategy to me of simultaneously trying to grab
as much social signal as possible by creating a meaningfully competitive
social product, while also demonstrating to its competitors the value of
allowing Google access to social signals.

I find it strange that everyone seems to want Google to just keep doing what
it's been doing, to, in a word, stagnate. I, for one, am happy to see Google
continue to do big things, undertake big initiatives, respond to a changing
world.

~~~
danilocampos
> The two previous "compromises" you cite are both examples of giving you what
> you want, instead of what you said you want. While your anecdotal data says
> that you are annoyingly misled by that, I'm sure there's a measure of
> selection bias there, and I'm sure Google has a lot more than anecdotal
> data.

You can wave your hands around in pretty patterns all you want – the fact
remains I'm a user who used to enjoy the product and now is frustrated by it.
I'm not alone in this. Have they annoyed enough users for it to be a _big_
problem? We'll see. But big or not – it's a problem. Adoption curves are led
by early adopters. Do they really want to send the sort of person who was once
a Google advocate into the arms of a competing service?

> I find it strange that everyone seems to want Google to just keep doing what
> it's been doing, to, in a word, stagnate. I, for one, am happy to see Google
> continue to do big things, undertake big initiatives, respond to a changing
> world.

I don't think we actually disagree here. If Google does nothing, it's dead.

I'm just not sure that the something they've chosen to do is going to be a
good idea. If they lose the plot on search, there's not much to fall back on.
But, sometimes you do have to bet the farm.

~~~
joebadmo
_You can wave your hands around in pretty patterns all you want – the fact
remains I'm a user who used to enjoy the product and now is frustrated by it.
I'm not alone in this. Have they annoyed enough users for it to be a big
problem? We'll see. But big or not – it's a problem._

I'm not sure what you mean by "wave your hands around in pretty patterns." I'm
not denying that these things annoy some or even many users. I'm saying
Google's pretty obviously in the best position to be able to tell, and
famously and religiously acts from that position to a fault.

We seem to agree that Google can't do nothing. I guess my perspective on it is
that Google's willingness to change even its core source of revenue continues
to draw admiration from me.

~~~
danilocampos
I think we disagree on Google's legendary omniscience. Minimizing the years-
long frustration I, and many I've talked to, have experienced because _Google
knows best_ is a hollow argument to me.

The quality of their product degraded and they just kinda... did nothing about
it for awhile. It got so bad it had to turn into a _press thing_ before they
did something about it. The press is damn lazy, so for my money, that means
something.

As to the rest – I share you admiration for that kind of gumption. Money can
so easily blind and poison progress. So the strategy to continue evolving is
sound! The tactics, though, are dubious.

I'd say that any changes to search need to be made with relevance, convenience
and user satisfaction as inviolable factors. Anything else is playing with
fire in a library, if you're Google.

Or maybe not. We'll see.

I just really want my 2007-era Google search back.

~~~
babblefrog
You can't go back. 2007-era Google would be unusable with all the SEO-hacks
that people have discovered since then. Google has to keep tuning their
algorithms to stay ahead of the "optimizers" and spammers.

~~~
danilocampos
I'm sensible of the challenges Google faces algorithmically. I was speaking
solely of user experience – how the product interprets my input.

------
Kylekramer
It is quite the jump from “This is the path we’re headed down – a single
unified, ‘beautiful’ product across everything. If you don’t get that, then
you should probably work somewhere else" to "Agree with SPYW or GTFO". One is
an admirable goal for a whale of a company and the other is a stubborn denial
of contrary opinions. I thought Pando Daily was suppose to be a "different"
tech news site.

~~~
libraryatnight
I don't think Sarah Lacy is capable of producing a "different" tech news site,
really. The article read like a tabloid.

~~~
veyron
what qualifies as a "different" tech news site?

~~~
resnamen
Something like Ars Technica, which is way meatier than the hyperbole and
cheerleading that the PandoLemonCrunch school of venture journalism is capable
of.

------
pg
You don't have to get a job at another company. You could also start your own.

~~~
Aloisius
Serious question: have there been any success stories of ex-Googlers starting
their own companies?

I've been under the impression that the few that have had successful exits
were bought by Google itself, mostly as talent acquisitions.

~~~
pg
Twitter and Foursquare are fairly prominent examples, though in both cases the
founders were people who became Google employees when their previous startups
were acquired.

