Google, Both Success and Failure

20th Anniversary of Google Search

September 26th is the 20th birthday of Google Search, and the 20th anniversary video can now be seen on the Google Doodle.

Looking back at Google Search's struggles in China over the years On September 12, 2000, Google developed the Chinese interface for its main website.com

In July 2005, Kai-Fu Lee joined Google and served as President of Google China.

On April 12, 2006, Google's global CEO announced in Beijing that Google's Chinese name would be "Google", and Google officially entered China.

On September 4, 2009, Kai-Fu Lee, former Google vice president and president of Greater China, officially resigned.

Google’s withdrawal from China in early 2010

In 2011, Google stepped up its market development for products other than search engines in China.

Liu Yun, Google's global vice president and head of Greater China, is leaving the company in 2013. His successor is Scott Beaumont, who is responsible for Google's European strategic cooperation and expansion business. He took over in mid-August and has been in office ever since.

In November 2016, Fei-Fei Li joined Google as the head of Google Cloud AI and chief scientist, and announced the establishment of the China AI Center as the head.

In September 2018, Fei-Fei Li announced her resignation, and Google confirmed for the first time the existence of Project Dragonfly, which was to launch a search engine service that complies with regulations in the Chinese market.

Google's five biggest product flops

Google has released many successful products, the most successful of which are Search and Android operating system. The release of Android has directly affected the global mobile Internet situation and made Google the most influential Internet giant in the world.

However, as Google progressed, many decisions were made that were far below expectations. For example, there were few successful examples among Google's SNS-type products.

Of course, there are many unlucky products that failed or were shut down due to various reasons. The shortest-lived ones even only lasted for one day.

Google Gears (2008 – 2010)

At the I/O conference in 2008, the offline application development tool Google Gears was released. Google Gears is actually a browser extension software that allows external developers to develop corresponding offline applications for mainstream browsers such as IE or Firefox.

Later, Google changed the name of the tool to "Gears" and released it as an open source product, which also surprised Microsoft.

However, soon after, Google announced in February 2010 that it would use HTML 5 technology to create browser/cloud-based applications, which would not only realize the functions of Gears, but also no longer have to worry about compatibility issues. This also means that Google officially abandoned the Gears project.

Google Wave (2009 – 2010)

This was Google's early attempt at a social tool.
As announced at Google I/O in 2009, Google Wave is a "personal communication and collaboration tool" that is a web service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge email, instant messaging, wikis, and social networks.

It has a powerful real-time collaboration and powerful spell checking function, can automatically translate 40 languages, and many other extensions, such as users can also collaborate on co-editing documents.

However, since the launch of Google Wave, the service has been facing the challenge of too few users, leading Google to announce in August 2010 that it would no longer continue the subsequent development of Google Wave.

In September, Google opened the source code of Google Wave to the public, and the original project leader Lars Rasmussen also jumped to Facebook.

Hands free (2015-2016)

In May 2015, Google launched another payment feature besides Android Pay at the I/O Developer Conference - Hands Free, which allows payments without using both hands.

Google will set up checkout devices in stores. After entering the store, a device equipped with Hands Free can be located through a series of functions such as Bluetooth, GPS positioning, Wifi, etc., and connect to the merchant's checkout device.

Customers can complete payment by simply saying "I'll pay with Google" at the checkout counter.

The store will also confirm the user's information. By asking for the user's name, the store can learn about the user's appearance, credit card and other related information. After completing the identity confirmation, payment can be made. As for the user information that the merchant can see, there are also restrictions, and the user's photos taken in the mall will be deleted after payment.

If developed according to theory, Hands Free is a really good solution. However, in practical application, it has not been recognized by the market, so Google chose to give up.

Hands Free has officially closed on February 8, 2016.

Google Buzz (2010-2012)

In 2010, Google quietly launched the social tool Google Buzz, which was integrated into the Gmail function. Users will be able to share information, links and photos directly in Gmail.

The feature has been dogged by privacy and legal concerns because Buzz allows Gmail users to track status updates and other shared information from their most frequent contacts.

However, the most frequently used contacts are not necessarily the Gmail user's "friends".

As a result, some Gmail users sued Google collectively, arguing that the practice of automatically adding Buzz to Gmail without detailing how information was shared violated their privacy rights. Ultimately, Google shut down Google Buzz in 2012.

Google Generation X (someday in 2005)

Google X is now a mysterious black technology department under Google, which has developed black technology products such as Google Glass and driverless cars.

However, 10 years ago, the name Google X was once used for a failed product. And the first generation of Google X was definitely the shortest-lived product since Google was founded.

Google X, launched in 2005, attempted to add a dock bar similar to Apple's Mac OS X to the search engine homepage, listing all of Google's products on it.

Tragically, however, this strange feature didn’t work at all and was shut down by Google a day later.