I’ve been to so many big earth-shaking events from BigTechCo’s — today’s Google thing is making me yawn, while my eyes glaze over in boredom. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
Here’s how products like this are conceived: Permanent link to this item in the archive.
1. We need to kill Facebook. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
2. What will we do. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
3. It can’t just be Facebook. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
4. No one will use that. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
5. It has to be better. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
6. It has to be something only we can do. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
7. Some place where we have the advantage. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
8. Something people have no choice but to use. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
So if you’re Microsoft in 1999, you bake it into Windows. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
If you’re Google in 2011, you bake it into search. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
All you do is make your core product heavier. The thing you wanted to kill doesn’t go anywhere. It hardly notices what you did. The users might care to the extent that they’re annoyed (or in the case of wordpress.com and their fear of being left out of the iPad, hugely annoyed). Permanent link to this item in the archive.
A picture named elephant.jpgThe thing that makes Facebook great is that it incubated in the market with real users. It was made by real users. It was formed by actual use. One day at a time, one feature at a time, in public, every home run visible, and every mis-step. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
Products like the one Google just announced are hatched at off-sites at resorts near Monterey or in the Sierra, and were designed to meet the needs of the corporation that created it. A huge scared angry corporation. What little is left of the spark that created it in the first place is now used to being Number One, and wants to feel that again. It’s being created to make that person feel better. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
Eventually they will become an investment bank and a services company. The fate for all former high-flying techco’s. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
Yawwwwwwwwwwn. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
(Source: scripting.com)
