Google...
...really needs to lose their Facebook envy. It will be the death of them. They've already lost sight of what made their company work thanks to their new policy of trying to out-Facebook Facebook.
Open is a word so overused and abused that it is now impossible not to switch off when yet another tech titan or politico comes along with their very own interpretation of what the term should actually mean. But it's also a word that Google seems unable to resist repeating. Sergey Brin, co-founder of the Chocolate Factory, …
What made their company work was being able to index the most important/relevant data on the web and present users with the more relevant result. Today they improve relevance by giving us the option of "social searches" but more of the important data is being kept out of the open access web.
They're still a bit of a follower when it comes to products.
Google was not the first search engine, Android was not the first smartphone OS, Google+ is a response to Facebook , Gmail arrived after Hotmail. See the pattern?
While they have developed lots of interesting technology behind the scenes, the most ground breaking work they have done is on Google Maps with Street View.
Google has taken over the role of Microsoft, which is to wait for innovators to release new products that fail, find out all the flaws and why it failed and release their own take on it with the flaws fixed (often at a lower price). But of course, web based and advert supported.
Plenty of companies do a lot of following. Even Apple wasn't the first at a lot of things they have done (and I'd argue they didn't even get it right a lot of the time but somehow they're still successful).
Sometimes the follower gets it right though, although sometimes getting it right isn't enough to be successful. It worked with the Google's search engine and with Gmail. Android seems to be working if they can keep it going but Google+, which to me seems nicer than Facebook, is a ghost town (I check but don't use it).
Of course Google has innovated more than just with maps. Consider how they've monetized search and what they've done to internet advertising. They have had their hands in a lot of other innovative pots but not all have been as high profile.
He should have released it months ago, he DID release it months ago.
Try contributing upstream to any project. In any open source project they don't have to make their code public at the end of every day, they don't have to accept your changes, you are not allowed to release branched software under the same name as the main branch. Android is open source.
"Readers might have noticed that The Register wasn't at all excited about Brin's disappointment in Facebook's closed network"
This is the second time you've chosen to ignore his comments regarding interference from governments and the entertainment industry.
"Today, the primary threat by far to internet freedom is government filtering of political dissent .. regardless of how you feel about digital ecosystems or about Google, please do not take the free and open internet for granted from government intervention. To the extent that free flow of information threatens the powerful, those in power will seek to suppress it".
https://plus.google.com/109813896768294978296/posts
The real threat to internet freedom is Google
They bailed on net neutrality when it suited them
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/08/google-verizon-unveil-net-neutrality-lite-to-government.ars
And they are lobbying hard to get laws changed in their favour
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-increases-lobbying-budget/39168/
Google is not yours or anyones friend.
Google+ Double plus good, Governments bad, corrupt, hate freedom. Facebook flash in pan (geologically speaking), Apple bad (secrets and lies). Future of humanity = Freedom, ergo Google the best of a bad lot (Google Earth, Mars, Moon, trying to digitise the worlds books, links to torrents, better phone than iphone, better search than altavista, better TwoFaceBook, etc etc etc)
IMHO.
To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour. Blake (and in the end isn't that all that matters?).
Sent from my iPad.
Google has an absolutely valid point here. Facebook helps itself to all of the data Google makes available -- users' contact lists, all of youtube, etc etc but then locks all of its own data up inside proprietary API's and walled garden, so Google can't make any data flow in the other direction.
Facebook is a cancer on the Internet and must be killed in order for its host to survive. I am absolutely serious here.,