Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by arturadib 5458 days ago
Does Google have a "always play catch-up" mantra in addition to "don't be evil"?

- Hotmail (Gmail)

- Mapquest (G Maps)

- Firefox/IE (G Chrome)

- iOS (Android)

- Apple TV (G TV)

- Twitter (G Buzz)

- Facebook (G +)

- Groupon (G Offers)

etc.
3 comments
ghurlman 5458 days ago
Well, considering that they started out taking an existing concept and making it better...

- Google (AltaVista/Lycos/etc)

link
simonsarris 5458 days ago
Calling it "always play catch-up" is unfair. It's really "See an existing product and try to execute it better" with catch-up as the first phase.

And oftentimes when they do play catch-up they certainly don't have to for long. If anything, for the first three any catching up to do is going to be the other way around.

link
Pewpewarrows 5458 days ago
As opposed to? It's very rare to ever see a completely unique idea. I guarantee that just about every product you use on a day to day basis is a derivative of a derivative of a derivative of the original concept.

Taking a core product and improving it is one of the main pieces of advice in this community. I don't see why there should be any negative connotation for a larger business doing it as well. And for the record, I don't see a single product on the left-hand side of that list that wasn't "in response", "playing catch-up", or a derivative idea from someone else's hard work.

link