Are Google losing their Midas touch?

[bobspud]

Cars... nobody has cracked this yet certainly not Tesla. It's a wide open market awaiting legislation to allow them to be used, which will turn the world on its head.

Actually I have driven both the X and the S and they are stunning. When the model 3 comes out I think that they will more or less corner the market.

[d000hg]

Google Glass. Years of hype but cancelled before it was launched.

Google Self-Driving Cars. Years of hype, still not on the market. In the meantime you can buy and own a self-driving Tesla.

Google haven't done anything interesting for years.

Glass: loads of hype and publicity without even having to release anything. They gathered loads of data about this sort of product and are still working on it in the background.

Cars... nobody has cracked this yet certainly not Tesla. It's a wide open market awaiting legislation to allow them to be used, which will turn the world on its head.

Note, Google can gain from self-driving cars even without selling them, if they can make their StreetView fleet entirely automated and save on employee costs.

[bobspud]

I think the thing that has plagued Linux and Windows devices for ever is that they are based on tech toys for tech people and frankly we are a fairly small and mostly autistic bunch. To the annoyance of most of the tech industry, the reason that Apple did so well is that they completely ignore the tech sector. The other 90% of the planet doesn't give a hoot if their phone has an O-LED screen. they really don't care about support for different protocols or jacks they just want a sleek thing that does noddy stuff... Apple access this market perfectly. and if you want a multi-billion success you can't keep playing to the relatively small market of techies.

[tomtomagain]

Did they ever have a Midas touch? Loads of their projects have been less than stellar. Anyone remember Google Wave - all that fanfare and.....meh. Or Google Video, before they just gave up and brought YouTube? And look how well Google+ is doing

I'd suggest that Google strength is in the fact it's ready to take a chance. Do they not encourage their staff to spend x% of their time on 'crazy' projects?

Google Glass. Years of hype but cancelled before it was launched.

Google Self-Driving Cars. Years of hype, still not on the market. In the meantime you can buy and own a self-driving Tesla.

Google haven't done anything interesting for years.

[squarepeg]

Based on their past failed project I'm inclined to say they are just not very good at human-to-human interaction.

[d000hg]

If you stick with Android they won't really care

[Big Blue Plymouth]

I've been using a Nexus for the last couple of years and it does more than what I need a phone for & it weighed in at a much lower price than the Samsung Galaxy.

Apparently they won't be doing the Nexus any more & are launching the Pixel & I had a brief look the other day & it looked like that was going to sell for upwards of £500.

I guess they've done their marketing but I'll be looking at something else next time I need a phone & I'm guessing there will be a fair few ex google phone users soon.

[d000hg]

Google's money comes from ads. Everything else is just sugar on top. They've so much ad revenue they can throw cash at projects and see which work and which don't, without it really mattering.

[OwlHoot]

No organisation has a 100% hit rate, it's just Google's failures are a lot more public

True. Also, it occurred to me they could be doing a Microsoft by deliberately providing a pathetic inadequate solution in the hope and expectation that some third party will develop a better alternative and thus help Google avoid accusations of being a monopoly.

[vwdan]

Did they ever have a Midas touch? Loads of their projects have been less than stellar. Anyone remember Google Wave - all that fanfare and.....meh. Or Google Video, before they just gave up and brought YouTube? And look how well Google+ is doing

I'd suggest that Google strength is in the fact it's ready to take a chance. Do they not encourage their staff to spend x% of their time on 'crazy' projects?

[Chuck]

You can learn a lot more from failure than success. I wouldn't count Google out just yet.

[SimonMac]

No organisation has a 100% hit rate, it's just Google's failures are a lot more public

[OwlHoot]

I and presumably most people tend to think of Google projects as being among the most groundbreaking and smartest, and there's no doubt that has been and remains true for many of these.

After all, they didn't become the size they are without doing quite a few things right, often before these innovations even occurred to anyone else.

But this recent article shows that not everything they touch is joined up, and I wonder if they are starting the inevitable process of weighing themselves down in their own technical and managerial complexity:

2016-10-18 Pixel perfectly presents Google’s messaging app disaster