

How many people really care about Google Services? - fpgeek
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/12/3/how-many-people-really-care-about-google-services

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dragonwriter
Its pretty telling that after he dismisses the need for maps because,
apparently, normal users never drive to unfamiliar places, he dismisses the
need for flight updates in part because normal users drive to vacations (and
when they do fly, apparently, their planes are never delayed.)

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benedictevans
No, i's pretty telling that you're so keen to shout 'gotcha!' that you miss
the point ;)

If you use maps once a year to drive on holiday, you're not using it every
week, are you? How many people use these services ALL THE TIME?

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benedictevans
Most people don't have a flight every week, so flight updates are not a common
problem. And most people don't go on holiday every week either, do they?

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billconan
I care about google search, use it everyday, every hour. it is not shallow at
all for me. I care about youtube, spend hours and hours for its content, not
really for the service. I used to care about google reader a lot, spent long
hours on it. And then they killed it.

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benedictevans
Great. The post isn't about search, or YouTube.

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Oletros
Oh, another Benedict Evans article with an agenda?

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smt88
What is the agenda? Seems to be some guy spewing speculative, vague nonsense.
I can't even tell what his point is, and the scant hypotheticals don't support
any point at all.

This is seriously just a post for the sake of posting. I can't even wrap my
head around what I disagree with.

Like... who cares if Google services are shallow? Nothing used by hundreds of
millions of people is going to be purpose-built for any one specific group.
That's what plugins/APIs are for...

And if the typical Gmail user gets five emails a day, then can we even say
that Gmail should be built for them? Do they really need anything but the
shallowest of email services?

It's frustrating how fluffy and nebulous this article is!!

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TarpitCarnivore
My takeaway from this was the narrow view in which Google's power is shown
off. The airplane example is a perfect representation of this. I think what
he's trying to say is someone like Google needs to find better ways to show
their products and services can impact their users lives.

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dragonwriter
Product demos have a different target audience than, say, the TV ads that
Google also buys for Google services (nominally, Chrome or Android, but both,
particularly the former, often are more highlighting functionality of service
than the product nominally advertised.)

I would suggest that the audience of product demos are people for whom need
for flight information is more frequent than the average user.

