Because I'm struggling to think of anything in recent years, and most of the things they do try to launch tend to flop, even if the initial idea is pretty good.
Meanwhile, all their successful products and services have been around a while now. Search was 1997, Blogger was 1999 (not initially by Google), Gmail was 2004, YouTube and Maps were both 2005, Google Docs was 2006 and both Android and Chrome were 2008. So where's the next big hit? Is one even possible with Google's attitude of "if it doesn't succeed in a few months, kill it"?
What is likely to be their next successful story out of the things they worked on recently?
For hardware, I think all of the following could be considered a success:
- Pixel phone
- Chromecast
- Chromebooks (as school computers)
For software:
- Youtube TV seems to be a massive hit.
- Google Classroom has a lot of users in the ed tech space.
- Just in my social circle, I'm noticing more and more people using Google Photos in the past few years (even iOS users). I think might be due to growing usage of Google One.
But I was definitely surprised about the mentions of Chromecast and Youtube TV, particularly YouTube TV. All of the cord cutters I talked to opted for Fubo, Hulu or DirectTV. Good to hear it sees adoption. Is there a marketshare analysis that you're aware of?
According to this link, YTTV passed Hulu Live to become the largest player in the space in mid 2022 https://nscreenmedia.com/why-youtube-tv-is-the-number-1-vmvp...
2012 - Google Drive
2017 - Google Meet
I think with that in mind, the fact that Google doesn’t develop their own Slack clone to fit into Workspaces is completely bananas [edit: they actually did do that this year].
Other new product successes listed in this thread are things like Chromecast that only make Google money indirectly and/or represent an essentially meaningless slice of their revenue.
The Linux version is lagging a tad: https://abevoelker.github.io/how-long-since-google-said-a-go...
A vast swath of LineageOS supported devices have been retired for this reason, and Pixels are the largest family remaining.
Oddly enough, if you want control of a device that minimizes Google's influence, then you probably want a Pixel.
Chromebooks were also the thing that started out slow, but now are pretty ubiquitous.
As a parent of a kid with ADHD and a Chromebook, I'm appalled at how wide open access to everything on the Internet is on Chromebooks. Trying to keep him on track when there's the constant temptation and ability to alt-tab over to YouTube means my wife and I have to be ever vigilant that he's actually working.
No, his ADHD isn't Google's fault, but they're designing and deploying tools for lots of kids who have impulse control issues.
I mean, yes, the internet is distracting, but...
And yes, I use Family Link and Android controls. Not great, but also not applicable to a device over which I have no control.
That said, isn't there some nanny software available to install and block websites except the ones you whitelist? They should also have ability to set access time schedules so you could let them have a free for all after school time is over.
[1] https://reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/y039zn/i_compiled_...
Edit: Downvotes are a little confusing here, are people supposed to accept a phone that can’t make a call when you most need it?
Bugs gone and new features popped up.
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Kubernetes and TensorFlow should count, and are successful.
AlloyDB is IMO most likely to be successful (especially since AWS Aurora already proved the market): https://cloud.google.com/alloydb
Since this question seems to be much more about the consumer side, I think both Google Home and YouTube TV are independently considered successful though I have no doubt many people will chime in to note how much they hate either or both of those things.
Google TensorFlow and DeepMind, Microsoft WSL2, Meta AI, etc. Also worth mentioning the many quiet efforts to get quantum computing off the ground.
Kubernetes is not a Google product. But it is "a" product, and it was successfully launched as a commoditize-your-complement / cannibalize-yourself kind of thing.
GKE meanwhile is a Google product, and is successful, and wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Kubernetes.
Something I can insert money into, which solves a more expensive problem.
Kubernetes and TensorFlow are extraordinary technologies - and very important to the work I do daily. I don't think they're products though, certainly not successful products.
Right. I would argue that "public cloud infrastructure" is such a product; GCP/AWS/Azure specifically. (See below also) Kubernetes enabled the existence of EKS/AKS/GKE all of which I believe are considered successful.
Separately, TensorFlow enabled Azure Machine Learning, TensorFlow on AWS and Google Cloud TensorFlow Enterprise, and generally expanded (IMO) the market for IaaS.
Google Home/Nest is 2016 and has been fairly successful.
Google Fi is from 2015 and still seems to be going strong, I use it and am happy with it.
Chromecast launched in 2013, I think that has to be considered a success.
Some acquisitions just mean billion of dollars spent for nothing and these get a lot of attention. Remember when AOL bought BeBo for $850m? But every acquisition is a gamble. Most won't pay off but some will, spectacularly.
Like in 2022 can you really believe that Google paid less than $2 billion for Youtube? Is that not the biggest bargain of the century? Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion. Were it a separate company, at least until the last couple of years, it probably would be worth 100x that.
Most ideas don't turn into billion (or trillion) dollar companies. Expecting a company to do that multiple times is like expecting to win the lottery twice. Taking a $1 billion company and turning it into a $100+ billion business is itself a massive success. I'm not sure why the homegrown product is assumed to be somehow more virtuous.
That said Google should bring back Google Labs. They are tarnishing their main brand by cancelling so many projects. Tell people anything that graduates to the main Google brand gets at least a 10-year support cycle.
Which relied on KHTML.
Which was built on the QT toolkit created by Troll Tech [1]. QT was designed originally inspired by folks working on a cross-platform application for ultrasound imaging [2].
Turtles all the way down.
1. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/06/ars-at-wwdc-intervie...
2. https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_History
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/28/delawa...
LOL
It was until they removed the Google Drive integration.
[1] https://ente.io/
[2] https://photoprism.app/
The product that stands out to me is Stadia. As a technical achievement, Stadia is impressive, but Google managed to maximize all of the downsides to fully online gaming and minimize all of the benefits. No amount of engineering is going to save a company if the management is deluded or consumed with infighting.
One could also look at their history of undermining their own social or communication networks by throwing up a series of incompatible clients like Chat, Hangouts, Allo, or Duo. Same for Buzz, Orkut or Google+. Any of these could have been successful if they just stuck with it, but their behavior makes it extremely clear that we should expect these to be very short lived.
There are major business opportunities out there and Google is in a sound technical position to capitalize on them. But this would require a a degree of foresight and backbone that's absolutely anathema to the current management culture.
I think with the size they don't have a lot of interest in running "small" businesses even if they have some traction. Something like Stadia was maybe just wholly unprofitable but maybe had some benefits if they developed remote gameplay tech that might be re-used in another product someday or offered as apart of their cloud offerings.
I guess they'll eventually jump in on the upcoming AR war, but it might be hard to beat the offerings from Meta and Apple. Maybe they'll have the Android of AR?