Was Google Maps a clone? Google Mail a clone? Wave a clone? AppEngine a clone? The Chrome browser a clone? Android a clone? GWT a clone?
What are you talking about?
Re:Google Buzz
by cantastoria on Tuesday February 09, 2010 @04:11PM
(#1113328)
Yes to everything except for Wave and AppEngine.
I'm pretty sure Google didn't invent web based maps, e-mail and the web browser. Wave and AppEngine were good but useless...
Re:Google Buzz
by leviathant on Tuesday February 09, 2010 @04:42PM
(#1113421)
They may not have invented web-based maps and email, but the functionality of Google Maps was leaps and bounds better than anything else out there. Before Google Maps, you had to click and reload to move around or zoom. Similarly, while there were web-based email providers out there, none of them approached webmail the way Gmail did. Abandoning folders for tags and search? What webmail system was that a clone of?
I'm pretty sure you don't remember using web-based maps before Google Maps. They had no AJAX.
Perhaps you attach some other meaning to "clone" than an exact genetic duplicate, indistinguishable from the original except for gestational differences?
Further, was Google Search a clone of Altavista?
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Most of those products where purchased by Google.
See for yourself:
If that were enough to be "evil" then everything would be evil.
I don't care if Google is evil. They're a large corporation trying to make money like any other. They don't care about us.
* Nobody is claiming that Google is innovative in this example.*
My point was that the vast majority of Google's products are clones and yet they're still considered innovative where the same is true of Microsoft and they are not thought of that way.