
The Key To Gmail: Sh*t Umbrellas - mk
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/key-to-gmail/
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CoreDumpling
I think the more appropriate analogy is "shit filter."

I really appreciate project managers that know when the customer is full of
shit and can filter that out from our discussions, keeping me and my
colleagues focused on the things that actually matter.

On the other hand, when I did front-end work, I was really annoyed that the
management would keep the secrets of customer feedback to themselves and only
let through the things that aligned with their own "vision." Honest feedback
and actual usability testing never seemed to be something that the higher-ups
cared about; they simply wanted to go through the motions. I wished they could
just let some of this information through.

~~~
InclinedPlane
_I think the more appropriate analogy is "shit filter."_

The article specifically mentions the difference between shit "funnels" (or
filters) and shit umbrellas. Shit is shit, there's no good amount, other than
zero, that it's good for engineers to have rain down on them. If there's
anything of importance in the shit a good manager's job is to fish it out,
wash it off, and pass that on to their engineers.

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seldo
The revelation that Buzz was produced by a team of 30 engineers and one
product person, who only ever meet to give product demos, explains much about
that launch.

I'm not a mindless Google-basher. They have many brilliant products. But Buzz
was a pointless product that looked terrible and broke user expectations,
produced entirely on a "because the data would be fun to have" basis --
something you'd expect from engineers who aren't thinking about the customer.

Engineers _can_ build great, customer-focussed products (heck, that's the idea
behind most of YCombinator). But this group did not.

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blasdel
_> Internally, the Google Buzz team was known as “Team Taco Town”_

So apt: <http://www.hulu.com/watch/1447/saturday-night-live-taco-town> — It's
15 great tastes all rolled into one!

~~~
DannoHung
An unfortunate name, considering.

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kls
I love this article, I showed this to some of my associates at my last job and
they fell on the floor. With one of them exclaiming "Dude you are a shit
Umbrella" and I had such noble descriptions of the position like "Shielding
the developers" and "The gate keeper". Well at lest I know what my job title
is now, I guess I should see if Google is hiring for any Shit Umbrella
positions, I am pretty good at it.

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ronnier
I found this line interesting: "There are several hundred thousands lines of
javascript in Gmail – one of the biggest in the world".

I'd like to see what the engineers have to say on managing that much
JavaScript.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Gmail uses the Google Web Toolkit, a lot of the javascript that runs on the
site is actually produced via code that is originally in java.

<http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/>

~~~
cma
Gmail precedes GWT.

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ciupicri
> Google uses Gmail internally (obviously), switched over from Microsoft
> Outlook at launch (about 6 years ago)

I was under the impression that pine was a popular client at Google.

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inboulder
100 engineers? What have they been up to for the last 5 years? (besides buzz)

~~~
dandelany
Buzz, Wave, and Gmail Chat (including Video) aren't enough for you? How about
Gmail Labs, which didn't exist 2 years ago, but now lets you skin Gmail, use
keyboard shortcuts, embed youtube videos, etc. etc.? Calendar integration, a
better text editor, embedded photos, multiple simultaneous attachment uploads
w/ progress bars, better filters, incrementally better spam protection, plus
the fact that I now have 7.5 gigs of space in my inbox, all while fending off
attacks from Chinese hackers?

I think you grossly underestimate the amount of things they've accomplished in
the past year, and the number of people it takes to run a service this
popular. Facebook releases with grandiose redesigns, prompting temporary
revolts among their users. Gmail improves incrementally, so much so that I
can't imagine living without it as my primary e-mail client, but the sense of
novelty that comes with a massive redesign is lost. Personally, I prefer
Gmail's approach.

~~~
inboulder
That sounds like a lot of work for 10 people, or a normal amount for 20.

