What's Wrong With Google?

Apparently Google engineer Steve Yegge thinks a lot is wrong with Google and the way they are implementing their applications without a focused platform or API.  He sent out a scathing memo meant for his private Google+ circle but accidentally made it public.  His post was picked up and spread across the internet pretty quickly with everyone calling him a hero for being so honest.  You can read the whole thing here.


His post was makes for fascinating reading but I’m not really sure why he’s having such a meltdown, especially all his talk about Google needing a platform. Products vs. platforms is a pretty abstract concept with no clear definition between the two.  A product can become a platform (as he plainly admits) and every platform worth its salt is also product.


I don’t think Google needs a dedicated platform as long as other companies are willing to make devices to put their products on. Google+ could become their platform but he’s right about the API thing. Right now the only way you can interact with a website through Google+ is to +1 something. You can’t comment on it, it doesn’t show up in your stream, Its useless.  Until they provide an architecture for everything to communicate with Google+ in lots of cool ways, they aren’t going to dethrone Facebook.


Even though dethroning Facebook should be pretty easy right now since they pretty much suck. In a few short years they went from a social networking site for regular people to a corporate marketing tool used for delivering targeted messages to the people who were using it to share photos and stay in touch with families. I see one post by a friend for every 10 posts by a product, service or interest group.


Google+ is better in every conceivable way from the aesthetics of the site to the user controls for communicating with your circles. The pieces are there for it to be something great. They just need to provide the tools.