Among startups we've funded, I know at least Greplin, Optimizely, Appjet, and
ReMail have/had founders who previously worked at Google. I'm sure there are
at least that many more, but I don't remember where most of the people we
funded worked before.

~~~
Aloisius
Hrm. AppJet and ReMail were both acquired by Google though. Greplin and
Optimizely Googlers both had years at other companies between Google and the
founding their companies.

I guess Biz Stone came directly from Google to found Twitter.

Given Google's size and the quality of the people who go in there, I'd have
expected dozens if not hundreds of companies to be spawned by ex-Googlers.

I often wonder if certain companies simply produce more founders because of
culture, money or simply bias in who they hire. PayPal is the classic example
of a company that pumped out a good number of successful founders, but I can't
identify any particular characteristic of that particular company that might
have caused it.

I'd love to see some analytics about where the most successful or prolific
founders come from.

~~~
_delirium
A minor observation corroborating your hypothesis is looking at how many
people Google's accumulated from the old Bell Labs (Rob Pike, Ken Thompson,
etc.). In some ways the Bell Labs culture was the diametric opposite of
startup culture, with a typical career path of "stay in this job for life",
and little interest in business or striking out on your own. I believe a few
have said as much, that they moved to Google because it was a place where they
had the resources and freedom to just focus on technology.

~~~
lrobb
I was going to make the same comment.

I've known plenty of really sharp, talented developers that have zero interest
in ever even looking at a P&L sheet.

When you've immersed yourself in a certain sub-culture (say startups), it's
sometimes easy to forget that not everyone out there shares that model of
thinking.

------
staunch
I would be _much_ more interested at working at the new Page dominated Google
than the old Schmidt one. At least he's trying to do what Steve Jobs did so
well: make big leaps forward.

Apple found it necessary to own more and more pieces of the stack to innovate.
Google is finding itself in the same position. Almost all of the best products
are restricted/closed/proprietary systems. Macs, OSX, iPhone/iPad, Facebook,
Twitter, Gmail, etc.

It certainly would be nice if there was a real competitor to Google like
Android competes with iOS.

~~~
nostrademons
"Almost all of the best products are restricted/closed/proprietary systems."

This makes me really sad. It might be necessary, but you also miss out on a
lot of innovation that happens when people can build off the work of others.

To steal your examples, would there be a market for the Mac or OS X if IBM had
not licensed PC clones? Would there be Facebook/Twitter/GMail if the Internet
had not been public-domain?

~~~
staunch
I don't think it's necessarily sad. Think how much better Ubuntu is because of
OS X or how awesome it is that Android exists in its current form because of
iOS.

Proprietary technology may even give back more to open technology than it
takes.

~~~
moocow01
I think it should be pointed out that both OS X and Android are based upon
Linux. That point probably makes the discussion about who gives more to who a
lot more complex.

~~~
bgeorgescu
OS X is based upon BSD, not Linux

------
kmfrk
I think the most important part of this HN thread is that people have gone
from giving Google the benefit of the doubt to assuming that everything they
do is a part of trying to fuck over the users in any way imaginable in a
depiction that is beginning to exceed a vilification greater than Mark
Zuckerberg. Google are having the biggest crisis of trust in their entire
history. A Gmail alternative seems more welcome than ever before, _because who
knows what they will do next_.

I don't really see _anything_ newsworthy nor controversial in the article, but
people are just fed up with everything Google are doing now.

It actually reminds me of the binary ways people tend to hate politicians:
either, they find them evil, or they find them incompetent. Microsoft went
from being evil to bumbling idiots (to wit, try to remember the Seinfeld ads)
- to being sort of neutral in the game.

Now, Google have gone from being regarded as bumbling idiots to evil profit-
maximizing clueless assholes who've eroded their brand and goodwill and danced
on the line of antitrust suits.

Facebook seems to be viewed as consistently evil, although some developers
just seem to hate them for their API and "move fast and break things"
philosophy, so YMMV.

It's probably not doing them any favours that they of all the giants have the
most invisible CEOs and owners of all, which makes the Google seem like an
amorphous corporate blob of evil whose tendrils reach into our data and
private lives. Even Ballmer adds some humanity to Microsoft, especially in the
recent interview with him: [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/steve-
ballmer-reboots-0...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/steve-ballmer-
reboots-01122012_page_1.html).

~~~
p0ss
Google lost me at Nymwars, they banned me, a loyal customer who had given them
loads of money, for using the same name I use all over the net. That was the
binary switch for me, perhaps they had been eroding my trust for years, but
there was a clear snapping point where they jumped from good guys to bad guys,
and it was a calculated business move on their part.

