DISQUS

Hugo · 3 years ago

"Bing. Small things. They are gonna prove to be dramatically important over time."

This last sentence could have been taken from a famous book:

"The Tipping Point; How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference"

John Koetsier · 3 years ago

If only, only, only Technorati had the same listening attitude.

Robert, did you see my comment on the previous post? Are you able to help?

Jeffrey · 3 years ago

Looks like they may be growing up. This is a good thing.

David Dalka · 3 years ago

I dunno, I've blogged about a lot of Google issues and I have yet to see action on most of them. To my knowledge only one thing was listened to and I can't even be sure about that as the issue bothered many other people.

Then again, I met Eric Schmidt at SES and I gave him my card. I had a recent blog post predicting that Google Video would move to the front page soon. The next day it happened! Coincidence? I don't know.

I do know David Krane asked me to e-mail him some information that we discussed and he has not responded in any way.

Additionally, I recently sent 30 old fashioned real letters to senior people at Google and only 2 got any sort of reply. None addressed the issue in the letter.

I'd like to believe you're right, but I just don't see it yet.

Matt Cutts · 3 years ago

David, do you want to do a master blog post pointing to your blog posts where you wanted Google to do something better, and I'll pass that link around within Google? I saw that your site has a Google category and I could pass that on, but it sounds like you might want to make a few specific points..

Robert Scoble · 3 years ago

David: I'm not answering my email, either. When you're a senior guy you just get so much flow there's no way to keep up with it.

And, yeah, not everyone listens. But we gotta start somewhere and it's good to see that SOME parts of the company are listening.

paul · 3 years ago

How about an OPML of Google bloggers?

Kirby Witmer · 3 years ago

They sure do keep tabs on the blog world. I've found that out when I posted on my blog about my Google Checkout troubles.

David Dalka · 3 years ago

Matt - thank you for chiming in! Please send me your e-mail to (myfirstname.lastname@gmail.com) and I'll do that this weekend and I'll put together everything in one post send you the link, good?

Robert - I don't expect every senior person to respond directly! I expect the senior people to delegate responsibility to those who can - to not get one serious reponse out of the thirty is kinda weak. That is one of the problems I've seen at conferences I go to many Google people do not have enough power delegated to them to satify customer issues - especially involving B2B issues. You alluded to secrecy in your post, it creates a lack of transparency.

Michael Martine · 3 years ago

Doing searches like that is incredibly smart and necessary today. Better is the fact that there was a response.

jonezy · 3 years ago

google really seem to be doing a lot of the right things lately... big and small

Dan Blank · 3 years ago

"Small is the new big" seems to be the big trend, similar to "God is in the details." I wonder if companies will begin making this sort a thing part of customer service: checking the blogs each day like Carl Sjogreen does in order to respond to customer issues. So many companies do everything they can to downplay the need to help customers, I don't think many companies will be searching out more problems to help solve. Of course, to your point, they should. I wonder how long Carl spends on this each day. That is adding a potentially huge task to not just respond, but then track an issue until completed.

TAG · 3 years ago

Hey man,
Is this a news ? This search queries display in lobby, traffic graph from all over Earth and Moon, food and a lot of other cool things was in Google for a years.

Give us something new !

Rick · 3 years ago

Were snacks and meals not free at MS? And I was under the impression that MS cafeterias were quite high quality, but there's yet another level? Or is it just variety?

Phil · 3 years ago

The search scrollbar has been there for a long time. I remember reading about it on Xooglers a while ago.

Robert - regarding the perception change by the Googlers, did you feel that this was because of an acknowledged increase in competition?

mamavision · 3 years ago

Hello Robert: I am a rookie blogger. I finally checked out your site after seeing it on several blogrolls. I like your style. I'll keep reading.
Have a good one!

Robert Scoble · 3 years ago

Phil, I'm not sure. It's just anecdotal anyway. Either way it's a good trend and one that should be encouraged.

Rick: no, meals at MS are not free. And the selection of food isn't even close.

LayZ · 3 years ago

@14. I think the only thing free at MS is the soda.

hollyster · 3 years ago

I'm wondering if Mark Jen would have joined Google now, if they wouldn't have terminated him him so quickly. Perhaps times are a changing? His blog could have evolved into a friendly face to Google. I don't know any friendlier face that Google could have than Mark =)... except maybe you Robert =) heh heh...

