What is Digg?96 Comments
- faulkner, on 10/12/2007, -29/+72no -- google doesn't strongarm everybody into paying through the nose for a piece of crap.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+24No. Releasing an ad-supported operating system would actually be one giant step in the WRONG direction.
- jpfinch, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20No. Is this a sensational title like everything else lately on digg? Yes.
- Suck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15The blind Google worship in this community is stunning.
Many high-quality, well-written, insightful comments have been dugg down and hidden just because they criticize Google or support Microsoft.
This is exactly WHY Google can do occasional evil without anyone caring - the tech community is blindly devoted to them and worships everything they release, while quickly forgetting the horrible flops and "evil" moves. They can release GAnything and the entire techdiggblogosphereweb 2.0 community goes crazy over it, generating tons of hype and declaring all of its competitors dead.
With such incredibly strong blind devotion from tech-savvy users and the press, and seemingly complete immunity against negative press, what incentive does Google have to continue doing no evil?
They have a lot of great products, and a lot of very smart people work there. The same is true for Microsoft. The community gives Microsoft hell whenever they even *suggest* doing something slightly uncool, and this prevents Microsoft from becoming *too* evil.
Let's make sure we're holding Google to the same standards to prevent the same outcome. - skipunk, on 10/12/2007, -13/+26or why not just use an OS that is already free and without ads --> linux,or one of the flavours of bsd, that is even sweeter
- rm999, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15I totally agree with you r2d7. Microsoft has several different products that are considered standard in the computing world. Windows, Office, Visual Studio, I'm sure there are plenty more. Google has - ads. That's literally all I can think of that makes them any sort of notable revenue. Microsoft has a *stable* business model, Google is hanging on its ads remaining as profitable as they are now. Maybe it will remain so, maybe it won't.
Sorry it won't be possible to have much of a conversation with every comment but one in this thread modded to a 0 or below.
To the users of Digg:
Please stop modding down potentially insightful comments because you disagree with them or because they insult a company or product you are a fan of. It makes it impossible to have an intelligent argument because any non-popular viewpoint is hidden from view.
To the administrators of digg:
Please limit the number of thumb downs users can give. The users of digg has proven time and time again they will abuse it - gregmo, on 10/12/2007, -15/+24Don't Be Evil.
- FishyJoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11If Google disappeared tomorrow, I don't think the world would be that impacted. Sure some people would miss the ad revenue, but people would learn to use other search engines pretty quickly.
If MS disappeared, there would be panic. It would be much harder for businesses to switch to other software and it would cost huge sums of money to do so. - gonzo_leben, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13No, at least not yet....
(The paying part that is) - crawf061, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9if it isn't a voting system then why is there a thumbs up box? for non-spam?
- jriley101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Soon you will be able to see "Google Everything". Atleast according to this article.
http://www.oozm.com/search/index.php/List_of_Acquisitions_by_Google
They seem to have a feet in many things already. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10I don't know that MS is scared by their *every* move, but while Google has a stranglehold on search + online advertising it is building up to an interesting competition.
The other services Google offer do not have anywhere near a dominant market share. Google got in early with search and ads when there was limited competition.
Their attempts to enter into established markets haven't led to any noticable success. GMail didn't kill hotmail / yahoo etc, gtalk went nowhere quickly, analytics didn't replace everyone's copy of Urchin or other stats packages. - Poco, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Just because we want him to be able to say it doesn't mean we have to like it.
- xcheats, on 10/12/2007, -9/+15And Microsoft products don't work well? I'd like to see Google take on a programming project with the complexity of Windows and release it in 5 years without leaving it in "Beta" for the rest of its lifetime and not abandon it.
- rm999, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10somas1
I don't think he was trolling. Since Windows XP, I have not found an operating system that crashes less (and I have used at least five different distros of Linux). I haven't found a more robust programming IDE than visual studio net (although I'm not a huge fan of it). Thunderbird gets slow when I have tons of messages and sometimes deletes all my messages - I have never had a problem with outlook express. Open Office routinely crashes on me, MS Office has only crashed on me a small handful of times in the last 10 years.
Google has not approached a problem of the size or complexity of windows - ever. The closest they have come is to their wonderful search engine. But saying that microsoft products don't work well is *generally* just microsoft bashing. I hate them as much as the next computer nerd, mostly for their terrible UIs and business practices, but their products really aren't so bad. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -23/+27Google *wish* they were the new Microsoft. There's one significant difference though.
MS has a huge range of successful, established, developed products.
Google has search + ads, and a bunch of crap it looks like they make on a whim and abandon when they get another "great idea". - IcanFLY, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6You comment about ethics and Google saying they strive to not be evil. They can say anything they want, but it doesn't mean it is true. As time goes on Google seems to be turning more and more to evil, or at least more and more to impending economic collapse.