I am now weening myself off google, its hard, they own half the net, but when
their own employees are being silenced for defending my best interests, it is
time to leave.

------
redthrowaway
I'm seeing a whole lot of hyperbole around here for what still seems to be
pretty much a non-issue. Don't like SPYW? Don't use it. It's _one button_.
Click it, and move on. Between the Don't Be Evil script stunt from
facebook/twitter and the content-free blogspam from Sarah Lacy/pandodaily, it
seems like there are a few people out there who really, really want this to be
an issue.

It isn't. Get over it.

~~~
flyt
I don't understand: one click opt-out is ok for Google but not for Facebook's
product launches?

~~~
redthrowaway
Facebook's ongoing record is one of introducing opt-out products that harm
user privacy. This is just a matter of preference. Nobody is hurt by SPYW, and
it's far easier to disable than many of facebook's updates.

The issue with Facebook's changes to privacy was not that they are opt-out,
but that they were opt-out _and_ significantly impacted user privacy. Opt-out
services on their own may be annoying, but they aren't a cause for alarm
unless it hurts the user.

~~~
Stormbringer
Google also has an ongoing PR problem with regard to privacy, with Eric
Schmidt (sp? the recently ex-ceo dude) going on record as saying he doesn't
believe in privacy.

Facebook at least _pretends_ to care about privacy and _then_ screws the user,
whereas Google just skips to step B

~~~
myko
Google has a team whose job is to make sure privacy needs of the user are met:
<http://www.dataliberation.org/>

~~~
tedivm
The Data Liberation program is all about being able to move your data from
google to anywhere else. It has nothing to do with privacy.

~~~
myko
How is removing one's data entirely from a product not related to privacy?

~~~
tedivm
The data liberation thing is about adding data to Google, or copying the data
out of Google so other services can use it. I may be wrong, but I have not
seen anything that says you can use it to actually delete the information from
Google's servers (if I'm wrong, please show me).

------
cbs
Guys, unless you're actually a player, save yourself the headache and don't
get caught up in this little valley tiff.

I think SPYW is dumb, but google is trying something to improve search
results, it happens to use data that they have on the user. I don't think they
need permission from everyone in the valley with a sign-in service they can't
crawl before they're allowed to make changes that are meant to improve search.
So all the bitching about it really smells like the big guys trying to SEO
through telling google that they can't change their algorithm in a way that
they lose rank.

~~~
tedsuo
“Most portals show their own content above content elsewhere on the web. We
feel that’s a conflict of interest, analogous to taking money for search
results. Their search engine doesn’t necessarily provide the best results; it
provides the portal’s results. Google conscientiously tries to stay away from
that. We want to get you out of Google and to the right place as fast as
possible. It’s a very different model.”

-Larry Page, 2004

I think it is important to note that google is straying from their original
mission, intentionally or not.

~~~
ay
They are not straying, they are pivoting.

~~~
gfodor
And there goes the last slice of meaning to the word "pivot." I think it's now
officially dead.

~~~
ay
I assumed that I did not need to mark the post with <sarcasm/>.

What I implied is that companies are no different to humans in some respects -
your life's mission when you are 5 is different from your life's mission when
you are 15, and is different from your life's mission when you are 35. And
there's nothing wrong about that - companies, like people, have the age.
Welcome to the new grown up Google, I suppose.

(of course, all of the above rant assumes that the quote is real. Which I
decided to hunt down, and it is, apparently:
<http://glinden.blogspot.com/2004/08/google-playboys.html>)

But the other part of the quote got me thinking - "...analogous to taking
money for search results. "

I caught myself a few times this year that I'd prefer to pay for the premium
quality content rather than have to wade through the soup of the ads mixed
with semi-relevant results. So maybe therein lies some version of the future.

EDIT: of course, the rule "don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to
ignorance" still holds and it might be just an experiment that went a bit too
far - I can not reproduce the "ads above the search results" on my browser
right now.

------
brador
Leaders should lead with a unique style. Their way.

Larry's playing catchup with Facebook while thinking he can be Steve Jobs, and
that, together with guarding the cents by removing the little things that made
life @Google awesome (bagels anyone?) has led to low morale among the
workforce.

Geeks with low morale don't get shit done.

They don't innovate. They don't create.

Google staff aren't code monkeys, they're not going to stick around to keep
the seats warm.

The good ones will spend every hour of the day doing the bare minimum required
to still get a paycheck while finding a new job.

It's money not passion that's preventing them leaving. And that's a pretty
depressing atmosphere to work in.

