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Matt Cutts › Comments
Reddit: I was raped in jail. AMA. - http://www.reddit.com/r...
sofarsoShawn liked this
AMA?
- Gabe
It means "Ask me anything."
- Matt Cutts
from iPhone
Ok, stuff like this just shows up weird when imported into Friendfeed.
- Rob Haas
It looks odd on Twitter as well. http://twitter.com/paultoo...
- Louis Gray
ama means but in Turkish (:
- Ozgur Demir
Google Chrome Advent Calendar Projection - http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009...
Amit Nangare liked this
Video of projecting a bunch of Google stuff on the side of a building.
- Matt Cutts
from Bookmarklet
Nice ;)
- Orlando Pozo
Google Smart Suggest - http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009...
Itachi, Tony Ruscoe, Jérôme Flipo and 7 other people liked this
I didn't think anyone would notice this, but Google OS did.
- Matt Cutts
from Bookmarklet
I just wish it was this good in Chrome's Omnibox....
- Nathan Snyder
Can anyone point me to publications/papers/research on Google Suggest? Naively, it seems to be like - "SELECT query,count FROM query_logs WHERE query LIKE 'user_query%' ORDER BY count DESC LIMIT 10".
- Space Cowboy
if it makes everyone happy its googlish.
- Mert K.
@Cowboy: I don't know of any public papers, but I'm guessing there's a lot of offline processing to extract common queries and phrases. I seriously doubt it could be this fast coming out of a SQL database :)
- Joel Webber
Thanks Webber. I found a great post here (which also links to a patent): http://www.seobythesea.com/...
- Space Cowboy
Two articles that were probably written when Google Suggest launched - http://www.slate.com/id... and http://serversideguy.blogspot.com/2004...
- Space Cowboy
Mark Cuban (yes, that Mark Cuban) just RT'd a link from Twitter_Tips to my blog. Yay. :)
Franklin Pettit, Daniel Rowley, Jay and 6 other people liked this
Doesn't Mark Cuban own a part of IceRocket? http://news.cnet.com/Mark-Cu... :)
- Matt Cutts
gotta be an investor :) -- aah matt beat me to it :) (that's to take nothing away from the hat tip - now can you tell us how many referrals you received from this link?)
- Allen Stern
I'm so jealous! Dang - I need to write about IceRocket now (Mark Cuban is a huge hero for me from an entrepreneurial perspective).
- Jesse Stay
Matt, yes he does. I mentioned that in the post. :)
- Louis Gray
Allen, I don't know how many referrals, as Twitter referrals are hard to capture, thanks to the Web site URL, third party clients, etc. Definitely not more than 500 total.
- Louis Gray
thanks
- Allen Stern
Googling for Sociopaths (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought) http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog... tip @techmeme
Jérôme Flipo, Dan Morrill AKA Techwag, Paul Buchheit and Matt Cutts liked this
I have to admit, I expected something different based on the headline.
- Matt Cutts
As in, "The Sociopath's Guide To Using Google", or "How To Find Sociopaths Using Google"?
- Ruchira S. Datta
reading, Why So Many Are So Wrong on the 'Google Phone', http://www.pcmag.com/article... - good pt on dev phones but think more going on
is it just me, or has PC Mag and PC World been a little more negative on Google lately?
- Matt Cutts
Google Is Failing More - John Battelle's Searchblog http://battellemedia.com/archive... tip @techmeme $GOOG
Nicholas James and Louis Gray liked this
I can't decide whether to a) debunk this idea, b) debunk the "Eric hate privacy" idea, or c) go to bed. I think I'll opt for sleep for tonight.
- Matt Cutts
/likes Matt's answer. :)
- Louis Gray
Did Louis just say he likes sleep?
- Jesse Stay
Google's Broken Hiring Process - Google - Gawker - http://gawker.com/5392947...
scott willeke, Will Higgins™, Jordi Gerona and 40 other people liked this
What do you know? Valleywag got everything wrong. Google is hiring, not laying off. Also, our interview scores actually correlate very well with on-the-job performance. Peter Seibel asked me if there was anything counterintuitive about the process and I said that people who got one low score but were hired anyway did well on-the-job. To me, that means the interview process is doing very well, not that it is broken. It means that we don't let one bad interview blackball a candidate. We'll keep interviewing, keep hiring, and keep analyzing the results to improve the process. And I guess Valleywag will keep doing what they do...
- Peter Norvig
from Bookmarklet
Nice shirt!
- Jim Norris
That is a nice shirt.
