Google Under Siege - Fair or Unfair?

[Brett_Tabke]

The Gmail outcry is huge. The Local search outcry is growing. The number of negative Google stories out there is a surprise.

It seems Google can't please anyone these days.

What is the root of it all?

a) The Florida update?
b) Big - just plain bigness (everyone loves to pick on the big guy)?
c) Poor management?
d) Public relations dept screw up?
e) Competitors planting seeds of division?
f) All of the above?

[HarryM]

If people using this forum don`t do this and now, the only way forward will be Pay for advertising.

Maybe that's the way it should be. Why should a commercial outfit expect anything for free?

As a resource the internet is still far too heavily commercialised. It's not just for selling things. People use it for information. Students use it to research their course work. Kid's use it for their homework. It's for government agencies, citizen's advice, community groups, etc., not just hotel rooms and airline tickets.

If Google or any other search engine gets the mix right, those people who can't make a living from it should look elsewhere to make money. Perhaps they should got to work.

As a European, I do find this continual bleating about being unable to make a buck so depressing.

[HarryM]

Leosghost,

You missed my point. Florida was a big bang. Brandy was a big step back. I was suggesting if Florida had been phased in gradually, once the results started to go sour, they could have back out the last change gracefully and there would have been less chance for the anti-Google uproar.

However I don't know what was the change to the algo. Maybe it was so fundamental that Florida had to happen all at once.

[Brett_Tabke]

I was talking with a good reporter friend at a major news paper yesterday about the topic of this thread. He made one very interesting point. He said that Google lost their teflon when they added Google News. He said many reporters and shops feel threatened by it. The News section represents complete power over internet news and the ability to set the agenda in Googles favor/image net wide.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

The News sections represents complete power over internet news and the ability to set the agenda in Googles favor/image net wide.

Does this desire to dominate the Internet remind you of anyone? What's the chances of Google facing European lawsuits for anti-competitive behaviour a couple of years down the line.

[percentages]

In a word, "Focus".

Google now seems to want to be all things to all people. It is possible to be great at one thing, it is very difficult to be good at many.

Google is under siege, purely because it has lost its focus and is now attempting to provide services where it has no real expertise.

It should get back to search, get that right again, and then quit messing with it in public. By all means innovate and push the envelope, but do it behind locked doors, and don't let it out until very well proven.

Google is suffering from peer pressure and lack of experience. It knows the competition wants a bigger piece of its pie, but instead of protecting what it had, it is chasing their pie.

Attack can be the best form of defense, but it can also be fatal.

[europeforvisitors]

I think one of the reasons for the furore is that Google has gone from being an uncommercial, "people's friend" organisation to one that now seems driven by the maximization of profit.

I think Google's real problem is that it's allowed itself to become driven by the maximization of other people's profits through the pollution of information search results by a flood of commercial listings. This makes Google search less valuable and more annoying to the user. In my category, travel, it's like opening a Fodor or Frommer's guidebook to a chapter on Paris and not being able to find basic tourist information because the chapter consists mostly of boilerplate affiliate pages.

The single most useful step that Google could take would be to split e-commerce and affiliate results from information (both commercial and noncommercial) results. Users don't care if Google is making money from AdWords, or using software to display targeted ads with gmail, or causing Webmasters and SEOs to have fits because of revisions to the search algorithm, or upsetting AdSense publishers with a variable-pricing and compensation scheme. Users do care about convenience, accuracy, and freedom from commercial clutter when they're trying to find information on widgets or Widgetville with Google's flagship product: the search page.

[mquarles]

My take too. The thing is with Gmail using it is *totally voluntary*. It's not like people won't be able to search for websites using Google unless they also use Gmail. If the privacy implications of Gmail bother anyone, they merely need not sign up, and they'll have no problem at all with it.

rfg,

The first time I send a customer service email to a GMail account that carries an ad for my competitor, based upon the content I wrote, it's no longer "totally voluntary."

MQ

[stevenb 1959]

The way human nature is, in times like these for google, its competitors can see these items of concern well in advance of the average individual and they have people in power positions, so they utilize the press to make the matter even worse.
Another thing I see is the large majority of the internet services and anything you want and need that is available on the internet is free in one form or another. Thus the majority of the web surfers are looking and find things for free, so this means gmail and anything else like it that are free will be successful as long as these people find it does what they want it to do. They dont care what pr it gets. It is just like freeware and programs that are free but the method is supposedly illegal but wacks and wacks of people use them. Gmail is no different. It is just a service that will be used alot for exactly what google intends it to be because the market for it is there.

[edited by: stevenb_1959 at 2:30 pm (utc) on April 14, 2004]

[Marls]

HarryM

"Google is run by the programmers."

"I think one of the reasons for the furore is that Google has gone from being an uncommercial, "people's friend" organisation to one that now seems driven by the maximization of profit"

Programmers + scalability = maximization of profit. That's why I bet both these views are right. Without the programmers there is little to no scalability.

[JudgeJeffries]

I sort of get the feeling thats Brett's taking a 'pop' at Google a lot more often these days which worries me given his pre-eminent position and knowledge of the SE world. Whilst every one wants change for the better it does seem as though Googles ever present, frequent and regular changes do nothing at all to increase the searchers ability to find what they want. Throw everything up in the air and see where it lands is obviously Googles current mantra as they think eventually all will come out right. Instead of reling on a load of academics, the majority of whom will never have had a proper job, they would be better served by taking more notice of what goes on here and perhaps emloy a few of the more able members to help sort out the mess that they are obviously in, (headless chickens springs to mind) before the public abandons them and moves on. For all the market penetration of the name 'Google' I would suggest that Microsoft with its bottomless pockets, undesputable brand name that fires up on most computers every day will, if Bill so desires, wipe them out in a flash. They should take heed not only of the public but also of this industry to which they owe their very existance. Apologies to GG who seems a decent enough man but is probably only a relatively small fish in a big pond. Perhaps he could persuade a couple of the big guns to have a read here now and again...they might learn something.