Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

David G — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 02:30:28 -0000

"portal" - when's this blog getting a spell-checker ;-)

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

David G — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 02:29:31 -0000

maybe it's better than pretending everything's related (yahoo) - google is the only GYMAE that's HUGE without being a protal - in this, they understand web users much better than Y & M

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Seylan — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 02:57:41 -0000

Are there any sample web pages from Google PageCreator?
Could someone list a couple o URLs, perhaps...

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Pete Cashmore — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 08:08:20 -0000

I think overall this spray and pray strategy is limited to the 20% time projects. As I've said, at the heart of Google there seems to be a good insight into the future of the web.

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Ivan Pope — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 04:41:31 -0000

Bob Aman has it on the button. It's a result of the Gooogle 20% system: employees get to put 20% of their time towards their own ideas.
I've said this before, but it seems that this famous and much mooted 20% thing (which is blessed as originating from Sergei) will take Google down if they don't get a handle on it.
They're employing a lot of smart people, and one of the things that gets these people in the door is the 20% rule. So these people get a nice job and the ability to do their startup on the company dollar.
So thousands of people are spinning things off in company time, it's official Google policy, it's invented by god, so it has to work.
So Google has to take some of these projects and release them.
But as they are all invented by teams of engineers, there's no business planning or sanity checking.
Now I would guess that the people who make the decisions as to what goes 'live' are upper level managers. These will be people with some idea about the bigger Google picture. They won't want to release any of the wilder ideas that are no doubt brewing within the Googleplex. So they are picking things that they recognise. And what can be more recognisable than a web based web site creator? (I think that was first built on about day seven of the internet).
There's some serious management attention needed at Google - they are riding on their cash cow. Sooner or later the markets are going to ask some very difficult questions.

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Gabe Morris — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 00:31:31 -0000

â€œWe donâ€™t generally talk about our strategy â€¦ because itâ€™s strategicâ€

Larry Page in Time magazine interview, February 20, 2006, in response to a question: â€œIs there a grand strategy for Google?â€

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

csven — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 22:51:26 -0000

I've not looked at this, but it sure sounds like the Geocities' webpage creation system last I saw it (though probably better than what I tried to use). However, am I the only one who surfs to a Blogger page and actually has to wait for it to load? When I started blogging I gave serious consideration to Blogger since I was already blogging for another site using it, but am I ever glad I didn't. I'd rather they spend some time on Blogger... because some of my favorite sites use it and I sometimes leave before the page loads (it feels so... dial-up).

I'm with Lindsay on all this. The stuff is coming out so fast anymore I feel like I'm drowning in a Web 2.0 (meme)pool. Kudos to Mashable for at least tracking this stuff. Even so...

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Derek — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 21:07:08 -0000

Google Pages is probably the basis for for an online yellowpages to be sold to local businesses (those that do not already have websites). That way they can potentially be sold Pay-Per-Click traffic and later Pay-Per-Call.

Google is pursuing the entire advertising market and a lot of that comes from local small businesses who have yet to get a web presence and probably just want/need a single page.

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Murali — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 20:49:01 -0000

In this day & age, these half-baked product launches are perhaps a way got Google to increase its market cap (for sure this happened when it launched Google Video etc)

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Andy Brudtkuhl — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 14:48:44 -0000

think, integration

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Bob Aman — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 14:08:06 -0000

I think "Spray and Pray" is probably an inevitable side-effect of 20% time. It would be nice if Google identified more often which projects originated from the 20% time rule.

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

feedscott — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 13:53:42 -0000

The question becomes is Google becoming over diversified? In my mind yes, but in reality no. Google is leveraging their search brand to gain market share in other areas. Not every tool that is released now will benefit just me or you. There are people every day just discovering the internet believe it or not.

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Tiago — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 13:43:06 -0000

It reminds me the "Art of War". Google has a desperate strategy (Spray and Pray ,good one Pete)! Yahoo seens to know what they are doing, buying/developing tools that work together and can offer all in one solution for ordinary people.

Why Google are doing that way? Why PageCreator is not integrated with Blogger. Why Blogger isn't integrated with Orkut. I'm trying to figure out!

It seens that there is a lack of communications between Google teams.

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Dan — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:43:01 -0000

Although Google has a lot of clout and will certainly clean the service up, companies such as mosaicglobe have been doing this better for a while.

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Lindsay Donaghe — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:51:20 -0000

Unfortunately, I can't try it out yet: "Google Page Creator has experienced extremely strong demand, and, as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity."

But even so, I'm wondering what the point is... I was so disappointed with Google Base. I expected so much more after becoming enamored with Gmail. And Google Base had the potential to be something truly disruptive (imagine being able to store all your data (files, emails, notes, graphics, music, movies, etc), for free, in one place with an awesome ability to search and have it accessible wherever you are?? That's the grail!. But that's not what GBase turned out to be. Instead it left me unimpressed and wondering what the point was supposed to be...

I have a feeling my reaction to Google Pages will be the same... Or maybe it'll be like my recent experience with Squidoo... at first it was "Oh, cool, look what you can do with this" and then, after I set it all up, it was "now what??". No interaction with users through feedback or comments, no way to monitor traffic... basically a one-way dead end for information. So 1990's.

How can Google Pages compete with a free Blogger account? Why is there a need for something TO compete with that and why would Google launch something to compete with it's own offerings? Surely there has to be a niche that I'm overlooking...

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Frank Gruber — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:22:43 -0000

I agree with you Pete. It seems Google has a new product every other week using the old strategy, you explained as spray and pray:

"If you throw enough sh!t out there some of has got to stick!"

I like Google. The company has done some great things. However, it is obvious Google wants to take over as much as it possibly can till Rome falls. A good motto may be - the World or bust! I think if these types of aggressive moves continue you will begin to see more and more "Google is evil" campaigning similar to how people campaigned against Microsoft only five short years ago. People like the underdog and are anti-establishment so hopefully Google can continue to put out solid products and emphasize communicating its ultimate intentions to fend off any distrust.

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

jim — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:10:50 -0000

This is exactly what we're trying to do at MosaicGlobe. That's why we took
a "pagetype" (galleries, blog, links, about, contact, media libraries, etc.) approach. Being a web developer, I don't want to have to spend time developing my site, I just want it done. And I really don't want to have to maintain multiple pieces of software.

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

Pete Cashmore — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:03:37 -0000

I could use it to create web pages quickly and easily without downloading any software.

Next question? :)

Re: Google’s New Strategy: Spray and Pray

TDavid — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:02:08 -0000

"help people create web pages quickly and easily without downloading any software. I know I could use something like that."

How could you use something like that?