DISQUS

vanelsas · 10 months ago

Matt, a bit of a pretentious title for a post about Google not taking care of user needs. They, like any big company are making mistakes. And these need to be corrected. But imo killing a company as big as Google will take a bit more than another company doing a few things better.
We often tend to forget that Google has become way more than search or advertisement. If you are going to compete with Google you better remember they have unprecedented nr of servers and data centers. They are one of the largest infrastructure companies in the world and have fiber all over the world. The sheer investments needed to overcome that alone are incredible. That doesn't mean they are untouchable. Just like anything else that comes up it will come down t some point. But it may be a good idea not to have an ambition to kill Google, but rather have an ambition to do something entirely new exceptionally well. After all, that is what they did too.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Vanelsas -- I don't know if I would say pretentious, but I certainly wrote it purposefully. Companies that don't pay attention to their users are at a huge risk. You are right about their scale and they've invested in other elements of business. It's a lot of inertia to move as an upstart, but they did it to Yahoo and scalability is easier now then it was in the late 90s. It also probably won't be a one-to-one attack from a new major upstart. It will be 50 small entrepreneurial companies chiseling away over time. I just wanted to get people thinking about all of these small companies who are making a big impact.

Kevin LeCRUSH · 10 months ago

I think someone could make a really good Feedburner alternative (if one doesn't exist already). And if it's marketed to some influential bloggers - and if they are pleased with it - it could do well.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Kevin -- You're right. Some of their products are more at risk than others. I love Gmail, use it all the time and the switching cost is too high.

Rob Sellen · 10 months ago

google wont die...ever. ;o) way to big

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Rob -- In this business environment anything is possible. If advertising spending drops, how else are they making money?

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

Post by Matt Dickman: http://www.friendfeed.com/mattdickman

David Knight · 10 months ago

I call link bait! There is only one way to kill Google and that's to beat their advertising model and and THEN out innovate in something big like search. It's gonna take big $ and big ideas

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

David -- Granted the revenue model they have is working for now, but it is trending down especially in this economy. Innovation can come from anywhere. Would you have said the same thing to Google about Yahoo back in 98-99? If they had listened then, they would not be where they are now.

timedalkat · 10 months ago

I'm afraid by killing Google we may be killing the only power player that gets it. They're clearly narrowing their large ideologies to win one, or a few big ones. That is how it's played sadly. I'm sticking with them, until someone can tell me about another power player in regards to the net that is so close to making positive change.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

timedalkat -- I don't think most of us have a choice but to stick with Google. Overall, I am happy with most of the products they offer. They are, as you said, focusing down on a couple of things and I think that's where the opportunity lies for upstarts to latch on and pick away the things on Google's periphery.

Tobias Verhoog · 10 months ago

I also think the title is a bit dramatic. I like the idea thoug that although Google earns it's money with advertising, they also have to make their other services really great. No one is going to look at ads displayed next to something that isn't good. I remember when I started using Google search, they absolutely outperformed the other search engines (Altavista for me). Now there doesn't seem to much of a difference. Concluding, a big company can also make mistakes, but it's about how you set them right.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Tobias -- I did write the title to get attention, but my goal was to get conversation going like the one happening here. Thanks for weighing in. You stated this better than I did so thank you. They have so much going on and need to focus on making things great again. Differentiation + ad revenue sounds like a great model.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Was replying to these in the blog comments, but I'll repost here:

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Alexander -- I don't know if I would say pretentious, but I certainly wrote it purposefully. Companies that don't pay attention to their users are at a huge risk. You are right about their scale and they've invested in other elements of business. It's a lot of inertia to move as an upstart, but they did it to Yahoo and scalability is easier now then it was in the late 90s. It also probably won't be a one-to-one attack from a new major upstart. It will be 50 small entrepreneurial companies chiseling away over time. I just wanted to get people thinking about all of these small companies who are making a big impact.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Justin -- Thanks for the comment. Google is a collection of services kept afloat by advertising revenues for the most part. You're right about the idea of Google doing social networking, it doesn't really work. More than a few people have asked why they would use the service. "What does it do for me?". Right now I can't really answer them. Obviously killing Google from the outside in is a tough idea, they need to make sure it doesn't happen from the inside out. Feedburner is one small example, but I think the trend is one to watch.