- τorƍue
You had at least three rounds of layoffs this year, Peter. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...
- Ryan Tate
Further, while you hired a rare few people who got "1" scores on one their interviews, you rejected 99 percent of those people, and you have no idea how they would have performed. Those you did hire turned out to be top performers. Sounds broken to me. (I am the author of the Valleywag post in question.)
- Ryan Tate
Hi Ryan, thanks for commenting. First: we get over 1000 resumes a day. We can't hire all of them. I am painfully aware that a few of the people we don't hire would be as good or better than a few of the people we do. I feel bad for the people we have to reject who are equally qualified, but that is the nature of uncertain decision-making. Now what I said in the Seibel interview: we try...
more...
- Peter Norvig
It's a great shirt. Google is tops. No system is perfect -- so long as there's a weighting for intangibles and accounting for style differences between interviewer and interviewee, all should be fine.
- Christopher Galtenberg
Bump. Maybe Ryan didn't get a chance to see that you'd responded, Peter.
- Matt Cutts
Could you recommend any literature on data driven hiring practices? Google seems to use many analogical reasoning questions for screening applicants. It would be interesting if there was a relationship between analogical reasoning and productivity.
- Brandon Smietana
Peter, did you ever read Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink? Seems to me the other piece of the hiring process to analyze is the cost-benefit analysis - is it worth doing so many interviews and so much testing if people's first hunch is often the best indicator? (Which isn't exactly what Gladwell said, but partially).
- Laura Norvig
I'm very suspicious of relying on the first hunch. If you hired everyone based on your first hunches, you would discover that most of the time you are wrong. I've lost count of the number of times I've interviewed someone (either on-site or as a second phone interview), and learned that the previous interviewer did not ask them to write code, despite the position being one that required...
more...
- Piaw Na
Yeah! Always go with the _second_ hunch.
- Andrew C
Scatter Plot. x-axis is the distance that cat litter travels from the litter box when cat exits.
Simon, ana, Henner Zeller and 3 other people liked this
Time for a gray floor mat. :)
- Matt Cutts
Photos of Amazon.com fulfillment center | Doobybrain.com - http://www.doobybrain.com/2009...
 |
Jeffrey Marsh, Anton, Louis Gray and 78 other people liked this
It's like Costco, but more awesome!
- Kevin Fox
from Bookmarklet
awesome... that's where the stuff comes from !!!
- Harold
one of these just a few miles from my house. one. bug. giant. box. of. stuff.
- MikeAmundsen
Dang.
- Derrick
So amazing. There's one in Plainfield, IN, near where Harold used to live, too.
- Kamilah Gill
Reminds me of the ending sequence from Indiana Jones.
- Hayes Haugen
"Top... men..."
- Gabe
I think I see my package!
- Joe Beda ()
from iPhone
oh sweet, loverly books that make me so happy and content. <sigh>
- Felicia Yue
Sch-WINGGGG!!!
- Ladybug Heather
Where's the Twilight warehouse? That warehouse doesn't look big enough to hold all the Twilight books that must be ordered.
- Matt Cutts
Matt, I think they drop-ship those directly from the Twilight-HarryPotter fulfillment moonlet.
- Kevin Fox
lol Kevin
- Kamilah Gill
oh wao.... #amazon fulfillment
- Yann Ropars
We have top men working on it...Top....men!!!
- WorldofHiglet
Oh - gabe beat me to it :)
- WorldofHiglet
So two-dimensional. Look at all that third dimension simply going to waste!
- Tim Tyler
ahem... top men as storage sorters... you have nothing else for them to do?
- A.T.
An organized mess
- Josh Haley
Hard to believe that we actually get things so quickly!
- Sheila Taylor
Thinking about it - do you think the TARDIS has a room like this in it somewhere?
- WorldofHiglet
I'm glad all that stuff is there, that is all of my Christmas presents that now need to be delivered...
- amelia arapoff
@leolaporte @mattcutts - i'm away from network access but pinged some folks for you (@ericajoy might beat me : ) )
Much obliged! :)
- Matt Cutts
from iPhone
Food for thought - http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts...
Sebastian and Matt Cutts liked this
Yeah. We're doomed.
- DeWitt Clinton
LOL
- imabonehead
Wait, are you saying that the UFOs cause global warming? ;)
- Matt Cutts
Or UFOs are piloted by ghosts. :)
- imabonehead
UFOs piloted by angels are spreading chemtrails to combat global warming which is being caused by Satan stoking up the fires of HELL. So you see, we don't have to worry about global warming, as the angels are sure to win.
