Good Morning Silicon Valley As Google's world turns: An engineer rant, plus earnings preview
By Levi Sumagaysay
Before the typical earnings preview, a word about Google, courtesy of one of its own. • A Google engineer posted publicly on Google+ a classic rant supposedly meant for Googlers only. Google's big problem, according to Steve Yegge, is that it builds products instead of platforms. "Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking, predicated on the incorrect notion that Facebook is successful because they built a great product. But that's not why they are successful. Facebook is successful because they built an entire constellation of products by allowing other people to do the work." Yegge, who used to work at Amazon.com and in his manifesto calls Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos "dread pirate," says Amazon understands platforms, but that nobody at Google gets it. "Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership (hi Larry, Sergey, Eric, Vic, howdy howdy) down to the very lowest leaf workers (hey yo). We all don't get it." Yegge, who has since taken down the post and has changed his one-line self-description on Google+ to "someday my foot won't fit in my mouth," said in a follow-up — and public — post that the company did not order him to take the post down, and that the Google PR folks have been "nice and supportive." The manifesto is long, but quite interesting because Yegge basically says Google's main competitors — Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft — all "get" and have built powerful platforms, while Google hasn't. • Wall Street's expectations of Google's third-quarter earnings: Profit of $8.74 a share on a 30 percent increase in revenue, to $7.21 billion. Google has reportedly beat estimates in six of the past eight quarters. According to Reuters, some of the things analysts are concerned about include the effects of the slow economy on ad revenue and the effects of Google's $12.5 billion deal to buy Motorola Mobility on the bottom line. They will also be paying attention to what Google says about Android and Google+. While the Android mobile OS continues to gain market share, it is facing challenges, especially as Apple continues to score legal victories in its wide-ranging patent fight against Android device maker Samsung. (A judge in Australia has just granted an injunction against sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, just in time for the upcoming holiday shopping season.) As for Google+, the company's months-old social network, there has been at least one report that it is losing momentum. Google shares are up more than 1 percent to about $555.20 as of this post. They are off about 8 percent so far this year. Comment on this post QUOTED
"I read somewhere that, while he wasn't as famous as Steve Jobs, that his legacy was on the same level. I totally agree. He created the modern interactive operating system." — Dave Winer, blogger and RSS pioneer, on Dennis Ritchie, who has died at 70, reportedly after a long illness. Ritchie created the C programming language and was co-creator of Unix, whose "spiritual descendants" ZDNet lists: "Linux, Android, Mac OS, iOS, JavaScript, C++, the genius of the Internet and a world full of developers." Ritchie worked at Bell Labs, which today told employees of the death of one of its "most respected researchers." Comment on this post
Tech and politics: Social and voting, texting and donating: Beyond town halls, here are a couple of other ways tech tools are being used in politics. • The Wall Street Journal today profiles Votizen, a Mountain View company that has a starring role in San Francisco's mayoral elections next month. Votizen uses information found in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to target would-be voters; makes it easy for a candidate's supporters to recommend candidates; and follows through by tracking whether the recommendations worked. Many famous names can be found on Votizen's investors page, including valley angel investor Ron Conway, Peter Thiel and Sean Parker. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone reportedly accidentally spammed his Twitter followers — including non-San Francisco voters such as Katie Couric and Leonard Nimoy — using Votizen last week, asking them to vote for current S.F. Mayor Ed Lee. • In other news at the intersection of tech and California politics, the Fair Political Practices Commission today is scheduled to consider adopting a rule that would allow for political contributions via text messages. If the commission adopts the rule, California would reportedly be the first in the nation to have such a system, which would apply to state campaigns only. The FPPC envisions the system as one in which donations would be included in people's cell phone bills, according to the public-comment discussion last month, a recording of which was obtained by GMSV. Wireless carriers would set further parameters or rules on donations in accordance with the law. Comment on this post
Off topic: Sugar and nice, cereal truth, English errors and non-errors, LOL yoga: File this under highly doubtful studies: Are you sweet because you have a sweet tooth? (via Freakonomics) Speaking of sugar, "high fructose corn fat" and other cereal boxes that don't mince words. Speaking of words, common errors and non-errors (purists might disagree) in English usage. (via Coudal) And for many, this is no joke: laughter yoga. Comment on this post
Send suggestions for the next "Die Hard" title to lsumagaysay@bayareanewsgroup.com. But wait, there's more ...
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