~~~
rryan
Bagels. Really? That's what it takes to make life at $COMPANY awesome?

What about working with smart people on interesting problems?

~~~
jordan0day
I think the math is something more like:

$COMPANY provides bagels. +1 "Sweet!" point. $COMPANY provides bagels, but
later stops providing bagels. -10 "Sweet!" points.

The removal of a perk has a larger net negative impact on morale than its
existence ever did on the positive side.

------
knowtheory
I misread the title and clicked expecting an argument about why Google thinks
SPDY (<http://www.chromium.org/spdy> ) is vital to internets or something :(

This is much less cool/interesting.

------
kls
I can't help but feel like this is the equivalent event of Ballmer throwing
the chair.

It's good to have decent among a company so long as it is promoted in a
healthy manner, having employees grumble about it at the water cooler only
serves to infect the ranks but promoting an open forum where any person can
decent and others can rebut allows people to at least understand why the
decision where made. In some manner the conflict may be resolved for all
parties through a unforeseen solution and by having a forum you promote
solutioning. If I worked at Google I would be looking for the door, not
because of the issue at hand but because when someone else is told to GTFO, I
take it as a signal that it's probably time for me to go to because the open
forum has died. It's sad really they where the Bell Labs of this time, a dream
and people need dreams.

~~~
zheng
Not to nitpick, but it's "dissent". I learned the hard way
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3262893>)

~~~
kls
Thank You for the info, I have a very bad form of dyslexia (among some other
related issues) which lent to early childhood issues, with spelling and
English related subject, which to this day plague me when writing. As such I
have to heavily rely on the spell checker. One of the reason I post is to keep
my ability to write up to at least sub-par.

------
moocow01
Ah yes... and everybody thought Google was immune to the tech company
lifecycle. My guess is this is where the downslide begins (which will probably
be decades for a company of Google's size).

I've seen this play out in small and large companies alike ... once the
business model gets solidified and turns into a cash cow all the execs go into
defense mode which manifest itself in a number of ways but my way or the
highway is usually a big one.

~~~
bishnu
Well in this case they're sacrificing their cash cow (search) for a social
network that is optimistically 1/10th the size of Facebook. I would argue the
precise opposite is happening here - SPYW represents an effort to innovate,
and nobody is getting "complacent". Whether or not it's too radical is another
story.

~~~
moocow01
SPYW may have some hints of efforts toward innovation in search but its much
more predominantly a defensive move by Google as was Google+ against leading
social networks (obviously most notably Facebook and Twitter). Defensive moves
are necessary and good in business terms but honestly when you start playing
defense all the time your getting to be on the other side of the hill. Its
just part of the natural evolution of successful companies.

------
rhizome
SPYW: "Search Plus Your World"

~~~
thought_alarm
If you google it, it's currently the 3rd and 4th search results.

Now, if you google SPYW on Bing then it's nowhere to be found, and that's
ultimately why I continue to use Google for search regardless of whatever
nonsense they put in the side bar.

~~~
davux
I just checked on Bing and it's in the description of the second result, from
a Jan 13th article.

<http://www.bing.com/search?q=SPYW>

> Jan 13, 2012 · Summary: Google’s Search Plus Your World (SPYW) announcement
> has ruffled some feathers. Both Facebook and Twitter have reacted ...

I've been banging the "Bing needs to do so much better to make even a tiny
dent" drum for a while now, but they've made strides in the past 6 months.

~~~
nickpresta
Just to show what I see when I search Bing versus Google:
<http://i.imgur.com/b3Oig.png>

I didn't find a relevant result at all (I searched the first 3 pages - didn't
bother going further).

Bing may be improving - I hear Bing Maps is pretty good - but the search is
not even close.

~~~
trotsky
<https://duckduckgo.com/?q=SPYW>

Looks the same as it did for me a few hours ago when I searched on it, and
duck duck go uses bing search.

I see definitions in the extracts at #4, #6, #7, #8 and #10. It's hard to
believe half of the top ten changed in the last 3 hours.

EDIT: I do agree that bing's results are slightly-somewhat below google's as I
do redo a search in google maybe 5% or 10% of the time, but from the point of
view of someone who uses them every day they are pretty close for most things.

------
jordan0day
I really like how the article speculates that talented Google employees who
value "don't be evil" enough to consider quitting over SPYW would take jobs
at... _Facebook_.

------
Hominem
Am I the only one that thinks SPYW is the right direction? We have seen that
rankings were increasingly being gamed. Algorithmic search is a never ending
arms race. SPYW aligns with what google has been trying to do for a while,
provide results that are relevant and worthwhile to the user. If my mom
searches for digital cameras , she would rather have a link to something
written on G+ by someone in her circle than a blurb on a content
farm.Algorithmic search is a no win situation, there is no way to judge the
value of the link, they need to do that through +1 and other social features.
It is just wisdom of crowds.