Rob Sellen · 10 months ago

with the data they have, they will know better than any of us. ;o)

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Rob -- You're right about the data. They know a LOT ;)

Rob Sellen · 10 months ago

yeah..and it will tell them al they need to know. :o)

Scabr · 10 months ago

Most interesting tech information I'm getting using Twitter and FriendFeed.Google lost tech initiative.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Scabr -- I agree with you. Google can obviously acquire them, but we all know where that leads. Google seems to be crushing innovation as well as building on it.

Alexander van Elsas · 10 months ago

Matt, envision a world in which advertisement is not the premium currency ont he web, and you will find a direction in which Google can be attacked. They currently own the online search and advertisement space. Instead of fighting them head on I would create a nice that makes their methods less relevant. Search is already becoming less important, and that provides alternatives that can become as big and important as Google is now

jtyost2 · 10 months ago

Two bad services does not mean the end of Google by far, for one Google is much more than any of those individual services. FriendConnect was written in the hope that people love Google enough to form social connections with other Google'ers, they aren't. Facebook, Myspace, etc have the social network market wrapped up currently and that isn't likely to change at least with anything coming out of Google. Also I would say that Feedburner while yes bad, isn't the company: search and advertising is.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

jtyost2 -- Thanks for the comment. Google is a collection of services kept afloat by advertising revenues for the most part. You're right about the idea of Google doing social networking, it doesn't really work. More than a few people have asked why they would use the service. "What does it do for me?". Right now I can't really answer them. Obviously killing Google from the outside in is a tough idea, they need to make sure it doesn't happen from the inside out. Feedburner is one small example, but I think the trend is one to watch.

Jason Kaneshiro · 10 months ago

Name a better alternative and I'd take this article more seriously. What's the alternative to GMail and Google Reader? And as for Google Connect - are you seriously saying putting your future in the hands of Facebook is better idea? I trust that company *way* less than Google.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Alexander -- That's a great way to frame this. It's a shift from ad-focus to user-focus/innovation.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Jason -- I am not saying Facebook is the solution. They have the same issues. There are alternatives to GMail and Reader. They are good, but somebody could easily build something better. There are more tools than ever and more people who have the skills. Do they all work at Google? Could anyone invent the next Reader? Absolutely.

Alexander van Elsas · 10 months ago

Matt, thx, it actually touches a theme I write about every once in a while (did it today too btw) ;-)

Daniel J. Pritchett · 10 months ago

I'm with you to an extent: Google is very large and doesn't really participate in cutting-edge customer engagement like Twitter and visible brand monitoring as far as I can see. Perhaps they're more attentive to their advertisers and less attentive to their users?

I recently blogged my reasons on choosing YouTube over Seesmic for a specific use case. Seesmic's founder replied within a few hours and offered an impassioned defense of his product. YouTube/Google has unsurprisingly not responded and I don't expect them to. From their position they probably

The only public face of Google support I can think of is Matt Cutts, and as many bloggers before me have pointed out he doesn't scale.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Daniel -- Great example of what I am talking about. I think they are paying attention on the advertising side (rightly so) and leaving users to deal on our own. Community support is crucial, especially when they begin extending beyond their own servers. To your point about Matt, he doesn't scale, but he at least is out there trying to help. This is an obstacle that could be solved by the company if they put resources behind it and I hope that they do.

