Google admits to three of its biggest mistakes

[Emil]

Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of Geographic and Local Services, joined in 1999 as the company's 20th employee. During a recent 22-minute interview on Digg Dialogg, Mayer was asked "What do you think Google's biggest mistake has been during your presence there?" Mayer's answer pertained to three products: Wave, Dejanews.com, and Gmail.

“Wave. Certainly there are things we've learnt from that, certain things we would have done differently," Mayer said without any hesitation (this one we're not really too surprised about). "Shutting down Dejanews.com at 11am on a Monday morning, and not having anywhere to post to or browse usergroups was perhaps a mistake," she also admitted (Dejanews was a discussion group website on the Usenet network which Google shutdown and silently archived to its Google Groups service). "Launching Gmail on April Fools day was widely misinterpreted," she added as a final thought (Google often "launches" ridiculous products on April Fools, so many thought Gmail was a joke until they realized it was still around the next day).

You can watch the whole interview below. The mistake question is asked 12 minutes in:

Interestingly, Mayer didn't mention anything about Google's various privacy issues. This is likely because the search giant has many related ongoing lawsuits, as well as settled ones, and it doesn't want any more press about privacy issues.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/40972-google-admits-to-three-of-its-biggest-mistakes.html

 

[spyx]

Wow i didnt know gmail was launched on April fools that interestng, but i have to agree that wave was ..well not coletely but a huge failure......
google needs to put it together tiht all this privacy stuff or apple will get the upper hand

 

[TomSEA]

She joined Google in 1999? How old was she then - 12 years old??

 

[lawfer]

TomSEA said:
She joined Google in 1999? How old was she then - 12 years old??

No, she was 24.

Anyway, I am pretty sure these are not the only mistakes Google has made.

 

[gwailo247]

Privacy is a concept that is changing in this day and age, but I think that Google is going at it a lot better than other companies, such as Facebook. IMO it seems that Google's bungles are mistakes, whereas a company like Facebook deliberately changes privacy settings, usually without any opt in process, forcing people to scramble around to restore their settings.

 

[taea00]

At least she mentioned Wave. While it had a great idea, it didn't really seem to fit any one group, it didn't respond well, when you'd get many people using one thread finding anything was a nightmare.

 

[Ranger12]

I'm not a huge google fan but it's nice to see a company that'll admit to it's mistakes and not skirt the issues or rationalize things. You can't honestly expect companies to be perfect (sry apple fanboys, it's true, lol j/k) but as long as do their best not to and own up to their mistakes when they make em then they're alright by me.

 

[theruck]

biggest mistake was to add advertisement into youtube videos. not from finance dept. point of view of course...

 

[cardriverx]

theruck, I am making some monies because of that, Id say it was a great idea.

 

[blimp01]

privacy issues are a big mistake lol

 

[theruck]

theruck, I am making some monies because of that, Id say it was a great idea.

great idea for whom? advertisements are evil in general. why would anybody want to look at them? you will end up watching your own videos to see others ads over your content hoping for 1 cent of earning. man go out to see some real life

 

[gLitCh32]

I can agree that Wave was a huge mistake. I still have a hard time understanding exactly what it did!

 

[sMILEY4ever]

Launching gmail on April Fools day wasn't so weird. It's just another day.

 

[princeton]

sMILEY4ever said:
Launching gmail on April Fools day wasn't so weird. It's just another day.

The also launched an ad called Toiler ISP on april first one year. google is known for their silly stunts.

 

[Puiu]

i like the idea of lunching stuff on 1st of April (joke or not) is a good idea. They get a lot of free publicity that way.

 

[mkillor]

Google makes mistakes? I don't believe it. But in all honesty who doesn't make mistakes. I love what google has done for technology. You go girl!

 

[matrix86]

gLitCh32 said:
I can agree that Wave was a huge mistake. I still have a hard time understanding exactly what it did!

You aren't alone. Even when you know what it was for, you still question what it was for, lol. But really it was for editing documents live with other wave users. And there was several other crap thrown in.

 

[grvalderrama]

That woman is beatiful, XD

 

[frodough]

ya 4/1 is probably the one day out of 365 of them which you should avoid launching a serious product. i mean i had to laugh a bit on this, it's like they could not have shot themselves any harder on the foot.

 

[kevin1212]

grvalderrama said:
That woman is beatiful, XD

Thank you... i was waiting for someone to mention that. I do agree... her looks are more interesting than the article. She is very beautiful.

 

[aj_the_kidd]

kevin1212 said:

grvalderrama said:
That woman is beatiful, XD

Thank you... i was waiting for someone to mention that. I do agree... her looks are more interesting than the article. She is very beautiful.

I'd hit it.

 

[AnonymousSurfer]

Hahaha I NEVER knew it was launched on April fools...

When I read the part on the screen here I thought it was referring to gmail being a mistake as itself, not the gmail april fools thing...

 

[klepto12]

This is crazy gmail came out on April fools lol. Shutting down any website without warning is crazy and will ultimately blow up in your face.

 

[lawfer]

aj_the_kidd said:

kevin1212 said:

grvalderrama said:
That woman is beatiful, XD

Thank you... i was waiting for someone to mention that. I do agree... her looks are more interesting than the article. She is very beautiful.

I'd hit it.

Indeed.

 

[Kibaruk]

Hahhahaa I laughed at gmail april's fool, at that time THAT kind of storage on an e-mail account was like a practical joke, but nice it sticked =P