~~~
toddh
Ideally wouldn't it find the best result? G+ and farm.* seem equally likely to
be poor. I did an image search for something like Empire State Building and my
G+ results showed first. The results sucked.

~~~
Hominem
I honestly don't know if it g+ will give better results for all searches or
even any searches. When I search for "digital camera" the G+ results I get are
people I know talking about cameras and sharing links about cameras.I think
that is better than blog spam and content farms.

My main point was without something like +1 they are in a never ending arms
race, they needed to disrupt that cycle of tweeks and return to status-quo.

~~~
toddh
Definitely better than blog spam and content farms, but I was hoping those
weren't my only options :-) I would like the highest signal content for the
aspect of digital cameras I'm interested in, regardless of source. Using G+ as
a mechanical proxy for relevance makes sense of course, but I don't think it
gives the best results. I faced this what looking up coffee makers too. There
are these search ruts you just can't get out of.

------
g1x
> There’s a full-on war for developer talent that the company has already been
> struggling with– along with every single startup and sexier large companies
> like Facebook, Twitter and Zynga.

What makes Zynga, Twitter and Facebook "sexier"?

> Then again, a lot of what we’re hearing is from X-Googlers. Google has been
> competing for employees for a while by simply shelling out more cash.
> Perhaps newer hires are just there for the paycheck, more than the much-
> vaunted mission.

What percentage of Zynga hires are there for the paycheck as opposed to the
"mission"?

~~~
fennecfoxen
I had the opportunity to interact with a couple of Zynga guys on the train
once shortly after the "we're clawing back your RSUs or you're fired" fiasco.
The good news, for Zynga, is that it didn't seem to hurt morale for those
guys. The bad news is that they didn't care and had an "as long as it's not
me" holding-out-for-the-big-bucks mercenary attitude.

But then, maybe Zynga's just a morally bankrupt go-for-the-bucks mercenary
company so perhaps they're a perfect fit.

------
Wrap
I'm not going to discuss the article itself as others have already said what I
wanted to say,, rather let's take a look at the author of the article: Sarah
Lacy.

To give you an idea of who Sarah Lacy is, let's check out a video titled:
"Mark Zuckerberg Interview with Sarah Lacy at SXSWi"

After you've checked out that, read the article again and you'll see what I'm
pointing at; Sarah Lacy is not an unbiased source, rather she's an FB
mouthpiece.

------
mekoka
How did it go from

 _This is the path we’re headed down – a single unified, ‘beautiful’ product
across everything. If you don’t get that, then you should probably work
somewhere else._

to

 _If you don't get SPYW, work somewhere else._

I understood the first as "if you don't understand our goals, you should
probably not be working here" and the second as "our way or the highway".

------
RobertKohr
I don't care much about google+ infiltrating search.

What I care most about is that searches are now more fuzzy.

If I want to search for terms : A B C D

The results will consist of things with any combination of those items, and
sometimes things that are similar to those items.

There used to be a + operator to force things, but that has been removed in
the last half year.

They supposedly added back something similar when you wrap things in quotes,
but that doesn't work either.

Now when I go to bing and search for +A +B +C +D, it really does just return
only the results I am looking for.

This is critical for searching for tech stuff.

Not convinced? Try: +trueskill +javascript In google, bing, and duckduckgo.

~~~
Karunamon
FWIW, you can enclose things in quotes to force strings to be searched
verbatim. It's an extra character, true, but it does work.

~~~
dredge
Or choose 'Verbatim' under 'More search tools' down in the bottom left.

------
nazar
Meta: Throwing the new terms as SPYW around as if they have been around for at
least for decade I believe is wrong. At first I thought its some kind of
certificate, or even some kind of vaccination.

~~~
Stormbringer
SPYW

...sounds like spyware... ...looks like spyware...

------
Stormbringer
While I agree with the premises that

(a) doctoring the search results is killing the golden goose

and

(b) Google is essentially just a big advertising company

The reality is that even with watered down results they are still better than
their competitors.

If I want to search MSDN then Google gives better results than Bing.

