
The Great Google Goat Rodeo - leonegresima
http://blog.markwunsch.com/post/50588412660/on-google
======
mankyd
"Their design ability might be improving, but again and again they show a lack
of editing — they lack the ability to be selective about their product
portfolio." This statement seems strange to me, being as the the prior
paragraphs were about Google shuttering many of their products.

Google may not have historically had great "editing" but they seem to be
getting there. They're discontinuing products that they don't think will
succeed, exactly what "editing" sounds like to me.

~~~
jtbigwoo
Editing takes place before publishing, not after. A newspaper that prints a
dozen retractions per day is not well edited.

~~~
mankyd
A fair point, but as they learn to edit, they can't leave what they consider
to be unsuccessful products in place either. Unlike publishing, product
development isn't static.

~~~
jtbigwoo
It's a hard problem for them. In traditional industries there's some natural
protection from the problems that google encounters with product management.

It would take Samsung forever to start up a factory to make a new kind of
washing machine, for example. If the new washing machines don't sell, Samsung
could discontinue the product line without pissing off very many customers
because all of the washing machines they already sold would continue working.

Google has the opposite problem where it's easy to start a new product but
discontinuing even a minor product pisses off thousands of people. If they
cared about customer happiness and trust, they'd get better at choosing
products to release and they'd move more quickly to killing off unsuccessful
ones. (Honestly, I'm not sure they care about customers enough to change. They
may place more value on flexibility than they do on customer happiness and
trust.)

------
fraserharris
Google doesn't force you to use Google+ as a social network, it forces you to
create a profile so it can unify identity across Google accounts.

~~~
spankalee
Disclaimer: I work for the big G

Exactly. Google needs a way to identify and canonicalize people and
organizations. I think they've tried various automated and smart techniques to
limited success, and it's much easier to say that if you create a profile so
that you tell us what your identity is and what your websites are, then we can
attribute your work in searches much better. You don't ever have to use G+ the
web site after that.

I think that there's a basic misunderstanding of what G+ is, even inside
Google, and it's our fault for not making it more clear. Maybe things needed
different names.

Google+ is really three main things:

At it's core G+ is an identity service. It knows who you are because you have
a profile. Authorship requires this I guess.

Then it's a sharing service. Google needed a way to enable sharing in all it's
products.

Finally, it's a web site with a social stream.

It's possible they should have stuck with "Google Profile" for the first part,
and then the author might not be so upset that Google needs some information
to attribute correctly.

Also, it'd be ideal if there were standards for these things. Google
definitely used to go more that route, like Open Social, but those attempts
failed against proprietary systems like Facebook. I think things are just
moving to fast right now for the slow process of standardization to be
competitive. I hope that when certain _features_ of identity, sharing,
messaging, etc. standardize again, then new protocols can be standardized
around those features. New XMPP extensions, or an entirely new protocol, to
support the features of Hangouts would be great for example. A system for
securely asserting identity and profile information (not log-ins) in the way
that people use Twitter, Facebook and G+ would be wonderful too.

~~~
ronilan
> Google needs a way to identify and canonicalize people and organizations

No. Wants. Google wants to have a way to identify and canonicalize people and
organizations. It is an understood desire. But it is not a need.

~~~
spankalee
Well, if you're going to be that pedantic, every thing Google does not
required by law is a want. When talking products the line between needs and
wants gets blurry. The inability to consistently link content to authors is a
pretty big problem for search and search quality. Solving a big problem in
your product usually falls on the "need" side of the spectrum.

------
Intermernet
This is probably an unpopular point of view, but:

I actually agree with author (despite his going into a rant in the latter part
of the article) about the horribleness of needing a Google+ account to
interact with most of Google's services these days (I'm wondering if any
clueless fool in their marketing/sales dept. has suggested G+ login for search
yet...), but I actually quite like Google+ .

It's, IMHO, miles in front of the competition in regards to _large_
communities, but, admittedly, fails on the _actual_ social stuff (friends,
family etc.). But, as I see it, the only reason they fail at this is due to
the overwhelming dominance of Facebook.

I now only use FB for communication with overseas (and far away, easy if
you're in Australia) friends. Most of my other online community _social_
behaviour is done through G+

Just my 2 cents (with inflation)

~~~
lawdawg
It astonishes me that people don't have an issue with this:

> I need a Google account to interact with most of Google's services these
> days.

but seem to have major issues with this:

> I need a _Google+_ account to interact with most of Google's services these
> days.

Why do people have such a hard time accepting that Google+ accounts are a
natural progression of Google's account management (and eventually will
replace the old, fragmented Google, Youtube, whatever account system)? Sure,
it has a companion social networking site, and requires a real name (or what
that looks like one), but that requirement could have been applied to regular
Google accounts as well and I highly doubt we would still see the amount of
complaining we see today about Google+ accounts.

