Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

Re:Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand by compiler-guy on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:57PM (#19556242)

People were saying this about Google+ for years. "It's a 'bet the company' level of commitment."

Yet here we are.

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Re:Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand by jfasi on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @02:15PM (#19557014)

Maybe from the outside it seemed that way, but from the inside just about everyone except Vic Gundotra and his org, no one considered it a serious contender. Just about everyone I know knew Google+ was misguided and orthogonal to the business, meanwhile the consensus internally is that GCP is an obvious extension of the infrastructure work that is going to get done anyway.

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Re:Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand by Jasper_ on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @05:33PM (#19558802)

> No one expects an instant success. But even if this week’s launch evokes snark or yawns, Google will keep at it. Google+ is not a product like Buzz or Wave where the company’s leaders can chalk off a failure to laudable ambition and then move on. “We’re in this for the long run,” says Ben-Yair. “This isn’t like an experiment. We’re betting on this, so if obstacles arise, we’ll adapt.”

> “I don’t really see what Google’s alternative is,” says Smarr. “People are going to be a fundamental layer of the internet. There’s no going back.”

From Inside Google+, published in Wired Magazine in 2011. As the article mentions, Google started dismantling Google+ in 2014. Three years appears to be the upper limit of their patience for "the long run". https://www.wired.com/2011/06/inside-google-plus-social/

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Re:Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand by PopePompus on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @05:03PM (#19558548)

So what you're saying is that when an organization is considering using a Google product, it needs to track down some Google employees and speak with them privately, to see if the company is really serious about supporting it?

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Re:Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand by iainmerrick on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @05:51PM (#19558939)

Just about everyone I know knew Google+ was misguided and orthogonal to the business

I agree with that, but even so, the company leadership bought into Google+ in a big way, for a long time. It's incorrect to say it didn't have a huge effect on the company's direction and (perhaps indirectly) on just about every developer working there.

the consensus internally is that GCP is an obvious extension of the infrastructure work that is going to get done anyway.

Why then is it so far behind AWS in feature set and market share? Google's data centers and internal infrastructure were way ahead of the competition for years, but they were slow and reluctant to open them up.

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Re:Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand by compiler-guy on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @03:01PM (#19557477)

When you "bet the company", you are committing to making it your business. It's a plan to pivot to that being the most important thing you do.

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