- Michael R. Bernstein
Oh, and crop circles are just Satanic grafitti tags taunting the angel UFO pilots.
- Michael R. Bernstein
Now Is It Facebook’s Microsoft Moment? - http://daggle.com/faceboo...
Mark Davidson and Mark Trapp liked this
"This isn’t the place I’m planning to social network, because I just can’t expend the time to decide what I might be sharing, might not be sharing, what my friends might share, what friends of friends might share and then recheck all those settings every six months when Facebook does something different."
- Matt Cutts
from Bookmarklet
http://www.theinvisibl.com/news... - I had never noticed this "feature" of chrome's tabs, but now I'm very impressed.
Jérôme Flipo, Joel Webber, Henner Zeller and 9 other people liked this
Sometimes it's the little things that matter most in user interfaces
- Bill Strathearn
I noticed it, but what I noticed moreover is that chrome's tabs almost never make me angry. The only additional thing I'd like is a highlight around the last opened tab so I can find it more easily in the stack.
- Ryan Moulton
from Android
I imagine that could be done with an extension.
- Greg Grothaus
Or a bug report
- Bill Strathearn
I'm pretty sure this is all deliberate. I remember a Chrome person pointing out this subtlety a long time ago.
- Matt Cutts
from iPhone
This one one of my favorite features of Chrome. The default tab behavior is spot on!
- Jeremy Clark
Neat. But I use the middle click to close tabs, so it really doesn't matter where the close button is to me.
- Otto
Me too, Otto, but even then the "keep tabs the same size but slide them over" lets you keep hitting the middle button to close tabs. The "don't resize the tabs until the mouse leaves the tab area" idea is pretty clever.
- Matt Cutts
Middle click on desktop mice, ctrl+w when normal browsing, x out when I have lots of tabs open.
- Itachi
@LisaBarone it's Troy. Power flickering, Internet connection uber slow. We rule.
But at least it's toasty warm there, right? :)
- Matt Cutts
Finally watched the video for Google Goggles. Wow, this is some seriously cool tech - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Sebastian, Adelein Ro, Werner Trotter and 7 other people liked this
Try it in real life. It's a nifty demo but it's still much easier to read the label or upc code and search on that. Going from question to answer it has about a 10% hit rate.
- Hayes Haugen
Hayes, have you seen this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch... Taking old vacation pictures and finding out what the buildings are. The good stuff starts about 4:30 minutes in. :)
- Matt Cutts
So he taking pictures of his computer using his phone, finding out what the object is, then going back to the computer and typing it in? Something seems terribly inefficient about that ;)
- Amit Patel
Amit: my point is that by the time I start the app, take the picture and get a false hit it's faster to just recognize the object myself and search on it (with my phone).
- Hayes Haugen
Matt: like I said it does cool stuff sometimes but as a general purpose tool for identifying the things I run across it has not done well. I'm not claiming anything other than how it's worked for me. Suggest people use the product instead of watching promo videos! And I'm not crapping on the concept - looking forward to its evolution.
- Hayes Haugen
From most recent search history: miss: $20 bill, Norwegian flag, a Sitar, a MacBook, an iPhone, a Leatherman tool, the box for the Leatherman, a Canon Ti, a photo of Venice with a tower. Hit: box of Pepperidge Farm Entertaining Quartet crackers because it recognized "Entertaining Quartet" in huge letters - just like I did. What I really need it to do is recognize things I don't recognize. So I'm off to do some tests....
- Hayes Haugen
Google Is Adding Live Updates to Searches - NYTimes.com - http://www.nytimes.com/2009...
Andrew Bowers, Ho John Lee, Matt G and 16 other people liked this
"Twitter makes a search tool available on its own site. But Biz Stone, a Twitter co-founder, said that Google would be better able to provide Tweets that were relevant to a particular user’s questions. “We’re not good at relevancy right now, and they are,” he said. “More people will get more value out of Twitter because we are doing this with Google.”" I think that would be great--easier to search Twitter means more people tweeting.
- Matt Cutts
from Bookmarklet
I suppose that if somebody wanted to search Twitter, Google would be better at it. I just can't imagine why anybody not searching Twitter would want those results in their searches.
- Gabe
Gabe - Try again. Imagine someone searching for "Honda Civic", gets regular Google results but also a few tweets on the results screen. Those tweets mentioning "Honda Civic" could be very revealing. Like, dislike, problematic, cool feature found, just bought... Can find people thinking or doing the same thing you are right now. It is the future of search, come on.... I think so anyway.
