It is an amazing read, one of the most interesting insight on Amazon, Microsoft and Google...

I think Google jumped the shark some time ago and now has all the hallmarks of a once great brand gradually being diluted.

Once Google led and everyone followed. Now...

[edited by: engine at 2:02 pm (utc) on Oct 13, 2011]

Sometimes the truth hurts, but it is good it is out. This might just jar some real thinking there and quit throwing out 1/2 as- products and expect them to take off just because Google did it. Highly doubt it was an opps either maybe he is just fed up with sloopy work and let it all hang.

It really is a great read and the guy has a way with words also. So although its a LONG read, its kept interesting with quips like:

head over to developers.google.com and browse a little. Pretty big difference, eh? It’s like what your fifth-grade nephew might mock up if he were doing an assignment to demonstrate what a big powerful platform company might be building if all they had, resource-wise, was one fifth grader.

Google jumped the shark

Great way of putting it... For anyone else who wants to know what it means, it came to be from the TV show Happy Days last-gasp effort to succeed again after years of being number 1.

Jumping the shark is an idiom, first employed to describe a moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery.

[en.wikipedia.org...]

It is an amazing read.

The problem is that theres loads of socalled programmers at google now - with nothing to do. They all need making redundant instead of writing crap like +

The problem is that some of them would come out of the company embittered - and start mouthing off.

Roll on the day that happens - come on google employees - you KNOW youre not wanted anymore!

accidentally posted a rant

*fnurk* -- Yeah, an "accident".

His lawyer probably told him to take down the post but it's too late...

I honestly don't know how to wrap this up. I've said pretty much everything I came here to say today. This post has been six years in the making. I'm sorry if I wasn't gentle enough, or if I misrepresented some product or team or person, or if we're actually doing LOTS of platform stuff and it just so happens that I and everyone I ever talk to has just never heard about it. I'm sorry.

But we've gotta start doing this right.

If Google fires this man for speaking straight I suggest you all begin the process of removing the Google crutch from your content, asap. You've got to take a stand eventually unless you don't mind Google assimilating you out of your web properties, apathy is rampant right now.

The rot has already set in when no-one at the top is prepared to listen to any opinion other than their own. Let's see how this one shakes out.

I totally agree g1smd.

With Google as big as it is his post will likely be forgotten as soon as the media echoes die off.

FWIW, Yegge removed his rant and explains why on his blog. Here's what he removed... [siliconangle.com...]

the chance that this post "six years in the making" was posted accidentally tends to zero.

The problem is that we're a Product Company through and through. We built a successful product with broad appeal -- our search, that is -- and that wild success has biased us.

yesterday i got an email from google for the second time asking me to fill out a publisher survey about the adsense program. as i completed the form, i noticed that the questions were asked in quite a wrong way. although i could state that my satistaction with adsense is pretty low by now, it didn't really emerge from the questions why i was unhappy. luckily enough, there was a blank input field at the end of the survey to tell them what i am thinking right now about the product.

i wrote, that the adsense program is in the same state as five years ago. google for me has stuck since then. typical monopolistic behavior by the way. no serious evolutionary steps to be perceived. no improved ways to alter the ad design or to handle the advertisers. in all this time, they haven't done a single sufficient thing to evolve the platform and implement new features which really target user interests. apart from the shrinking adsense income, that is the point which really annoys me and i think many of us.

no development for servicing the users, instead absolute product fixation since years. so this google engineer post struck me, it is right on target.

Wow! The thing about Amazon is that I have never, ever got a bad experience with them. Everything is honest, open and very low margin as far as I can tell. So whatever he says, Bezos must be doing something right. Steve Jobs was pretty much a gestapo officer too at work but it worked. Bill Gates wasn't nice either ;) [seattlepi.com...]

Google has jumped the shark, now they are on a decline but sadly will take many of us down too. When your market share drops how else are you going to make money? Ding, ding, ding! #1 sign is when they worry more about press than bad results, shows that their sand castle is being hit by waves. What people don't realize that Google can crash almost overnight and become Yahoo, if they're lucky. All Google has is search, and we all know how that is run.

Twitter, Apple and especially FB ate their lunch, probably only washed out (once)'early adopters' are still impressed by Google. Even Microsoft is making a comeback with a decent enough SE, great Windows phones, XBox etc. Google is trying to drive out of business Nextag, Bizrate and others simply because they can.