Think about that for a moment. How can Bing be a serious competitor to Google
when they can't even search their own site properly???

So I think that there is some wriggle room for Google here. They can water the
beer down... but it is still better than the cow piss the pub down the road is
serving.

------
peterwwillis
Spent over 20 minutes to disable all of Google's bullshit personalization of
search. I swear to Bob, if they shove one more god damn "feature" into Search
i'm gonna make my default engine Yahoo.

~~~
tnuc
How did you disable this "bullshit personalization of search"?

~~~
moylan
i find changing my search from standard google to; <http://www.google.com/pda>

eliminates instant preview and instant results that really annoy me.

~~~
saalweachter
<http://www.google.com/preferences>

If you disable Instant, you can also crank it up to 100 results per page.
Hell, you can manually block gplus.google.com, facebook.com, and twitter.com
and pretend the whole "social" thing never happened.

~~~
moylan
i do use that.

however i spend a substantial amount of time on other peoples systems and when
using other peoples systems especially windows systems i avoid logging into
google in case of malware. the default settings of google search are just
garish these days.

i tried duckduckgo and while it was ok it just wasn't as good as google...
yet. of course i'm not a fan of their new makeover either. i just prefer
simple design.

------
dbin78
First, I honestly do not understand the notion that Google is being “Evil”
with Search Plus Your World. How is changing your product, whether it ends up
being good or bad, evil?

Second, my friends and family have no idea what SPYW is and don’t notice a
difference. Heck, the majority of the searches I do are not drastically change
to any large degree.

------
loceng
This has nothing to do with "if you don't get SPYW"

Search Plus Your World itself can change and evolve.

All of this negative media is being perpetuated by Twitter and Facebook who
are losing massive amounts of free traffic they used to get.

If Twitter and Facebook want to be guaranteed to be in Google's results, then
they should guarantee that Google/Google+, etc. show up in Twitter and
Facebook's search, though that's probably not a very good deal for Google -
and Facebook wouldn't do that because of their closed/controlled ecosystem,
and Twitter wouldn't want that traffic leak either.

I would point this to being hypocritical and just trying to stir up negative
public opinion about the whole thing - because it's all Twitter/Facebook are
able to do.

Don't you think Google is tracking the effects of their changes?

And they likely did small tests first too. They can still measure the user's
experience and maybe it actually is providing results people care and benefit
from just as much.

------
steve8918
Let's hope that the quote isn't true. There's nothing that signals "jumping
the shark" better than arrogance and the sense of untouchability. It's almost
cliche how people at their peak think they can say and do whatever they want
without consequences.

------
trotsky
I wonder which of the prestige investors that Sarah just closed told her to
write these Google hit pieces. Good old valley "journalism".

------
silkodyssey
I would much prefer to see Google fail trying to stay relevant than fail (like
RIM) for not being able to adapt.

------
zak_mc_kracken
Yet another "Google is turning evil" article. We've had these regularly since
Google went public in 2004.

Yawn.

------
resnamen
I don't understand why the TC diaspora gets so much attention. Have they
earned the spotlight for reasons other than just being inflammatory?

------
apg
This all makes no never-mind to me, as I'm going to turn that right off (you
can do that, right?). I prefer to evaluate on my own what information is
relevant and what isn't. Happy accidents, you know.

Did Google ever announce what the rationale for this is, from a revenue
perspective? Is a link with content that a person is likely to recognize also
likely to generate extra revenue?

~~~
icebraining
_I'm going to turn that right off (you can do that, right?)_

Yes. Settings icon ( ⚙ ), then Search Settings, then Do not use personal
results.

~~~
marshray
What if you don't want to tell them who you are at all?

I.e., you block cookies.

~~~
esteth
They'll still no doubt be using geolocation to filter results, as well as time
of day, browser being used, etc...

At their scale, they can no doubt see patterns in data that make it worth
personalising search based on those factors, regardless of wether or not you
are signed in.

~~~
marshray
I'm less concerned with receiving unbiased search results than I am being in
control of the choice to divulge my own identity.

------
JulianMorrison
I think this is just mistaken. How is mixing your social circle into your
search NOT relevant? Given that people routinely move in tight cliques,
whether or not they know it. If all your buddies are into kink, a search for
"horse" or "crops" is likely to turn up something rather different from if
they are into agriculture, and this is not uncool.

------
lifeisstillgood
I'm dubious just how much relevance social signals add. And for me this is the
crux of the matter.