- Odi Kosmatos
Odi — I don't understand the “Honda Civic” example. What are you looking for, when you search for “Honda Civic”, that you'd rather see what was posted 5 seconds ago instead of 5 minutes or 5 hours or 5 days ago?
- Amit Patel
I'm having a hard time trying to imagine a query where I would want to see the latest out-of-context chatter about the topic.
- Gabe
Gabe, it's mainly interesting as a way to see what people are thinking about something "right now". It's fun to watch during product launches and other events.
- Paul Buchheit
I think it's most appropriate for current event and news searches. If something big has gone down in a certain location... you would be able to have real-time accounts of the action fed into your google search. That makes it cool.
- SAM
Two slider controls are needed to customize page of result set: Pagerank<Low---|---High> and Date <Old---|---New>
- Micah Wittman
That's great but when can I get a pubsubhbbadabub Google Alert feed from that search?
- Bart LePoole
Is there any NON-voyeuristic purpose?
- Gabe
Tony Ruscoe: Going Google - http://blogoscoped.com/archive...
DeWitt Clinton, Can Demirezen, Mark Trapp and 7 other people liked this
Congratulations :)
- Simon
Congratulations, welcome on board!
- Can Demirezen
I hate this alert box like I hate AV software. How do I make it go away forever?
Tyson Key, Renchin(Reina)Wang, Free will and 44 other people liked this
I just disable the whole thing. Go to the "Security Center" control panel and click "Change the way Security Center notifies me" on the left. Or disable the "Security Center" service (wscsvc).
- Gabe
Don't use Windows? ;)
- Deepak Singh
Install Linux or Mac OS.
- Kenton
You are using Windows?
- τorƍue
Open Regedit >> Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced >> Create a REG_DWORD named EnableBalloonTips >> Set the value data to 0 >> Close Regedit >> Reboot
- AJ Batac
other than not using windows which is the best thing to do, you can disable the messages by clicking on something like "change the way windows notifies me"
- w43l
In the 'Windows Security Center' window click on the link that says 'Change the way the Security Center alerts me'. Select the way that you prefer to be alerted about security issues.
- Erdëm [virtus] GULTEKIN
You could get a Mac, but you might have to sell everything else you own to afford one. Instead try changing your Firewall settings. That way you can keep using a machine people still create programs for.
- Ciaoenrico
Thanks. It's so hard to find and kill all of these annoying settings. This is for my windows vm :)
- Paul Buchheit
Buy a MAC
- johnpiercy
Install Linux
- Jesse Stay
I agree, that's annoying though
- Jesse Stay
What's with all the douchebags spamming the comments with "Don't use Windows"? Do they think they're being funny? Do they really think you don't already have a Mac and/or Linux? Do they not see the VMWare icon sitting RIGHT NEXT to the damn arrow?
- Gabe
Paul, you have a talent for asking all the questions I've always wanted to ask but forgot to.
- Gabor Cselle
Gabe, yes I think I'm being funny - welcome to Friendfeed :-)
- Jesse Stay
Easiest way to make it go away. Turn on Windows Firewall, and install Microsoft Security Essentials.
- Wizetux
How many kids do you have Paul ? : )))
- mehmet
Click the balloon to fix the problem...
- Vincenzo RR
I am using windows and I don't use Linux or MAC or anything, and I am not ashamed about it.
- Dallas Cao
this question , from you paul, very much surprizes me.
- james
install OSX
- Logan Lindquist
OSX is also good target for viral stuff nowadays - viral distribution needs head-less (stupid) material for propagation... use Linux, chances to catch anything next to zero, And Ubuntu will give you (almost) same environment you had in Windows (and better system under hood)
- A.T.
I installed Ubuntu. I haven't seen this pop-up since then.
- Matt Cutts
Matt, that consistently works like a charm.
- Kamath (नमः)
@Paul - I installed Microsoft Security Essentials (http://www.microsoft.com/Securit...) on my wife's laptop. So far it has been a big improvement (i.e., seems to work and doesn't trash or slow down the machine) over the several other antivirus products, both commercial and free, we tried before. I'd run it even in a VM'ed instance of Windows, as just booting into a network with other Windows boxes or hitting a few websites can put the VM image at risk (and be a risk to the rest of the network).
- DeWitt Clinton
Nod
- ★ Soner Gönül
Google "Disable Balloon Notifications" and you can turn off those stupid balloons altogether...
- LarchOye
Try "net stop wscsvc" then "sc config wscsvc start= disabled" in cmd.
- Gluek
I turned off my computer. I haven't seen this pop-up since then.