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

One of the fun things about having strong guest posters is that I'm allowed to occasionally disagree with stuff on my own site! I think what Matt has noticed is absolutely true - the trust of Google has decreased as new services have rough edges, slowed response times, and invisible support. Combine that with the ads first, users second mentality and you can see why people are frustrated. But I don't think Google is going anywhere, and I want them to succeed vs. others (Microsoft for example)

Iggy Kin · 10 months ago

marketing is probably starting to run things just like they did at yahoo, where are the visionaries?, where are the leaders? the folks that really believed that you can never be evil

Alexander van Elsas · 10 months ago

@Louis that is odd. I tend to disagree with myself all the time ;-)

Matt Cutts · 10 months ago

I'll call linkbait too, but interestingly enough I've been talking to both the FriendConnect and the FeedBurner folks recently, and feel pretty excited about what I'm hearing. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't understand FriendConnect at first, but recent conversations with that group (and OpenSocial) have me very excited.

Matt Cutts · 10 months ago

P.S. I'll also strongly disagree that Google as a whole isn't listening to users. This is an interesting economic environment and every company is recalibrating in different ways, e.g. Google has closed some products recently. But I think people are over-generalizing about some remaining products. And from where I sit, I see many more clued-in Googlers watching the outside world to see what we need to do better on. I love that Jeff Huber (VP Eng at Google) showed up recently to reply to some comments.

vanelsas · 10 months ago

I think it is often just easy and more fun for people to bash the successful companies. Everybody makes mistakes, the question is how you deal with them.

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

@Matt Cutts and others: I had the option to change the proposed headline, but left it as I think Matt Dickman can answer why he feels the way he does. As for linkbait, that's a different post opportunity. I don't believe linkbait works the way it used to, so I don't believe in it. Re: FeedBurner, I'm sticking with it, and FriendConnect I'm watching from the sidelines so far.

Daniel J. Pritchett · 10 months ago

Louis isn't kidding about his headline changing powers. I think he spruces mine up every time, and they always need it too ;)

James Koole · 10 months ago

Very true. Some of what's happening here speaks to the common misconception that listening to customers means doing everything they say.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Louis -- They aren't going anywhere soon. Death by a million paper cuts is a better analogy. I think Google also lifts the industry which is why I am so frustrated to see this lack of support.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Matt -- You can call linkbait, that's your opinion (though, isn't that passe now?). The title is the way I feel. I think service is a huge opportunity that the company is missing out on. You have a very large company, but support should be the first priority, especially with new products. People's questions are still sitting there unanswered on FriendConnect, early adopters and evangelists should be the first people who get help. I would still align service first.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Also, Matt your engagement here shows the model that Google should be looking toward. Get your smart, passionate people out there, engaging and solving problems. Thank you for that.

David Knight · 10 months ago

Ok, liked due to Matt's insane ability to respond thoughtfully to every comment. Google's ads can be considered a user benefit, they can be focused and personalized. Since the campaigns are tailored by humans and not algorithms they can also give you better results on search pages if you're not exactly sure what you're after. Until someone can manage to come up with a "free" revenue model that provides more value to it's users than Google does, they're not going anywhere

Daniel J. Pritchett · 10 months ago

+1 David. Matt D. is doing a great job of keeping on top of the comments here. I love seeing a post take off like this.

luca filigheddu · 10 months ago

I gave up on Feedburner a couple of days ago and will never look back. Very tired to deal with completely unreliable data. Before the Google era, Feedburner was rocking the house. Sad.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Luca -- Thanks for the comment. I agree with you. We all know that the numbers are guesses and the reliability has been horrible. Even more sad is that it's the only option.

luca filigheddu · 10 months ago

I have to say I'm fine with some powerful plugins I found out for
Wordpress. Very well designed and they only rely on the raw log data. More
work for the blogger, but you keep frustration away at least :-)

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

I'm on Typepad myself so I'll have to keep looking, but thanks for the heads up!

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Thanks Daniel and David. I love these conversations too. I wanted this to get people thinking about this. David -- you're right about the ads, but when is the last time you said "man, I wish I had a better ad?" vs. "man I wish I had some support". Ads rule for Google (revenue is key especially now).