~~~
mynewwork
I have a hard time accepting it, because it's not a 'natural progression' at
all, it's forcing me into a headache I don't want.

Gmail is the best free email, and GTalk was convenient instant messaging. Both
great, I used them daily. Using these services doesn't imply that I want a
public profile, that I want a social network, that I want to share anything or
that I want the constant hassle of setting privacy settings, then resetting
them every month when they change or new features are added which I'm auto-
enrolled into.

I don't want searching for my name to show a Google+ profile. I don't want
videos I've watched, articles I've read or links I've clicked to appear in a
stream/wall/circle/feed. I've had to go through facebook's privacy settings a
dozen times because they keep changing or adding features which default all
users to maximum-sharing. Google is too important for me to have to worry
about accidentally broadcasting all my interactions with various google
services to the world or my contacts.

------
iamwil
Wait. But that's what innovation cycle looks like. You try a bunch of stuff,
and most of it fails.

~~~
lawdawg
Seriously, name me one successful company that doesn't have a host of failures
and cancelled products attached to their name.

I much prefer Google launch a ton of products and only focuses on the one's
that "stick" because I know they will generally create an incredibly good
product once they are fully invested in it (see Android, Chrome, GMail, Docs,
Analytics, etc).

~~~
jessaustin
Well then I certainly hope that "Plus" will be recognized as a failure sooner
rather than later, because as TFA states that crap is getting spread over all
the good stuff Google does. When normal people start using other search
engines and maps to avoid the Plus hassles, Google should know they are
damaging the franchise.

~~~
lawdawg
What exactly are these "Plus hassles" you refer to?

~~~
rbritton
In my own direct experience Plus business pages just flat out don't work most
of the time. Our business moved back in February and I went to change the
address on our Plus account since that's now what appears in search results
(it seems to override whatever is in Google Places). I've been locked out of
the account ever since with an error 500 and the address in search results is
still the old one. Zero help in any form from Google via the product support
forum.

------
samspenc
This is actually a really well-written and balanced piece, and not just a
mindless "Google is Evil" rant.

~~~
aforty
Don't you know you get down voted for agreeing with the author?

~~~
endtime
I downvoted him because it's so unclear whether he was being sarcastic that
the comment adds no value.

~~~
samspenc
Thanks, I was NOT being sarcastic, sorry for not being clear on this. Most
anti-Google articles that make it to HN are completely off-base, this one was
quite rational.

~~~
endtime
Oh, well then, I totally disagree with you; I think the article was totally
incoherent. But I don't downvote just for disagreement on HN.

~~~
rm999
His comment was not sarcastic and did add some value. The article didn't come
off as incoherent to me, the author made a very clear point early in the
article ("their products for users [the ones that collect information to
inform advertising] are becoming confused, inarticulate, and increasingly
malicious"), and he spent the rest of the article backing up the point.

I believe that as a googler you have an obligation to be somewhat objective
when google comes up. Googlers have been accused in the past of coming into
discussions about google and downvoting critical comments, and I believe that
happened here. There are enough employees at google that it can really affect
the ordering of comments in these threads.

~~~
endtime
Why do you think I wasn't being objective? Or by "objective" do you actually
mean the opposite (i.e. that I always have to be critical of Google, which is
precisely as objective as never being critical of Google)?

We are very critical internally, and I have done my share of criticizing (any
Googler can verify this). And if it will make you feel better, personally I do
agree with the author's point that Google+ is "getting on" everything. But
this article, overall, is rambling and internally inconsistent, to the extent
that I genuinely wasn't sure if the OP was being sarcastic by calling it
"well-written".

~~~
rm999
>Or by "objective" do you actually mean the opposite

You're being very snarky and assuming the worst in people's comments. Both
samspenc and I meant what we said, as most people generally do. Seriously,
you've been less civil than you may realize.

What do I mean by objective? You downvoted a comment that is actually pretty
standard/common here ("I liked this article because X"). I can only imagine
you acted this way because you are biased towards the topic; it's easy to deny
you aren't, but you broke downvoting protocol either way. You're contributing
to the stereotype of googlers acting badly in threads about google (my
comments in this thread have been downvoted, something that virtually never
happens to me on hackernews).

~~~
endtime
>I can only imagine you acted this way because you are biased towards the
topic

This is exactly what I'm objecting to.

>you broke downvoting protocol either way

How did I break protocol if I am not (as you claim) lying?