- Gabe
s/Windows/Linux/
- Thaths
Install another OS
- Tuyishime Aimable
GET A MAC HURP HURPPP, because that's a fix. derp.
- Will Higgins™
Format c: install Ubuntu!
- keiser
Dewitt. I am definately installing Microsoft Security Essentials once my Nortons subscription is up. People: PAUL IS RUNNING A VIRTUAL MACHINE. End of public service announcent.
- Roberto Bonini
from iPhone
First comment is the right one. Have a nice journey with a Virtualized XP (and disable themes! :) )
- Assimo
Chalk up another for the MS Security Essentials - http://microsoft.com/securit...
- Chris Heath
it's somehow relieving to see that even pro's sometimes struggle with easy things like that :)
- Johannan Edelman
start>run>services.msc then disable windows security center service. it will go to the cyber space.
- Ali Sözkesen
Ali, BlackViper says that you have to do more than just disable the service: http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP... - "If you do not want the Security Center to monitor these functions for you, disabling this service is not enough. After rebooting the system, this service will again be placed into Automatic and started. While the service is in the started state, go...
more...
- Chris Heath
"Sorry, but Microsoft Silverlight doesn’t work with this web browser."
John Wang, Oğulcan Orhan, rowlikeagirl and 29 other people liked this
Sigh. :)
- Matt Cutts
Which one? Works in Chrome Windows.
- Hayes Haugen
It does not work on Chrome OS X.
- Gary Burd
It definitely does not work with Chrome on Ubuntu.
- imabonehead
STOP USING THE BETA!
- Andy Bakun
Guess you don't get to check it out.
- Hayes Haugen
I'm using Chrome on Ubuntu.
- Matt Cutts
Be a man. Get IE8 :)
- dannysullivan
Danny, what would I run IE8 on? I don't have any Microsoft OS software any more. :)
- Matt Cutts
I find it informative to use my competitor's products.
- Hayes Haugen
I keep trying, Hayes, but when AdCenter rolled out, it wouldn't even work on Firefox.
- Matt Cutts
The Web wins again. :)
- Ray Cromwell
Does this mean you've broken your "stop using Microsoft OS/software" challenge? Or are Microsoft websites excluded?
- Tony Ruscoe
Google's bet on HTML5 and the web is the right one.
- Diego Barros
who gives a tard about Chrome :) Grow up Cutts!
- Jose Fajardo
Matt it works fine on Chrome on Windows. This is the only platform on which a non-beta version of Chrome is available at the moment. You should use only supported browsers like IE8 and Chrome on Windows, Firefox, Safari and Opera on Windows and Mac OS. If you are using a Linux-based distribution, you should get the latest Moonlight binaries and use a supported browser like Firefox or...
more...
- Lituus Limacon
Silverlight used to work with the Chrome Dev beta. Not sure what changed....
- Roberto Bonini
Tony: Microsoft websites are excluded from my challenge. :)
- Matt Cutts
Is Droid the perfect podcatcher? - http://droidie.com/2009...
From the post: "It would be great if there was system-level scripting on the device so that users could build custom functionality." The Android Scripting Environment gives you that.
- Matt Cutts
ACast is doing the job for me.
- Rodfather
Going to Chicago for Search Engine Strategies talk tomorrow a.m. *High* of 35. This is why I don't miss living there.
Tell the folks there "hi" from me and that I'm sorry I missed them, but not sorry to miss the weather. :)
- Matt Cutts
from iPhone
namebench: faster DNS means faster web browsing :) - http://code.google.com/p...
winckel, Krishnamoorthy, alex and 21 other people liked this
"Are you a power-user with 5 minutes to spare? Do you want a faster internet experience? Try out namebench. It hunts down the fastest DNS servers available for your computer to use. namebench runs a fair and thorough benchmark using your web browser history, tcpdump output, or standardized datasets in order to provide an individualized recommendation. namebench is completely free and does not modify your system in any way. This project began as a 20% project at Google."
- mjc
from Bookmarklet
This told me that Comcast is 150% faster than my Google DNS servers!
- Louis Gray
App kept hanging on me. Killed it 3 times and gave up.
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
the zip extraction hung for me but the app started, but failed to do any other dns servers besides my current dns, but after that first run though the zip extraction finished and i was able to benchmark with 10 other dns servers
- Chris Heath
My results were that UltraDNS was the fastest, besting 8.8.8.8 by 80%
- Kurt Starnes
My results are the same as Louis' for Comcast
- Jesse Stay
Google DNS has been slower across the board. Even against other 3rd-party services like OpenDNS, Google DNS loses. Stick with your ISP's DNS.