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

James -- Listening to customers and doing what they say isn't productive, but not letting them know you're listening is crazy. I'll take a "we hear you and are working on it" any day of the week. Much better than silence. Thanks for commenting!

Matt Cutts · 10 months ago

MattD, I'm not begrudging you the title--I think the time is always right to kill Google, and I try to think every day about how I would kill Google. That way I can help prevent it by making Google better. :) But there will always be parts of a company that don't converse as much as people want--that doesn't mean that they don't hear the complaints, or aren't working behind the scenes to make things better. Talking to the FriendConnect folks about the future is getting me psyched, for example.

David Knight · 10 months ago

I run Google ads on my site, I wish for better Ads EVERY DAY

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

MattC -- I know you're working hard as a company and I am *really* a fan. Just two things within two weeks that piqued my interest. You're smart to look for the "Google killer" and it is people like you who keep our faith in the company. We just want more ;) Thanks so much for jumping in!

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

David -- That makes a lot of sense :) I see the publisher side, looking @ the consumer side. I would pay for no ads, but not better ads.

Craig · 10 months ago

Google seems to be thinning themselves out. They acquire all these great companies, but then what? They don't have the time or resources to really improve them more. A lot of google employees are starting to leave as well to start their own projects, which they wouldn't be able to do at google. So now the talent pool is dropping and even though it's always ranked as the best place to work, I have read otherwise. Google needs to focus on their products and how it can help the consumers.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Agreed Craig, and support is the best way to help people overlook an inadequate/buggy product. You see this all the time in other industries. The personal touch is key.

Matt Cutts · 10 months ago

No worries. In my ideal world, every Google property would keep an eye on what people say in the blogosphere/web and then respond. In practice, the first half (listening) usually happens, but we could still do more responding in the conversations. I think articles like this help push Google into conversing more though.

Micah Wittman · 10 months ago

David, do you know about http://projectwonderful.com ? I've been trying it for just a couple months so far (as an ad publisher). The jury's still out for me (see it in action here: http://bebepool.com/arthur), but it's worth investigating.

David Knight · 10 months ago

@Micah - I've heard of, but never investigated it I'll take a look thanks :-)

Scott Hepburn · 10 months ago

I share your frustration with the Google/Feedburner situation, but I think Google will survive that. It took some patience, but my numbers bounced back up, and now I think the tool may even be more stable.

More importantly, the frustration from this hiccup will fade from our memories over time. If the new Google-based Feedburner platform is, in fact, a better tool, this will blow over. Google's a big company and I think they'll absorb this hit.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Scott -- You're right. Time will tell and we easily move on to the next thing. Had these two event not happened so closely I would not have even written this post.

Rob Sellen · 10 months ago

MattC... you said..."Talking to the FriendConnect folks about the future is getting me psyched, for example"..... any chance of a hint to why...? :o)

Tees · 10 months ago

I'm going to have to agree. Google is too big.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

I'm with Rob. Would love to know more about FC

Rob Sellen · 10 months ago

yeah Matt.... be an interesting thing to hear. :o)

Svartling · 10 months ago

This is silly.

Anthony Farrior · 10 months ago

Like everyone else, I'm highly vested in google email, chat, documents, youtube, and connect. I did draw the line with the feedburner transition. I even tried Google's version. I just worry about puting all of my eggs in one basket. It's impossible for one company to do everything well and if they do, something's wrong....

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Anthony -- I'm in the same boat. Very invested. I want them to succeed. I want to help them succeed, but I need support to do that. Diversification could be another reason people start using other services to your point. Thanks!

Digvijay · 10 months ago

Great post—thanks for the great read!

In my opinion, Google is getting too large for its every effort to be flawless. It is the problem many big companies face – it is hard to be successful at too many diverse products. It’s what gives startups their big opportunities. This is why Microsoft missed the search revolution and why Google has to work harder to catch the next one.