It _looks_ like google is just chasing after facebook, with the sole intention
of monetizing those lovely social graphs.

That might not be evil, but it loses you a lot of goodwill. Telling the cows
they are monetisabke beef units will hurt Daisy's feelings.

If the google search page came with some means of showing the raw search and
the adjusted ones, we might be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt
(I.e. Your results, plus the raw duckduckgo equivalent, plus the ones based on
your past search history but ignoring your google+ account etc)

google _is_ search, and the other posts are right - they forget that at their
peril. But they can be forgiven the other dalliances if they can show us how
those products made search better

------
misterbwong
I wonder why Bing/Yahoo isn't making a fuss about this. It'd be a good time
for them to capitalize on the bad pub.

~~~
myko
Bing has been doing a similar thing with Facebook for awhile haven't they? I'm
not sure they could really make a large fuss without seeming entirely
hypocritical. Of course I think Facebook and Twitter are a bit hypocritical
for complaining about this while trying to charge Google for the data that
would allow their products to be added successfully to SPYW.

------
bjdixon
So, what are people using as alternatives these days? I use gmail, google talk
and google.com exclusively for email, chat and search. If (for arguments sake)
I wanted to switch what is there of similar quality that still be around and
relevant in 3 or 4 years?

~~~
CJWelle
I see many great suggestions here, but calendar replacement has not been
suggested yet.

~~~
pca
Windows Live Calendar nowadays is very similar to Google Calendar. It should
be possible to sync it e.g. with Android via ActiceSync. Some time ago I
managed to do this with Android 2.3. I don't have this setup any more, so if
you need details try searching for "windows live activesync" or something
similar.

------
zizee
SPYW -> Search Plus Your World.

 _This is the path we’re headed down – a single unified, ‘beautiful’ product
across everything. If you don’t get that, then you should probably work
somewhere else.”_ -larry page memo

------
tocomment
Hey guys, should I know what spyw is? The article doesnt see, to say.

~~~
kschua
It is in the article : Search Plus Your World. It doesn't explicitly say so
though

~~~
tocomment
And what is that?

------
skeltoac
Eventually Google's algorithms will be so smart that they will index your
sentiments to give you the experience most likely to retain you as a user.
Maybe your Google will look like 2008.

------
scoot
I didn't know what SPYW was, and swear my first thought was it must be an
abbreviation for SPYWare. Which is more than a little ironic now I know what
it actually stands for.

------
salimane
what I haven't seen in the previous comments is that people naively don't
learn from past experiences or other failures. Now let me explain :

\- CURRENTLY, we can safely say Google core product is search and at least
CURRENTLY people still needs "google search".

\- will it be the same in the FUTURE ? well, you don't have to know the
answer, but I'm sure some crazy numbers crunching happen every day at Google
and those would signal some trends about "google search" in favor or not.

\- Now let's learn from "some failures"...Microsoft didn't want to reinvent
itself, they thought their cash cows (windows & office) will always give them
a foot ahead, so never wants to let them go and try something totally new
without "windows" in them...well u know their history.

\- Apple once was "Apple Computer", changed to "Apple Inc", entered new
industries, created new ones, planning to enter new ones, never cared about
"ideals, fair treatment, transparent", never care about what their users think
they want, they controlled all their products like never seen before, they
basically do what they want and their customers just take it or leave
it...basically in short, 13 billions of profits in a quarter!!!

Now with all above, assume you're smart, can learn quickly, , you're Larry
Page and you don't want to become something of the past, what will you do ?

~~~
salimane
thanks for the downvote instead of discussing. if you can't discuss, why are
you downvoting ?

------
zmonkeyz
I'm just amazed that this is such a big deal.

------
code_pockets
I think duckduckgo works like google should.

That's why I changed , and will never go back.

~~~
glimcat
Using bang syntax in the address bar is awesome. I still use Google fairly
often, but via DDG. It shaves about 30 seconds off of the time it takes me to
get a result.

Most search tasks I do are "hand me that spanner" tasks. I don't want you to
give me a big spiel about how great your business is or to show me how
thoroughly you can erase all semblance of privacy via data mining - I just
want the damn spanner so I can get back to work.

I switched to Google in the first place because they did the best job of
getting the right spanner with the least amount of fuss. They're getting much
worse at choosing the right spanner vs. feeding me a bunch of spam and ad
content, and they're simultaneously taking longer to do it.

~~~
code_pockets
Agreed.

I also use DDG in the same way you mention, though only going to google for
the rare image I can't find anywhere else (which is about once a month).