- Jason Huebel
Google is beating OpenDNS for me here. Haven't tested up against my ISP since they are blocking certain swashbuckling sites on behalf of the danish government....
- Rasmus Lauridsen
Here's my benchmark using ns_bench: http://friendfeed.com/jhuebel... i would assume that the country you live in would affect your DNS tests significantly. I live in the US, so OpenDNS and Google have servers in my country to test against.
- Jason Huebel
I think the results can vary quite a bit from country to country.
- Matt Cutts
Yup If I remember correct OpenDNS have their Euro servers in London. Not sure where Google are hiding their euro servers.. Best bet is definitely testing where you get the best speed and use the fastest.. But you probably want to keep testing once in a while, cause if I know google right they will make theirs better quickly.
- Rasmus Lauridsen
the reason why you'd even need a tool like this is that each ISP and even each region in which that ISP is located, routes differently. Comcast's DNS is faster than google's when for example comcast's is sitting in the same building as the place your cable connects to. Funnily enough, I'm on comcast in fort lauderdale, and it suggest's AT&T's DNS in naples. Note that a lot of this is mitigated by having a router (eg. wifi) that caches DNS requests.
- mjc
I am in the hospital. I had some severe abdominal pains. It could be diverticulitis. Will know in a few hrs.
Hope you feel better soon Steve. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
- Brian Kenyon
Oh man. Hope you feel better soon @steverubel
- Deano @ Byron New Media
Hope everything turns out okay.
- Matt Cutts
All the best Steve. Hope you get better soon.
- James Cherkoff
Better thanks all! I ate some bad ju-ju or something!
- Steve Rubel
from email
Take care. Best wishes for a very quick recovery.
- Andrew Hazlett
Official Google Blog: This Week in Search - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search...
Experi Marketing and Matt Cutts liked this
Google web search is changing too fast for me to keep up with the changes.
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
Barely 8 things this week, including changing the home page. Quiet week? :)
- Matt Cutts
I wonder if our occasional promotions (like the recent Droid launch, or PSA-like links) would be part of the initial clean-page, or whether they'll be part of the faded-in links.
- Aaron D'Souza
nice, 23 thousand bash commands until I finally typed my password, time for this experiment to end now.
Alex Kapranoff, imabonehead and Roberto Bonini liked this
I enjoyed the show. :)
- Matt Cutts
Still Waiting for An Evil Google? It's Not Going to Happen. - http://blog.louisgray.com/2009...
Mike Fruchter, Henner Zeller, Mike Nencetti and 28 other people liked this
I'll admit that I'm biased. But I also agree.
- DeWitt Clinton
eh. I maintain a healthy distrust of all companies; especially those that grow as quickly as Google has been as of late. of course, time will tell.
- jbrotherlove
Not only are you legally required to agree, DeWitt, but you are quoted. :)
- Louis Gray
Ha. But I was about to add: But please never stop keeping Google honest, and holding the company to the highest standards. Call out Google on any BS or funny business you see. (I certainly do, though I usually do it internally...) I have tremendous faith in the people I work with, but it takes the whole community to do this right. And thank you, Louis, for your help here.
- DeWitt Clinton
My problem is that Google is into so much, and has so many good products, that it puts people into a situation where they end up with too many of their eggs in one basket. And no matter how good the basket is, it's still not a smart thing for people to do. And while Google may not be openly and willingly sharing its data with the government, it's only one subpoena away from being forced...
more...
- April Russo (app103)
April, if you were running Google, what would you do to make users feel more at ease? I'd be curious to get your take on what we should do.
- Matt Cutts
The way I see it, Google has no choice but to continue on the road its currently on, getting bigger and better/worse. So I have no advice for Google. I do have some advice for the rest of the world, however... Startups need to have a business plan from day 1 that includes the idea of profitability without being acquired by a bigger company. The idea of "build and sell to one of the big...
more...
- April Russo (app103)
"Google is not going to be evil because it hasn't been built to be evil. Will they work to speed up browsers and Web sites to give them more traffic on their search engine and more ads in more places? Sure. But that's just good business, not trickery." - Google's interests lie in creating a fast, ubiquitous, diverse and distributed web - that's what their business model needs. Today....
more...
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
I am not saying to avoid being critical or trusting naively. But I think we should give a company credit for having set a foundation and trajectory that is to be respected and trusted, when others are not.
