Monday, October 31, 2011

933 Home (Page) Improvement

933 Home (Page) Improvement

Sometimes, people who’ve had high energy and good ideas run out of good ideas before they run out of energy and that almost always spells trouble.

Example:  In his first term, Giuliani cleared the streets of squeegee men, went after low level criminals and in both cases rode the wave of generally decreasing crime.  In his second term, he was out of ideas but not out of steam and opened a Pandora’s box of nonsense that pretty much negated everything good he’d accomplished or taken credit for accomplishing earlier.

Facebook was a great idea.   But you see what’s happened there.  Every time you blink, they have a new revision that makes the site less navigable and more complicated than it should be.

Yahoo has been doing the same by “improving” its mail service, with about the same result.

And now comes Google.  The whole idea behind this outfit was speed and simplicity.  Along the way, they’ve acquired a bunch of companies and integrated them nicely with their main business, the fastest, largest simplest search engine.

And they’ve gotten more complicated than the need to.  They are forever giving their products new “improved” looks, feels and operating instructions.

“Google (insert product name) has a new look.”  How many times a month do you see that?  They were fine to start.  Sometimes, they make actual improvement (color choices for calendar events, for example.) Most of the time, not.

Google Docs has a new look.  Nothing wrong with the old one.  Google+ has been added.  Hey, guys, we already have Facebook and My Space and Linkedin and who knows what-all that’s similar.

Google Buzz has been subtracted (but [gee whiz] you can keep all your old buzzes if you want them.)

Google Maps for Android is “upgraded” every 20 minutes.  What was wrong with the old version?  Maybe it missed locating two gas stations or saloons that it has now added, and which you don’t much need because there already were enough old ones.

Google, maybe, has too many people with too little to do.  Better to keep making unnecessary changes than to fire people.  But can’t you find something that NEEDS to be done?  You know, like copying more books into Google Books or fighting lawsuits for copyright violations from copying the wrong books into Google Books.

We know you’ve become a corporate giant.  But like your soulmates, Apple and S.C.Johnson-a-family-company, we love you anyway.  

So please stop annoying us with nonsense.  Especially that new “tabs” page that defaults to your app store.

Shrapnel:

--Today, 10/31/11 is Halloween and the birthday of my friend Emma McClain.  Would that she were still among us, she would be 98.  She’s been gone since ‘03 but sometimes she still keeps in touch.


I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com  (you can use the new look, the old Beta version or the simple HTML version and still get through.)
© WJR 2011





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