[dschobel]

I can't think of any Google product which is as frivolous as FB. Maybe buzz and wave (RIP).

People would not take down-time in gmail, analytics, calendar, search, maps, et al lightly.

[moultano]

I work near the people that did goo.gl, and even though it has higher uptime and lower latency than any other url shortener, there's pressure on them to make it even faster and more reliable. We definitely have an institutional mentality that speed and reliability are the best features, and every other feature is secondary. (Not saying this is a bad thing, it just biases us towards certain types of products.)

[nostrademons]

For most "panda" tasks, isn't that the case? When people use a product to do something, they evaluate it based on how well it helps them accomplish that. Speed and reliability are important features there.

This model completely falls down for "lobster" tasks, which may be why Google sucks at social. But a URL-shortener, along with most of Google's products, is a panda task. I don't think that the emphasis on speed & reliability is misplaced there.

[dschobel]

Sorry, can you explain what constitutes a "panda" or a "lobster" task?

[nostrademons]

http://ifindkarma.posterous.com/pandas-and-lobsters-why-goog...

Was all over Hacker News for a while, with several discussion threads referring to it afterwards.

[mattmanser]

I can. It's very easy.

Everything Google makes apart from Google search.

The rest of Google is minor and tiny compared to Facebook.

They have one seriously profitable product. At the moment, the rest of it is all fluff.

[donaq]

I wouldn't say Android is fluff.

[wyclif]

Agreed. I wouldn't say Gmail is fluff, either. Of course, he's equating fluffiness with non-profitability, but I think that's wrong. I doubt he'd be willing to stand up in front of a roomful of geeks at a conference and call Twitter fluff.