Oh wow. Really curious to see how this changes anything at all. I’ve not been impressed, admittedly my only interactions with him were from org and team level livestreams.
A little over a decade ago at Google TGIF, the leader of Google Chat, ch(the one that sat in the corner of Gmail) stood up and announced we'd be replacing Google Chat with a better chat system. He explained that he'd "looked at the data" and japanese teenagers were using emojis, and Chat didn't support that, so we'd be completely replacing Chat with another system that supported emojis.
At the time, chat was changing quickly from an ICQ-like IM tool towards a more SMS-style, although there was still a use case for gChat in enterprise and professional contexts. Google was losing users to other chat systems, such as ones that only ran on mobile, and used phone numbers, not gmail identities, to keep track of users.
After the debacle that was the first Hangouts launch, they pivoted a number of times more, completely messing up each subsequent rollout, while also having several almost-competing projects fighting for dominance. All of this happened around the time that the leadership was deeply invested in Google Plus and made a number of antisocial decisions.
And quite the opening, too. They could have replaced the dead/dying Skype, gotten the market Slack/Teams have, and been the video-conferencing option everyone reached for instead of Zoom.
I feel like expecting them to have created Discord is a bit too much - I think most people didn't realize there was such a strong demand for a chat program structured into 'servers' like IRC.
the standard wisdom behind why google has so many chat apps is that the way for high-level people looking to get promoted to an even higher level is to launch a new product. so you have people launching a product, getting promoted, and then moving on. rinse and repeat. not sure if true, but at least plausible.
Yeah, maybe Nick Fox wasn't the one at the top, but I believe he definitely had a seat at the table. If i recall he was the one running allo/duo, which may not be the beginning of the failed chat strategy, but at the very least a continuaiton of it.
Yup , it's him who you are thinking about if you read the article "the man who killed google " .A side question : Does this mean zitron was right ?
can they get rid of sundar pichai too
why ?
Oh wow. Really curious to see how this changes anything at all. I’ve not been impressed, admittedly my only interactions with him were from org and team level livestreams.
What made you not feel impressed ?
Anyone has any info about how competent fox is ? Can he fix google or same as previous.
Pretty sure he was the person who butchered Google's chat strategy so...
What do you mean ? what chat ? google hangouts ?
Hangouts/Chat/Allo/Duo/...
https://capitalg.com/team/nick-fox/
"he was responsible for Google's communications products"
Four attempt and all failed , How does it even happen ? Its not like it was a non existent market as whatsapp/discord/messenger is thriving.
A little over a decade ago at Google TGIF, the leader of Google Chat, ch(the one that sat in the corner of Gmail) stood up and announced we'd be replacing Google Chat with a better chat system. He explained that he'd "looked at the data" and japanese teenagers were using emojis, and Chat didn't support that, so we'd be completely replacing Chat with another system that supported emojis.
At the time, chat was changing quickly from an ICQ-like IM tool towards a more SMS-style, although there was still a use case for gChat in enterprise and professional contexts. Google was losing users to other chat systems, such as ones that only ran on mobile, and used phone numbers, not gmail identities, to keep track of users.
After the debacle that was the first Hangouts launch, they pivoted a number of times more, completely messing up each subsequent rollout, while also having several almost-competing projects fighting for dominance. All of this happened around the time that the leadership was deeply invested in Google Plus and made a number of antisocial decisions.
And quite the opening, too. They could have replaced the dead/dying Skype, gotten the market Slack/Teams have, and been the video-conferencing option everyone reached for instead of Zoom.
I feel like expecting them to have created Discord is a bit too much - I think most people didn't realize there was such a strong demand for a chat program structured into 'servers' like IRC.
no one gets promoted for maintaining or even improving an existing product
Can you elaborate a bit more ?
the standard wisdom behind why google has so many chat apps is that the way for high-level people looking to get promoted to an even higher level is to launch a new product. so you have people launching a product, getting promoted, and then moving on. rinse and repeat. not sure if true, but at least plausible.
This does not bode well for search.
No, that was Chee Chew.
Yeah, maybe Nick Fox wasn't the one at the top, but I believe he definitely had a seat at the table. If i recall he was the one running allo/duo, which may not be the beginning of the failed chat strategy, but at the very least a continuaiton of it.