Miop - 10:55 pm on Mar 24, 2006 (gmt 0)

< Google knows who their clients are, and they take their needs very seriously.

They just understand where their value to their different categories of clients really are. I'm not so sure that you understand it.

Google's value is in the number of eyes looking at their products. That is what their clients buy.

Throwing away that valuable commodity by bowing down to the demands of webmasters is not in the interests of their clients, even if their clients are those same webmasters.

Why is it that whenever there are a few upset webmasters, they need to highjack ever thread to #*$! about the same thing, over and over and over ... >

Actually the point I was making was a different one, (but ok maybe a bit the same!)

I don't care about the perks - I've had enough geek bf's to know that gadgets are essential to the refreshment of the intellectual (and even Victorians knew to give their factory workers beer and a day at the seaside). :)

But seriously, I am curious to know what level of business management people is employed by Google. The couple of companies I know who were very successful with their innovative computing related products were companies which employed very clever programmers, but also employed or were run by very clever business managers. The business managers were essential for organising the programmers and making sure they reached their deadlines, for if it had been up to the programmers themselves, they would have been locked away in little humming rooms for years, because the product would never have been 'finished'. It could always be improved with emerging hardware or software technology, and so it would never be 'perfect'.

So far, although G is certainly never short of clever and innovative ideas, the business management skills appear to me to be somewhat lacking, and it's all looking a bit of a jumble at the moment. As I said elsewhere, I don't think either webmasters or searchers are driving G anymore (if they ever were) - the pressure is now on G to make money for investors.
They will be expected to perform.

This is relevant to the thread topic (as well as to us grumbly webmasters:) - Google are again accused of insularity and 'unwillingness to engage external people in its world' in a recent survey by Jupiter Research, and it is suggested that this aspect of their operation may hinder their expansion. Maybe they are simply too top-heavy in scientists? :)