Google makes their money from ads, and in return for throwing the billions of ads at users around the world, they purchase companies and release the services and products for free. Many people, myself included, appreciate many of the services Google provides for free (Search, Gmail, Picassa, Groups, etc...) but this doesn't mean Google has good ethics, but mearly they know how to keep the general public happy and interested in them. - carpespasm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6becuase internal conflict, less control by its founders, and more control by profit driven stock holders usually pushes more established companies into more suspicious activities.
- cesclaveria, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6mistshadow2k4:
If Xp crashes on you every day I guess maybe its you who "either have a virus or something has whacked your registry to hell"
Windows Xp has never crashed on my for the last 3 years, MS makes good products, far from perfect? yes, but they are not the disaster wainting to happeng some of you say they are. - pingveno, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6There's a limit to how far ad revenue can go in funding software development. Personally, I've been worried about a decline or oversaturation of the advertisement market destroying many companies that rely on ad revenue (digg included). Microsoft Windows and Office, two of Microsoft's most well known products, cost a lot of money, but that's for a reason. MS has put real effort to make Windows and Office (reasonably) user friendly, feature rich, and a (reasonably) good platform. Though a bit chunk of the reason for their market share is based on what is essentially a monopoly, the quality of their products is also a big chunk. Their market share and revenue are not under threat any time in the foreseeable future. Google is an important part of the Internet as it is now, but its current business model is potential unstable and can not sustain the development of an operating system. Besides, would you really want to stare at ads every time you want to do *anything* on your computer? Me neither.
- bieber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Google may become a new Microsoft in terms of economic strength, but I hope to God they never produce proprietary software on the scale M$ does.
- Joe_rigby, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10That's what google has done all along - they have someone develop something successful and they divert resources from something less successful. Microsoft does this, too - but it is a behemoth and lacks the speed at which google can do so. How is that a bad thing, r2d7?
- somas1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6@xcheats
Maybe you are trolling and while I've been trying not to MS bash, how long was Windows NT in "beta" until Windows XP. Some people respect the fact that Google calls something beta because some folks know not to waste their time with beta products. Did Microsoft tell the world Windows ME was beta? I know many people who jumped ship to OS X and (fewer) to linux/bsd after decades of Microsoft's beta projects. - godwept, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3All I know is I use and love Google because it's functional. nuff said.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I wouldn't say that is the best analogy. A better one would be Apple going into the AV business. There isn't really any point for it.
Similarly, Google has nothing to gain from releasing their own OS. All of their highly-used services (Gmail, search, ad stuff) is multi-platform by nature and would not benefit from their spending time and resources into designing and releasing their own OS, much less supporting it. That, and it would likely do terribly, as the average user has only an inkling of what Windows is, just knows that Macs don't "talk well together", and thinks Linux is for hackers.
If Google were to make their own *nix distro (as everyone seems to think they will, for some reason), can we honestly say that we'd care? It would just be one of literally hundreds. And if they base it off of one of the current distros (Ubuntu seems to be the rumor of choice), why would we use it instead of the original? For Google's branding and ads they would dump into Gnome/KDE? Personally, I might install that on another hard drive to see if it has anything worthwhile about it, then neglect it. - xcheats, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I was merely stating that Google takes much longer than Microsoft to develop far less complicated products. If Microsoft could make Google Search, Google Gmail, Google Calender, and Google Maps in a week and have few bugs while at it. However, when you are designing an operating system that not only has to work with whatever features Microsoft wants to add in the future, it has to be easy to install third-party software and hardware. Google doesn't have to worry about letting other people develop software for its Gmail and then have to support it.
- NiroZ, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7is it just me, or is every time there is a successful company that stands the tests of time, it suddenly becomes 'suspicous'?
- mistshadow2k4, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4You know what's funny? QDOS stands for "Quick and Dirty Operating System". When Microsoft bought it they changed it to MS-DOS. So MS-DOS stands for "MicroSoft's Dirty Operating System". How come nobody seems to remember that?
- CraigJ, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Actually, they do have some products: http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ I personally use Picasa and I like it. They didn't write it, they acquired it, but then some of Microsoft's products were acquisitions too...
I seem to remember in the early 90s that Microsoft was a fairly innovative company and I liked some of their stuff a lot. They have become a huge, bloated bureaucratic company that now reminds my of IBM. I think the google of today is like the Microsoft of the 90s. Just MHO. - sspooner, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4All google has its search advertising. They have no products, Office, VPC, IE etc.
Much as I dislike Microsoft, Google will never more than just a search engine ad revenue company. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+13I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just pointing out that it's the difference between MS and Google. MS has many successful products while Google only has 2 really successful ones.
lol @ my parent post being modded down. I should have said "OMG MS IS TEH SUX" so it would get modded up. - starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3i think they will be as big and formidable as MS. it seems like, to my surprise, google may be trying to instill some sort of corporate ethic... some egalitarian... corporate culture. i wonder if they will be able to stay nice as a public company. microsoft was founded on a hustle. they been selling the brooklyn since. i think it might be that microsoft had its turn and largely blew it. and the natural coarse of things might make it googles turn. if ballmer stays at the helm i might actually predict their demise. he seems like microsofts worst nightmare. gates had that boyish harmless look... ballmer is objectionable from any direction. scary guy. he is the guy you hated to see show up at the party.
