2. The term "helpful ads" is the problem. I don't get helpful ads. I get page clutter that is parsing my content.
Google's business is advertising. They make the vast majority of their money by stopping me from doing what I want, and placing ads in my way. The evolution of the search results page shows this clearly as many cases about 80% of the screen real estate is covered in ad content.
It is important to note that Android is not an altruistic effort to help humanity. They believe mobile will be the next wave of computing and need a new model for serving ads. Items like Siri worry them because a user skips Google and is provided no "helpful ads".
To say they don't have a history of this is wrong. Search, YouTube, Maps, Mail, and Android itself are all heavily ad covered now and all signs point to this growing.
3. They're pairing down after they launched them. This is my concern. Devs adopted some of these services to watch them die. Now they've launched many new items which will be dead within 1 year.
I'm not being hyperbolic. Then tell me:
• How is Video different than YouTube?
• How are Maps and Earth distinct?
• Why does News exist when I can use the keyword news?
• Where should I put my online content: Blogger, Orkut, Sites, or Google +?
• Talk is very interesting, but why should I use it alone instead of Gmail Chat or Google Hangouts?
• Panoramio, Google+, Picasa, or Orkut for sharing photos?
• Fusion Tables looks fun, but why wouldn't it be better to launch a public Google Spreadsheet?
Finally, Google has seemingly paired down the list of products on their product page, but most products aren't even listed! Where's play, drive, or any of the items they announced today. To say they don't have a problem here is drinking the kool-aid so hard you might not wake up.
1. There's no "Videos" now besides the search category.
2. Earth is the 3D variant while Maps is the in-browser digital analog of regular maps that includes path finding. WebGL is not to the point of being able to deprecate desktop Earth, and you ought to believe that Google is more interested than anyone in getting to that point.
3. There's literally no such thing as "Gmail Chat". It IS Talk... it even says so right on the label. I suspect Hangouts will replace Talk within 3-6 months, but Hangouts are brand new and tied to G+. People would freak if they killed a product as old as Talk to push people towards Google+.
5. I agree. Though Google+ basically has already merged with Picasa.
6. Fusion Tables aren't even the same thing as Spreadsheet. Not sure what else to say.
7. Play is a market and Drive is the rebranded Google Docs.
I don't think they have a problem. I think you're confused, I think you are ignoring the fact that they've shuttered probably close to a dozen projects recently and are literally, before our eyes, merging projects into the new Google, Google+. (Events now is Google Calendar integrated in Google+).
2. The term "helpful ads" is the problem. I don't get helpful ads. I get page clutter that is parsing my content.
Google's business is advertising. They make the vast majority of their money by stopping me from doing what I want, and placing ads in my way. The evolution of the search results page shows this clearly as many cases about 80% of the screen real estate is covered in ad content.
It is important to note that Android is not an altruistic effort to help humanity. They believe mobile will be the next wave of computing and need a new model for serving ads. Items like Siri worry them because a user skips Google and is provided no "helpful ads".
To say they don't have a history of this is wrong. Search, YouTube, Maps, Mail, and Android itself are all heavily ad covered now and all signs point to this growing.
3. They're pairing down after they launched them. This is my concern. Devs adopted some of these services to watch them die. Now they've launched many new items which will be dead within 1 year.
I'm not being hyperbolic. Then tell me: • How is Video different than YouTube? • How are Maps and Earth distinct? • Why does News exist when I can use the keyword news? • Where should I put my online content: Blogger, Orkut, Sites, or Google +? • Talk is very interesting, but why should I use it alone instead of Gmail Chat or Google Hangouts? • Panoramio, Google+, Picasa, or Orkut for sharing photos? • Fusion Tables looks fun, but why wouldn't it be better to launch a public Google Spreadsheet?
Finally, Google has seemingly paired down the list of products on their product page, but most products aren't even listed! Where's play, drive, or any of the items they announced today. To say they don't have a problem here is drinking the kool-aid so hard you might not wake up.