- Louis Gray
@April - cheers to that. Interestingly, just two years ago Facebook was the little company that decided to go it alone and not sell to the big guys, and now you list them *as* one of the big guys. Who knows, maybe the next big company is two people hacking away in a garage right now, plotting a course not to get bought, but to be the best.
- DeWitt Clinton
I hope so, and I hope there are a lot working in garages with those plans, because we need them.
- April Russo (app103)
They have always worked to align their interests and that of the users - and that was smart and good and created tremendous value online. I have my set of biases that make me suspicious of any business with too much control, too much market share. "Don't be evil" is not a nice-to-have marketing concept, it is an absolute requirement considering the flabbergasting amounts of information...
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- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
Just a sidenote - not being evil is what will keep Google from nailing the telcos with their efforts in GoogleVoice and Gizmo. To win in that market they will have to play a very evil and dirty game. They'll be going against masters at graft and corruption who own the legislators and regulators. If they don't learn to play evil and dirty, they will have a tough time winning in telco...
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- Ken Camp
Louis, I hope you are right. Google is a great company with a lot of great services and a lot of great people. But April and Joelle make some excellent points. I know I do a lot of half-tongue-in-cheek tinfoil stuff, but diversification is always a good idea (intentions can change, there can be rogue actors, etc.), as is pushing to know exactly what information is used, how it's used,...
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- LogEx
@LogEx - have you seen: https://www.google.com/dashboa...? Also our Privacy Center: http://www.google.com/privacy...? And our Ads Preferences control panel: http://www.google.com/ads...? And our public policy blog: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/ (which talks about our take on public issues). Just a few links to show that Google, and Googlers, think about this stuff all the time. We agree.
- DeWitt Clinton
I'd suggest Google split up. 1) A super lean, but ultra focused semantic advertising team. 2) A blazingly awesome search company (those datacenters make me wistfully dream of virtual assistants of the future) 3) and split off every other focus (changed from service) they have into a separate entity. Allow the separate business entities to develop independently. Can big companies shrink successfully, you bet. They can do it on their own terms.
- Mark Essel
I also would like to remind what DeWitt said yesterday: "BTW, here's the Speakeasy Privacy Policy: http://www.speakeasy.net/tos... Here is Comcast's: http://www.comcast.net/privacy... Here is AT&T/SBC's: http://www.att.com/gen... Guess what? None of them publish a log deletion policy and ALL of them reserve the right to do nearly whatever they...
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- Can Demirezen
I agree that the public DNS is not likely a tipping point on the evil scale. But "Not going to happen" --implying never? -- are you saying that Google is somehow special, blessed, different from every other corporation on the face of the earth?
- Brian Sullivan
@DeWitt, I follow all of those regularly, thanks. Perhaps best on another thread or offline to convey some of my more detailed concerns. @Can, very true, ISPs are notorious for bad data practices, but from my perspective I think the main reason that DNS raised this issue yet again is the growing extent of access Google has to people's online activity.
- LogEx
@Matt Cutts: I would ask the Chrome and Wave teams to make the use of Google technologies possible and easy *without going through Google's servers* (as a 20% project). A Chrome + Wave system à la Opera Unite... Sure, the result wouldn't compare to Google's own cloud computing offer, but it would prove that Google is serious about our privacy and independence, and that "cloud in...
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- Jérôme Flipo
Killing Etherpad WITH all users' data looks nothing short of evil. Really, Wave is not ready to take its place.
- Alex Kapranoff
from Android
Google launches Public DNS: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009... Set your DNS server to 8.8.8.8 and you'll get faster/safer DNS resolution.
'Like' robot (frɐnc), Jerome Coloma, Brian and 20 other people liked this
Faster than?
- Brian Sullivan
Faster than the one you get from your ISP.
- Joel Webber
or OpenDNS
- Onur Gündüz
How fast is it going to be once everyone starts using it? :D
- Victor Ganata
Not sure how I could test/measure this but it seems to work just fine for now (I was using OpenDNS before). How it will stand up to the inevitable increase in load caused by the inevitable more and more users remains to be seen. My 5 machines are now using it.
- Brian Sullivan
Victor, I think the team can handle a lot more queries per second. http://www.manu-j.com/blog... says that DNS resolution internationally is especially good, although it's only a small test.
- Matt Cutts
The blog post being updated real time: Results have come in India, Argentina, UK, Slovenia, Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and various US cities
- Manu
i am from Ukraine but host my sites on Bluehost, Utah. Is it make some sens to try Google DNS experiment for me? Thanx.
- Andrey Stefanenko
If you have a mac and want to make the web even faster, try http://glimmerblocker.org/ (ad blocker) :).