- Xenu, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Nice read.... I don't think google will be the giant in the next few years. Nor do I think MSN or Yahoo will be number 1 again. Hopefully some new search engine will come out of nowhere that will blow even google away and we will all switch to that. That being said if gooogle wants to remain on top I say sell all your other bs off and focus just on your search!
- FRIZIT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It seems like typical journalism to compare a company like Google to Microsoft just because it is now a publicly traded company who is not so simple anymore. That is the nature of the beast. When a company grows like that, it becomes growth for growth's sake. The entity has to then react to the market(whether it be shareholders, government regulations, public demand, etc) and its primary objective becomes growth.
It's unfortunate, but the way that the business world operates. Whether or not the founders try to reign in the beast and keep their integrity is one thing. Whether they can is another. How many company founders retired or sold their companies disillusioned at what it became? We'll have to wait and see with Google.
I personally think they are doing a pretty good job (even though all the information they collect does make me a little nervous at times). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -14/+16What a stupid analogy. Buying Microsoft products is more like buying any commercial piece of software, but with free updates, free resources and a huge amount of formal and informal support.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1California derived 12% of its state tax revenue this year from Google insider stock sales. As a resident, I noticed that this year was the first year since the bubble that the potholes on the highways have been paved over. So yes, if Google disappeared tomorrow I would probably notice.
- JohntB, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It certainly looks like a voting system to me.
- nayten, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1These posts are so juvenile. Don't you realise Yahoo has follow pretty much the exact same model- ad funded search- since... 1995? Yes, it was free like Google at first, and offers a few money-making ploys here and there with Geocities hosting and bigger mailboxes, but really, do they play the game any different than Google? The last time I checked, MSN had ads, too. And just about every other free internet service.
- cptpike, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7Is Google the new Duncan Hines?..... Well they are moist and delicious.
- samdu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It's only a matter of time before the teeming masses turn on Google, too. In fact, I'm starting to see it now. Such is the lot of every sucessful company. Whether they deserve such treatment or not.
- Joe_rigby, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6I think once Google has been around as long as Microsoft, then maybe it would be a fair comparison, but you'll see that any move by Google scares the piss out of Microsoft. MSN search has recently tried to compete with Google, but Google and Yahoo are the only two that are in on the game. I feel that Microsoft is too set in its ways while Google will continue with it's new tech culture and ultimately win out.
There's too many what-ifs to say anything for sure, but I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised by Google. Microsoft, on the other hand, is very predictable and the only thing they're good for to me is the Xbox 360 and security vulnerabilities.
lol yea any real conversation gets modded down to hell - shazbot, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7Actually, in a business standpoint, yes it's a smart move. In an user standpoint, it's not so much.
The free OS would pull away from Microsoft's market share, regardless if it has or are not, thus making it a smart move for Google. - therernospoons, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Whatever happened to "Don't be evil?"
- tybris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Errr...wasn't that what Microsoft is planning to do?
- QueyJoh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why support Google's ads? Here's why.
Ads pay for things. If it weren't for ads, how many websites that your enjoy today would be around in the state they are? People may make them for the love, but everyone's gotta eat.
That said, what Google brought to the party were targetted, text-only ads. Ads you could actually ignore quite easily unless you're actually interested in them, which an awful lot of people are (to everyone who doesn't believe me: you aren't an awful lot of people, you're a small geeky minority).
Since then though, Google has started to delve into image ads, which I don't support. If they start allowing Flash, then in my books they've become Evil, but time's gonna tell on that one. - nailbunny, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4you want some serious ***** facts, you read the economist. there's more information in a single magazine than you can get through before the next one comes in.
it's like bbc, only more so, distilled and concentrated - funkpucker, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Audacious comment. You might be right. I hope not though.
- cooltom2006, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Google, unlike Microsoft, is free
- Sushubh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3if google disappears tomorrow, a lot of scummy sites and good ones would find it hard to stay online. i find it hard to believe the number of sites out there depending upon google and other similar companies for sources of ad revenues.
- mistshadow2k4, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3"Since Windows XP, I have not found an operating system that crashes less (and I have used at least five different distros of Linux). I haven't found a more robust programming IDE than visual studio net (although I'm not a huge fan of it). Thunderbird gets slow when I have tons of messages and sometimes deletes all my messages - I have never had a problem with outlook express. Open Office routinely crashes on me, MS Office has only crashed on me a small handful of times in the last 10 years. "
You either have a virus or something has whacked your registry to hell. I use openOffice every day for hours at a time and it hasn't crashed on me in months. Office XP, on the other hand, crashed at least once a day. This is the way both have behaved on Win 2k and now XP with SP2. -
Show 51 - 92 of 92 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is