------
scottyallen
Based on the title, I assumed this was referring to Google's ACTUAL goat
rodeo: [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/mowing-with-
goats.htm...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/mowing-with-goats.html)

~~~
ndesaulniers
Or the goat teleporter:
<http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=31482>

------
cromwellian
Google+ = Single Sign On across Google Products

Plus

Single Access-Control-List/Rolodex/Address Book Across Google Products

Plus

A social stream site that you can decide to use or not.

The first two are absolute needs. Having a separate set of credentials and
identity for GMail, Drive, YouTube, Play, Maps, et al is anti-user and highly
annoying. (you can still have multiple identities if you wish by creating
separate accounts). When I share documents on Drive, or content from Play, or
some other function that requires me to curate a list or group of people, why
not have this span services as well?

Now, I sympathize a lot with the notion that these things should be open and
federated and not siloed to Google or Facebook. But remember, Google tried
OpenID/OAuth/WebFinger/ActivityStreams.ms/PuSH, et al early on, and got
crushed by Facebook, and to some extent, all of that lost time on OpenSocial
and Buzz allowed Facebook to get further entrenched as the Web's identity
provider. Facebook connect is now on every site, and IMHO, it's a lot more
onerous than G+ profiles when it comes to privacy.

Long long ago, we had a federated vision of stuff like LDAP + ACAP for
distributed identity and profile configuration. If only we could get back to
the days of IETF collaboration on fundamental features like this.

~~~
saurik
Google already has single sign-on between all Google products... you make it
sound like they are just getting around to this with G+. They have always had
a single set of credentials and identity for all of the services you call out,
including YouTube (which is a little sketchier as they purchased it, with
existing accounts, and so there is an account import and attachment process:
but once you've done that, you've always been able to use your Google account
to sign in to it).

~~~
cromwellian
They had single sign-on, but they did not have a unified data-model profile as
the TOS/privacy policies made sharing data between services iffy.

My point is, part of G+ is simply a rebranding of functionality that existed
before, but now people are all upset over having to have a G+ profile, whereas
before, they had a Google Profile.

Creating a Google account should imply creating a G+ account, the same way it
implies provisioning Gmail, Drive, et al. If you don't like the G+ news feed,
don't use it, it's as simple as that, just like if you're a Dropbox user,
don't bother using the free GDrive storage.

------
gammarator
I agree: it's anticompetitive to give increased search prominence to sites
willing to link to a Google+ profile.

~~~
tomkarlo
What's the alternative? It's not like FB is going to open up their social
graph data so Google can use it to improve search results. I believe that
issue was discussed when G+ results first showed up in search. For what it's
worth, Facebook is also out there trying to compete on search using its social
graph information, which is what the recent Zuckerberg announcements talked
about.

------
skw
This article is kinda silly. Yes google owns everything but if they can afford
to run a bunch of pilot projects that ultimately fail, what's the problem?
These products can be re-imagined in more effective ways. Also allowing
different teams to house their projects in various places (google code,
github..) is awesome. Yes I agree things are a little bit all over the place,
but I would possibly want to work at Google.

Maybe my perspective is skewed, as I don't use many google frameworks or
resources to develop with...

------
SideburnsOfDoom
So Google is a big diverse company, it is not one thing. People are still
making the same mistake about e.g. Microsoft.

------
CosmicShadow
Needs more goats.

------
rasterizer
I'm not quite sure what the author is going on about in that post: 'google is
good but they make money so they're not good', 'google makes lots of products,
then kills some of them so they're evil', 'google design is not perfect so I
don't like them'.

It seems like he started from the assumption that Google is evil then he went
rambling around that without making a coherent argument.

And I think by "rodeo" he meant IO? it's gibberish.

~~~
jtbigwoo
"Goat rodeo" is slang for a particularly chaotic situation where nobody's in
charge and everybody's going in different directions.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_rodeo>

~~~
rasterizer
I see, then no convincing case was made to support that unless if you count
the lament about experimentation and their numerous products, and no
reasonable connection was made between that and 'evilness'.

~~~
rplacd
I'm convinced he makes what is at the very least an articulated argument for
the first (but never specifically attempts the second) - although I'm forced
to use capstone statements here. He specifically says:

> There is no unified Google that is “good” or “evil”. There is just an
> organizational clusterfuck that is unable to decide what it thinks is truly
> the best way to “organize the world’s information and make it universally
> accessible and useful”5. Is that by forcing web authors into a social
> network in order to improve directory results? Is that by dipping a toe into
> the music business? Is that by abandoning standards like RSS and
> XMPP/Jabber? I don’t think so.

and

> Google is not “evil”. Google is too big to be evil. At its worst, Google is
> banal.