- Orlando Pozo
The Fall of The Benevolent Google - http://mikepk.com/2009...
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Daniel Rowley, Vishy, Jenny Morman and 9 other people liked this
I added extra images because I wanted to make sure my wordpress hacks were working with friendfeed. Looks like they are! :)
- mikepk
Left a comment on your post, Mike. I think the past year with a very bad economy has been a good way to see that Google's intentions are to make the net better.
- Matt Cutts
Thanks Matt. :) I think Google has yet to be tested in the way I'm describing though. I have some experience with working for companies that thought the "good days" would never end, until they did.
- mikepk
Mike, I read your article and it's pretty thought-provoking. However, there are examples of companies that are big and profitable and have still held firm to whatever creeds that they have chosen for themselves through good times and bad (Disney comes to mind). I feel like the big, powerful companies become that way specifically because (among other things) they have a set of core...
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- Chieze Okoye
More on it, I think that Google's advertising business (which requires eyeballs) is bolstered on the fact that they say they will "Do No Evil" (which brings eyeballs to their products as people implicitly trust them) in a self-reinforcing cycle. Anything could happen, of course, but that's just my thinking on the issue.
- Chieze Okoye
Maybe you're right, I don't think we'll really know unless they're tested. However one difference that Google has is that it's built a huge infrastructure of latent value that they don't exploit because it goes against their "don't be evil" mantra. They currently have no need to exploit that value because advertising pays all the bills.
- mikepk
Most companies (like Disney) operate in a more conventional way, each business unit or product generating revenue and adding the companies profitability directly. I don't think Disney embarks on many "loss leader" like business ventures. Google is an odd duck because a lot of it's products and engineering activities don't generate revenue directly. I think it will be hard to justify those activities if the primary revenue stream dries up for any reason.
- mikepk
It will be doubly hard to justify not tapping the latent value in their other products based on 'don't be evil' if the alternative is layoffs, and shrinking the company. Just my $.02 of course. :)
- mikepk
See, that's the thing. I don't think that it would be harder for them to layoff people than fold on that tenet, because it is such a major part of how they do business. It's a core value that they (quite publicly and transparently) have made a part of their identity. I kind of see it like this. If they layoff people, it will suck, but layoffs happen everywhere, no one will think about it the next quarter. If they start acting "evil," everyone (EVERYONE) will know and flee from their services.
- Chieze Okoye
For instance, even though, as you say, Disney has different business units and products and a more "traditional" operating structure, they have faced plenty of bad economic times with their bottom line being hurt. However, one of the core values of Disney is to never be cynical in their mission to bring happiness. Walt made that part of the DNA of the company he built. If Disney folded...
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- Chieze Okoye
I guess my point is, Disney isn't actively avoiding utilizing value they've accumulated by holding true to their principle. They have no latent value they're not utilizing by "not being cynical and bringing happiness". Google has done something unprecedented (I believe) which is put their principles in direct opposition to the primary operating principle of corporations, where profits...
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- mikepk
I think we won't really know until it happens. :) It's an interesting dichotomy. I recommend (if you haven't read it already) "Good to Great", it's basically about exactly the points you're bringing up (how great companies are based on a deep kind of idealism).
- mikepk
Hmm, to be fair, I do think it would be an interesting test if Google's bottom line were seriously attacked somehow. But, honestly, I just think that their openness and transparency is a major part of what drives their business and pushes their success quarter after quarter. Essentially, in the case of Google, I think that the causal relationship between "don't be evil" and "make a profit" is mostly the opposite of what you're implying here.
- Chieze Okoye
haha, that's pretty funny you say that Mike because most of my thinking right now is being informed by "Good to Great" (I just read it a month or so ago)
- Chieze Okoye
"Good to Great" and "Built to Last" both are pretty good. :)
- mikepk
yeah, "Built to Last" is next on my list. 8^D
- Chieze Okoye
I actually wrote a post on "Built to Last" years ago.. (holy crap it's from Jan 2006) http://mikepk.com/2006... You can see from that post I'm not as much of a cynic as it sounds like from this post about Google. :)
- mikepk
heh, good post. I think I can see where your Google article fits into your thinking after reading that one (the last sentence in the second to last full paragraph about "fighting to breathe"). That's a really interesting use of that analogy about profits being like air.
- Chieze Okoye
r @mattcutts so press spin on Google's upcoming search event is another example of http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog... ?
Cliff Gerrish liked this
Yes.
- Matt Cutts
from iPhone
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