Such is the reason why I'm always promoting DDG to others. It just works.

I plan to contribute (code) to DDG as soon as I finish some open source
projects I'm working on. They openly invited hackers to create stuff for them,
which is a fantastic idea.

------
squarecat
[http://eqi.org/defensive_people_are_insecure.htm#Dealing%20w...](http://eqi.org/defensive_people_are_insecure.htm#Dealing%20with%20Defensive%20People)

------
BiosElement
This nonsense gets voted up? Why cater to Google bashers, because that's all
the author is doing.

------
latj
duckduckgo.com

------
dhruvbird
It's not even 1st of April today.

------
yanw
So instead of commending the CEO on articulating a vision and being determined
about it the author somehow spins the words to fit the Google bashing theme of
her previous posts.

To be clear: "This is the path we’re headed down – a single unified,
‘beautiful’ product across everything. If you don’t get that, then you should
probably work somewhere else" != “Fuck off”.

There is plenty that could be said about the sad state of tech blogging but
some of the blame falls on Google because they are losing the PR battle. It’s
obvious that PR staff from Twitter/Facebook and others are doing a much better
job at selling their rhetoric to these tech blogs, specially to the newly
formed blogs looking for audience and traffic.

~~~
amstr
The disturbing thing is that people here at news.yc -- hopefully a fairly
informed bunch -- seemingly aren't able to see past the infuriatingly self-
serving nature of a "Don't Be Evil Toolbar" created by "Facebook & Twitter"
employees. And, Facebook, which happily used its dominance in social to lock
out users from bulk-exporting contacts during the Google+ launch now complains
that Google is leveraging its dominance in search?

OP: I'd be really interested to hear your take on why tech blogging is so pro-
Apple/Twitter/FB and anti-Google. I have no connection to Google but it seems
to me that Google is by far doing the most good in the world compared to the
other 3 (Although Twitter has also done good things during e.g. the Arab
Spring).

~~~
jrockway
I think the problem is that people feel forced into agreeing with Google's
decisions when they don't, and people don't like being forced into doing
something. As an example, say you won't use Google+ because you don't like
their account naming policies. That's fine, don't visit plus.google.com, don't
use it, and it doesn't exist to you. But when Plus results start appearing in
search, a product that you like, you are reminded of a community you can't
participate in. This leads to resentment for search, because it is reminding
you that you aren't getting the same service that everyone else is.

Facebook, on the other hand, is very easy to ignore. I killed my account there
several years ago and haven't really thought about Facebook since, since
Facebook is nothing but a social network and I'm not really a big social
networking guy.

I think that's what's going on here.

(I would say, "people are worried that there will only be one provider for
XXX", where XXX is mail or search or chat or whatever, but I know that's not
true. People did not mind AOL or Windows or the three big banks, so I doubt
they really care that Google is "the only game". Slashdot users hate
monopolies, but I'm not sure the average consumer cares.)

~~~
earl
Google+ is close to blackmail. Read what Rand from seomoz has written about it
[1:2] (example quote: "[...] if SPYW continues to roll out to all logged-in
Google users and Google stays as aggressive as it's been in the last 10 days
with pushing Google+ for even logged-out users, the service will become a
necessity for search and social marketers"). Google is using their dominance
in search to create side benefits for using google+: you get your picture in
organic results and massively increased clickthrough, amongst other benefits,
by putting your content into google+ and playing the + game. This is a step
past seo: seo was optimizing for google's algo, but now google's ranking algo
forces you to push and likes/pluses content into their system. So once your
competitors start using it, you have to as well.

Also, as you pointed out, I dislike social and dislike that products like that
continue to intrude into my search results.

[1] [http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-every-marketer-now-needs-a-
go...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-every-marketer-now-needs-a-google-
strategy)

[2] another rand video I can't find right now

~~~
jrockway
How do you feel about non-social things in your search results, like maps or
videos? If pictures are a big deal in SEO, it seems like everyone would be
communicating via video. Ultimately, I think relevancy is what "converts"
people.

Also, I don't get the big push on "SEO". Just buy an ad and now you're above
all the organic results anyway.

------
funkah
Well, sounds like the man has a vision, and is being unambiguous about what it
is. I can appreciate that, at least. Count me among the folks that don't "get
it", though.

------
rogerchucker
<fantasy> Google will have a mutiny where someone will kick out Larry and spin
off Android, Google+, Youtube and Chrome OS and shift the focus back to basic
Web search </fantasy>