I leave with a quote from Mark:
"i think blogging is the next big thing on the internet. the web gave people revolutionary access to information; email and instant messaging disrupted the way people communicate with each other; blogging empowers everyone to create new information and connect in a community."

John Furrier · 3 years ago

I was at Google the day before and I remember that when you sign in you fill out the form then sign that you've read the NDA. So I think that you're signature is executing their standard NDA. If you didn't sign in then I think that you're clear :-)

Al Pascual · 3 years ago

Google Calendar does not work with IE7
http://alpascual.com/blog/al/archive/2006/08/18...

Doug Karr · 3 years ago

I still have my Google visitor pass and pictures of their HDTV that had a visual representation of the volume of searches that were occurring. I couldn't take a picture of their whiteboards, but reading the notes was awesome. Cool place!

Doug

Robert Scoble · 3 years ago

Al: it works just fine with IE 7 here. It warns you it won't work, but if you click "cancel" instead of "OK" then it'll let you into the calendar and it seems to work just fine.

Aaron Shear · 3 years ago

Good point, I felt the same thing on my last visit as well. The company has matured in many ways, I think being held accountable to the stock market may have helped.

Deadprogrammer · 3 years ago

I was always fascinated with Google's search display. I made my own ghetto version once, but I found writing a profanity filter from scratch pretty difficult.

P.S. You should send an email to Helmut Kunze.

Scott Kingery · 3 years ago

"...every morning is do this search on Google’s Blogsearch service: “Google Calendar.” "
heh..why doesn't he just subscribe to the RSS feed that blogsearch generates?

/pd · 3 years ago

Nice to see you become a google convert - Robert !! :)-

pls continue to say both the good and the bad.

cvos · 3 years ago

um, this is a non post post. I had to read the article twice to see if i missed any information. Turns out there wasnt any. I guess my expectations were too high, or you are recovering from jet lag.

tashfeen · 3 years ago

Robert, your blog is very interesting. I'd bookmark it for future visits. Best.

google checkout · 3 years ago

yes, we love all the best and free things google provide ... but some times i feel that it is "not so good" that "so many good things" are just held under one brand ...

trucex · 3 years ago

I must say, I'm not such a fan of Google. They more or less stole $60,000 from my company...

They aren't the friendly giant they'd like you to believe.

Brian · 3 years ago

"They aren’t the friendly giant they’d like you to believe."

Well they are in business. On the face of it, it sounds like 'just business' from a sour grapes point of view.

Just saying.

Robert Scoble · 3 years ago

Trucex: if you're gonna say something like that, at least link to a post where you give the details. Every company will have its disgruntled partners, customers, and former employees. Even the best ones.

And, on the other hand, while you say Google cost you money I can name hundreds of entrepreneurs who say that Google brings them their customers and paychecks today in far greater numbers than $60,000.

arick · 3 years ago

Yup, small things have been proven to make big differences. That's for sure.

robertne · 3 years ago

Let us hope that what Scoble writes is true

trucex · 3 years ago

I'd love to give you the nitty-gritty on it, but my attorney advises against it saying it might hurt the case.

My point is really that they say "Do no evil" but that isn't neccesarily their standpoint when it comes to money.

I can honestly say that even before this event, I didn't like Google's search results. Anytime I use Google I end up creating queries that include subtracting words that are all over spam pages in the Google index, or subtracting words that Google thinks are related to my query. I think it was Sergey who has said numerous times over the last couple years that he isn't happy with the search results.

Oh, and Yahoo's new maps blow Google's away. The satellite/aerial images line up and match perfectly in Yahoo, whereas Google's have distinct separating lines where photos where taken on different days and don't line up properly. The Yahoo map search interface is much more impressive as well.

And I really can't say I want to start writing my reports on Writely, doing my financial charts on Google Spreadsheet, or keeping track of my life on Google Calendar. By the time Google gets Orkut out for the general population it will be post-social-networking boom and it won't go anywhere. Honestly, I just don't see many great things coming out of Google anymore.

I'm just one person though...everybody is going to see what they see based on their own experiences and expectations. That's why they still are who they are.

greg · 3 years ago

It's always been the small things that matter. Glad to see Google is taking notice.