Well he is right. I think Google is dying and the engineers are crying out for help. I think it's a little late in the day. Google did one thing well - the algorithm, that's it. Now they are running around the world stealing people's email and AdSense is a joke. Everything they try is worse than the last thing. They still have search but I think we'll see a decline, maybe steep judging from the desperation of their engineers. And they are arrogant, just try contacting them when you have a problem.

When this hit a few buddies cracked a nice bottle and cheered for this is the end of the beginning!

When you look at rev statements, it's pretty clear they have been and always will be a one trick pony. Problem is that pony can only carry so much before you break it's back.

Pages loaded with ads, no unique content, ads mimicking content, no i am not talking about MFA's, thats the SERPS now lol.

Back to mah booze, muttering something...

He is dead wrong. Google is arrogant. They are too arrogant to understand that their search product is broken and outdated.

It's the same 10 result interface that was in use over a dozen years ago, tricked out as a MFA site. If they were innovative, it would take on a new presentation format. Sorry, "instant" does not count.

But the search product will not change, not while the MFA dollars roll into it.

Google is broken. They are doing one thing right. Android.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time.

Companies need to innovate to survive and thrive.

For many years this has not need a strong suit for Google and the release of +1 really confirms it. Instead of relinquishing the current social title to other companies better suited (and more innovated to handle it) they try to compete it in.

They would do much better if they would embrace and develop relationships with innovators, support innovation and build a culture of innovation as opposed to one of wealth.

If Google fires this man for speaking straight

They will pandalize him ...

- come on google employees - you KNOW youre not wanted anymore!

Come on google publishers - you KNOW (some of you) are not wanted anymore!

Source: Panda

"The Google+ PLATFORM is a pathetic afterthought."

This is about the platform, not the Google+ site. Mainly the API and all that may be built on it.

This is about the platform, not the Google+ site. Mainly the API and all that may be built on it.

True, but G+ is handicapped without the API he says, and it may be too late.

<sub>Tin Foil Hat moment: Someone on HN posted his video on a O'Reilly conference [youtube.com...] playing the perfect Google corporate man, down to talking points about "changing the world," "standing up to China" Human genome, cancer etc and ridiculed FB and other social networks for supposedly working with cat pictures. It was obvious he was on a mission to hire top talent. Then, in this memo he mercilessly and needlessly (IMO) bashes Amazon, that just happened to have a very popular Android fork coming soon, and presumably looking for top developers. All this while praising Google for doing almost everything perfect. </end tin foil hat moment>

Maybe he just hated Amazon, but then he stayed there for 6 years, and mentioning Amazon's bad pay and benefits seems out of place.</sub>

I posted this yesterday and it seems that Google+ has jumped the shark.

Google+ Traffic Falls 60% From Post-Launch Highs
[webmasterworld.com...]

The mistake IMO opinion is they tried to remake Facebook. They tried to make people "friends", when they should have done, what likely will make the next social platform better than Facebook, is to make them famous.

That's what Americans want. Find a way to make that happen, and they've got the next social platform.

Concentrate on people's deeds rather than who they are.

You mean Google should go into making "reality" TV shows?

Fame today has nothing to do with ones "deeds" and everything to do voyeurism..

Actually, despite your distaste at the current condition of television :), that's probably a sound strategy.

Make it involve something like, the more action of some type or friends you get, the better something else works or happens, or the more famous you become.

No, I mean, What Google used to be was a search engine that gave average people extraordinary voices, and that should have been the focus of +1, rather than a remake of Facebook. Amazing things happen everyday, too bad we live in a society which only idolizes those whom are rich and famous.

Instead of relinquishing the current social title to other companies better suited (and more innovated to handle it) they try to compete it in.

Very true.

Enhancing the search product so that everyone's happy should be the goal, instead of upsetting business that feels threatened by Google taking out the digital economy. A bit of a lesson from Steve Jobs / Apple mentality.

Stick to the core search product and build relationships by strengthening transparency and facilitation with business owners. This is the real brand builder. Visitors will continue to follow.

Make it involve something like, the more action of some type or friends you get, the better something else works or happens, or the more famous you become.

Klout? [klout.com...]

The problems with everyone getting their 15 minutes of fame, are:

1). when your 15 minutes are up, you become more pathetic, (ask Red Sox Manager Terry Francona or Hank williams Jr. about this next week)

2). Mathematically, if everyone is entitled to 15 minutes of fame, and the average person sleeps 8 hours a night -- that leave only 63 people who can worship you during those 15 minutes -- and you in turn must give worship to 63 others, every day for 15 hours and 45 minutes, (math is 16 hours, divided by 15 minutes of fame = 64, then subtract yourself from the equation when you are in the spotlight).

3). Monetization.