Add to that the fact that an internet service has a much narrower moat. Unlike Windows, I would even call search up for grabs. I believe the next big revolution will happen when search becomes a platform. This will allow hundreds of smaller companies to innovate and build domain-specific solutions, leading to a new age of information.

Unlike any other platform before it (Windows? eBay?), the search platform will face incredible technical and business challenges. It will need to interpret a few words entered by the user to aggregate the best results from a number of different search providers, intelligently integrating their results. On top of this, we’ll have to find a way for each search provider to benefit from the platform by sharing the monetary benefits.

The next winner in search will come from new ideas that no one has thought of before. Google needs to focus on the next revolution and execute on key ideas or they are bound to miss the boat as well.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Digvijay -- Thanks for adding your thoughts here. Every major company is at risk in some way. Google does need to look ahead and be proactive as well as support the current user base.

ChrisG - Art Director · 10 months ago

It is Yahoo! that Google needs to look out for (no, seriously).

With Carol Bartz at the helm, this is my prediction:

Yahoo! will accept some kind of deal with Microsoft. With a huge infusion of MS-cash, Yahoo! will go on an acquisition spree.

Top of the list: Twitter.

Take a look at how Carol Bartz ran AutoDesk. Shrewdly calculated acquisition after acquisition.

She was partially put in place to give Microsoft a new negotiating partner. Some form of Microsoft/Yahoo! union is now inevitable.

Meanwhile, the question all over the blogsphere is-- Which Web 2.0 apps/sites will have the cash to weather the recession? Which ones will fold, and which will be acquired... and if so, by who?

Yahoo!, under Carol Bartz stewardship, spending Microsoft's money. That's who. A spending spree, snapping up Web 2.0 bargains.

I predict this will be the Yahoo! comeback strategy.

Matt Cutts · 10 months ago

The more I understand about FriendConnect, the more excited I get. If you haven't seen, there's an OpenSocial hackathon at the Googleplex in February: http://socialapp.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/annou...

maxrosenthal · 10 months ago

Okay I get it. You would feel better if you actually had to pay MONEY for buggy applications and poor customer support. I wonder if such a company actually exists.

Matt Dickman · 10 months ago

Max -- The way I see it, I give them my time for free to help them develop more/better products that earn them more money. The phrase that comes to mind is "help me help you". Would I pay money for stability and a product that delivers and is supported, absolutely. That's not their biz model though.

Matt Keegan · 10 months ago

I don't see Google going away, missteps or not. The company is too entrenched to simply disappear, but challenges from start ups who launch niche platforms could undermine certain sectors of its business.

Bob Sonin · 10 months ago

Google is the future. They have the scale and R&D/grunt to do great things everyday in everyway, particularly improving our lives. Matt, you are a lucky boy to be working there with such interesting things and people.

Tony · 10 months ago

Big companies sometimes have flop products or services. In Google's case, gmail is still excellent. Majority of people still "google" during 'research' and analytics seem to work fine (at least for my boss).

I don't think it's fair to judge the company yet for losing its "customer-centric" business approach.

But you're right, in such a shaky economic environment, anything is possible. A few bad mistakes or flop campaigns could lose the company a lot. It's always best to satisfy customers because their loyalty ensures continuing profit - which is the main goal for any business.

barefootmeg · 10 months ago

I left Orkut during the donut invasion of 2004 and never looked back. It was at that point that I decided Google might like the idea of having a social networking arm, but that they weren't going to support it very well, if at all. I haven't bothered with anything "social" that they've brought out since (with the exception of gmail... if you'd call that social.)

Paul · 10 months ago

nice article Matt. Funny, was just thinking the other day, that Google (and Apple) are two brands I'd miss if they disappeared overnight. My email, blogging, youtube videos, google docs and a bit of searching would all have to be replaced. I do find they are very (very) slow to answer people. This must be something to do with their massive size now. I hope nobody kills them soon.

P