Comments on: Google Buzz: The Big Misdirection

By: Nichola

Nichola — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 06:06:29 +0000

This blog posting presented me a full load of thoughts, with thanks for posting

By: vsp

vsp — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 03:59:42 +0000

Google is becoming the Microsoft of Theft. It doesn’t innovate but copy and finally take over from others. Because of its clout, it pretends to offer freebies and free services but in actual fact it seeks to defeat the ‘enemy’ by stealth and unfair competition. Beware of Greeks offering gifts! Google business model is based on adverts: the more blood it can sucks, the more zombies that are created who carve for freebies but never realize they will lose their soul to Google. In this respect, Google is more dangerous than Microsoft because of its power of seduction.

Eric Schmidt believed that privacy can be trampled on with disdain because they have the power. One has to careful about the personal hypocrisy of Schmidt’s dismissive stance on privacy, because for about a year, Schmidt blacklisted CNET reporters from Google after the tech news company published an article with information about his salary, neighborhood, hobbies, and political donations — all obtained from Google searches. Schmidt’s dismissive statement on privacy is what one could expect the search giant to be moving towards doing a lot of evil which would be difficult to stop.

How can Google be trusted with sensitive information when all they care about is to mine the golden lode of ads profits for their own selfish domination of the world’s information cow-dung heap?

To hell with responsibility and caution. Ask Eric Schmidt why he thinks privacy is not important for Google’s spying activities. Because it an hindrance to their callous stake to the ads pie, which they have dominated.

Just as the banks and financial institutions cannot be trusted to regulate themselves, so also Google should not be left to its own device. Its offering of freebies is an attempt to make millions of zombies who think anything free is the holy grail of generosity. Far from it; and remember how the banks also offered freebies and trapped many gullible people into their deathly grasp.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:41:05 +0000

Actually, I don’t think Apple built it from a blank sheet of paper either. There’s some electronics involved in there.

By: Kontra

Kontra — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:12:09 +0000

Yes, I actually explored this in my next piece, “Buzz launch wasn’t flawed, Google’s intentions are” http://counternotions.com/2010/02/15/buzzback/

By: Mitch Stone

Mitch Stone — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:56:56 +0000

They also believe that they can’t be evil because it’s their company slogan. You can say one thing for Microsoft — they’ve never seemed to actually believe in their own propaganda, they only ever wanted us to. So which form of deception is more alarming?

By: Manny Rechani

Manny Rechani — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:51:06 +0000

Pseudo geeks now have another tetherball pole to play with in the social media playground. Beware the length of rope you use – it can come back and nail you. The playground is BIG and the audience has the patience and attention span of goldfish. One big lesson here is brand erosion. Death by beta is best accomplished by not paying attention to Q&A. If you DON’T know what I mean then you are already dead. Toyota.

By: Kontra

Kontra — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:09:24 +0000

Yes, someone at Google, like Marissa Mayer, thought it was alright AND excellent business practice to graft Buzz over Gmail simply for expediency. Now, we hear they may separate the two. But not only the damage is done, but we also know that there’s not enough deep thinking about and appreciation of the customer experience at all at Google. It’s naive beyond belief, for a $150B company.

By: Kontra

Kontra — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:04:20 +0000

It’s unlikely that an outsider could come in and be given appropriate powers to reverse Google product design priorities, as I don’t think the upper management cares about it much.

By: Kontra

Kontra — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:02:05 +0000

Yes, but Google thinks it’s smarter than Microsoft. :)

By: Mark Sigal

Mark Sigal — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:01:55 +0000

My biggest gripe with Buzz is that I STILL can’t tell if it’s a Project, a Product or a Platform, which is unfortunately indicative of Google working backwards from their culture vs. the consumer. Simply put, I just don’t think that this leads to better products, something I blogged about here:

Google Buzz: Is it Project, Product or Platform?
http://bit.ly/cSC6hR

More to the point, it’s worth noting that both Google and Apple have learned from Microsoft’s chess gamesman-ship in the PC wars, although they seem to have reached very different conclusions.

For Apple, the takeaway was everything’s a platform, win developers hearts/minds at all costs and create leverage/derivatives wherever practical.

For Google, it seems to be that when you have a large enough installed base, no market is off limits.

Which philosophy delights its combined constituency of consumers, developers, partners and investors? I’ll leave that for others to decide.

Nice to see you writing again (and back on solid foods). Just kidding.

Cheers,

Mark