Is out? Since when has Google been good at branding? Look at Google/Android TV’s history. Or even Google Play.

> Since when has Google been good at branding?

Google's Mid-2000s marketing and product-nomenclature was on-point though:

* Google Mail

* Google Maps

* Google Image Search

That's because it was hardly a product name - they just slapped their corporate name of top of the respective noun...

Sometimes the best decisions are the simplest.

Well they've named it Google Assistant. I think I'd prefer "ok/hey assistant".

I'd prefer it be treated like passwords - upon installation, you should change the default immediately.

I refuse to use a service that requires me to say its globally recognized name so often I will probably become brainwashed to it. And then there's the older hacks with TV commercials that took advantage of those defaults, and the (cooler) hypersonic transmitted voice command attacks, or the ones delivered by vibrating the device's microphone with a laser, etc.

None of these attacks would have worked if the product trigger wasn't so predictable from the get-go.

Eventually even Raspberry Pi stopped using the default pi/raspberry default combination. How we invoke our voice-activated programs should be treated with equal care.

I assume this lets the wakeword listening model be simpler.

Call me childish but I think "OK <profane insult>" would take a long time to wear thin.

This reminds me of the great Sci-fi book series "Old Man's War", where the soldiers get a thought-controlled computer called "Brain Pal™" installed in their head. After installation they first have to choose a name and almost everyone uses a swear word for that. The main protagonist then keeps activating it with the phrase "Hey Asshole". I'm pretty sure that this book came out way before Google Assistant.

> I'm pretty sure that this book came out way before Google Assistant.

Or maybe not.

/s /h

Fuckface, play Beethoven's 5th.

"Hey fuckface"

"Hey Larry"

"Hey Sergey" is more catchy

Exactly

Google Maps and Google Image Search were called that and are still around, but "Google Mail" was never called that and isn't now.

I'd also add their insistence on using the same branding approach for experimental apps as their core offerings. A new app named `Google $RandomNoun` has a really high chance of being killed a few years from now, while `Google Search` and `Google Maps` don't. I'm sure the company wants to use the same structure to give new products an initial boost, but they seem weirdly indifferent to the long term damage it's doing to the overall brand.

They’re not weirdly indifferent, they’re busy shovelling cash into their vaults from their advertising oriented businesses

The used to call things Google Labs Foo.

That idea was canned...

The team who developed it chose that so their product couldn’t be killed. Could you imagine the headlines?

True story.

(By the way not a true story as far as I know -- it's just the kind of thing someone telling a tall tale usually finishes with).

So, I can't find the reference googling it now, but apparently Jeff Bezos really wanted Alexa to be called "Amazon" (pretty similar to Ok Google).

I think he didn't want to dilute the brand, and have the association front of mind or something, but the people on the alexa project managed to convince him to go with alexa instead (as it's confusing, and arguably a better name).

I think that's part of the reason for the different wake words, one of which is amazon (though the confusion with people called alexa is likely a much bigger one. It's probably why they have amazon in that list at least).

Very interesting. I can’t help feel the irony given Alexa itself was a brand Bezos acquired* in 1999 to get in on being a Search Engine just when Google was on the rise...

I can hear it now “We finally have a use for that brand we spent all that money on..”

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Internet

Oh wow, I didn't know that, they're the guys that do alexa traffic rankings. Didn't really know it was owned by amazon. Thanks for the info!

They would have had to pay the Roddenberry estate licensing money.

https://www.techspot.com/news/46668-googles-answer-to-siri-m...

"OK, Sirotta"? :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googol#Etymology

Or, was it prescient branding?

At some point you could say “Ok Jarvis” as an Easter egg.

„Ok Glass“

Google: /starts playing Einstein on the Beach, the 9-hour version/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_on_the_Beach