December 11, 2006

What Google Can't Do

Google can't translate.



Google can't do mail.



Google can't do blogs.



Google doesn't understand things.



Google can't do news.



Google can't do ads.



Google can't do search.



Google can't do browser sync.



Google also can't discover new things, understand your queries, build communities, pass Turing test, bring world peace...
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34 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 11, 2006 at 7:05 PM

    Google can't sell you an operating system.

    Despite intelligent, informed people and 'A' listers incessantly talking about the subject.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tom GleesonDecember 12, 2006 at 6:19 AM

    They also can't host web pages. I've just set-up a Google Apps based web site. Everything when quite smoothly, tools easy to use, recommend it to my non-geek friends etc. Only problem, Google applies a robots.txt file that stops all crawlers (including Google) from indexing the site. Tried to replace with my own robots.txt file, no luck. If there's a logic behind having a public web-site that cannot be indexed, it's lost on me.

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
  3. idl3mindDecember 12, 2006 at 7:03 AM

    what's with all the Google hatin'?

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousDecember 12, 2006 at 7:18 AM

    There was too much love involved before, and now the hatin started

    ReplyDelete
  5. Alex ChituDecember 12, 2006 at 7:39 AM

    No hate from me. Someone told me Google wants to do everything. So I decided to collect some screenshots that show there are still many things to do.

    In case nobody noticed, this month I wrote a lot of ironic/sarcastic posts. There's a reason for that, but I don't hate Google.

    A couple of months ago, somebody accused me of being a Google fanboy. Now you tell me I hate Google. This shows some balance.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousDecember 12, 2006 at 7:54 AM

    I don't see a religious war here. It just shows that Google apps aren't perfect. And it's far from be new. **ANY** app is perfect. Online or not.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousDecember 12, 2006 at 10:51 AM

    "Google can't do blogs"

    I'd have to agree with that one. Blogger is so wrought with errors and hiccups that I switched to WordPress and haven't looked back.

    That said, I'm a huge fan of Google. I'm a lot more impressed with what they can do than what they can't.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousDecember 12, 2006 at 1:57 PM

    TOM!

    I noticed the same thing! Totally strange that they would block all crawlers!

    Still, it is an excellent way to have your domain hosted for free without ads!

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousDecember 12, 2006 at 2:20 PM

    Nice Idea to make such a site! Bet you got tons of blogs debating about this. ...which results in showing - once again - that Google can´t so search. :) Kool.

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousDecember 12, 2006 at 2:40 PM

    Heh. Funny post.

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousDecember 12, 2006 at 5:03 PM

    Ha.
    When I came to this page, Google spat an internal server error at me.

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousDecember 12, 2006 at 7:07 PM

    I just wish Google would go back and do search. They've already peaked so we'll just see the slow decline of the company. I can't wait to see the next "google".

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousDecember 12, 2006 at 8:42 PM

    Google can't do bookmarks, but can buy them.

    ReplyDelete
  14. AnonymousDecember 12, 2006 at 11:32 PM

    Google can't create an original page:

    http://www.anvari.org/log/20061211.2303.html

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousDecember 13, 2006 at 2:07 AM

    Google cant make a nice cup of tea

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousDecember 13, 2006 at 4:12 AM

    Google is Evil.

    ReplyDelete
  17. AnonymousDecember 13, 2006 at 4:50 AM

    Google can't dance with the devil by the pale moon light.

    ReplyDelete
  18. AnonymousDecember 16, 2006 at 1:49 PM

    I went on reading the pages that we did'nt knew were existing, and there i found a page saying that the only things displayed as ads are things Google gets payed to display. And the ads that shows up are always relative to the query that is asked.

    That means that the ad above, "Great deals on dead people" must have been written and sent to google by personnel on E-bay.

    Shows how much you're ready to do for money, if you advertise about selling dead people.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Alex ChituDecember 16, 2006 at 2:08 PM

    the ads that show up are always relative to the query that is asked

    Yes. Advertisers pay Google to display ads for certain queries. But big advertisers like eBay buy ads for a lot of queries. eBay uses some templates like:

    Huge selection of
    [query] items.

    [query] for sale
    Check out deals now!

    But the huge list of queries might include inappropriate queries.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Alex ChituDecember 17, 2006 at 8:00 AM

    Here's a new eBay ad for "autumn tree":

    ReplyDelete
  21. AnonymousDecember 18, 2006 at 4:54 PM

    > Only problem, Google applies a
    > robots.txt file that stops all
    > crawlers (including Google) from
    > indexing the site.

    Hey, Tom...

    Just wanted to let you and others know that we're aware of this issue and it's a bug, not intended behavior. I'm wouldn't be surprised if a fix is in the works in time for Christmas (or belated Hanukkah or early New Year's...) :).

    ReplyDelete
  22. AnonymousDecember 20, 2006 at 1:21 PM

    Okay, pretty sure this should be fixed now :)

    ReplyDelete
  23. Tom GleesonDecember 20, 2006 at 6:00 PM

    Thanks Adam,

    It seems to be fixed, but I think you guys should really do something on the communication side, we all accept that bugs happen, but a month or more and no public acknowledgement, not acceptable. I've been plugging away on various blogs, hopping somebody from Google would notice and respond, see http://gobansaor.wordpress.com/2006/12/20/google-apps-for-your-domain-and-robotstxt/
    This and the extra work of moving my site to a search accessible host, have cost me time and money. All I ask is, talk to your customers, let us know what's happening, it's not just your business, it's ours.

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
  24. MarioJune 21, 2007 at 1:04 PM

    check this:
    http://winaddict.blogspot.com/2007/06/millenium-bug-on-google-analytics.html
    Google can't tell you the correct date!

    ReplyDelete
  25. metalgiJune 25, 2008 at 6:46 PM

    I am going mad not being able to get past the log-on screen in Gmail. I have all my contacts & mail there. I send photos via Gmail too. Now I can't do anyhting. I just wish I could actually talk with a real person at Google! Do I just give up, or will this get sorted out soon?

    ReplyDelete
  26. AnonymousNovember 17, 2008 at 12:45 PM

    i don't like google. say you were researching something for hw or something. you type it in then it comes up with random things its so annoying! i wish google was more ORGANISED!

    ReplyDelete
  27. AnonymousMarch 4, 2009 at 3:21 PM

    When you create a site worth a few tens of billions of dollars. I think you can bitch about google all you want. It sure kicks the shit out of yahoo or live.

    ReplyDelete
  28. AnonymousOctober 7, 2009 at 4:55 AM

    We should know that google do many thing, based on little loopholes or drawback we can not blame google.

    Criticizing Google and It's product, Than After we are using it.

    So it is better to do one thing either rebuke or praise...

    ReplyDelete
  29. EarthyOctober 21, 2009 at 10:43 AM

    Mail.google.com redirects to Gmail. So...this is a little outdated.

    ReplyDelete
  30. AnonymousOctober 22, 2009 at 8:54 PM

    Google can't show you some of whats on the page before you click on it. Bing can.
    I think bing is way better, though they have less information. I think thats because they're newer than google.
    Google actually scares me. they know too much.
    But its really stupid mistakes they make.
    But of course, its really easy to find a recipe for bologna cake, but there are lots of mistakes on e-mail.

    ReplyDelete
  31. DarrenJanuary 16, 2010 at 3:54 AM

    Feel like a friggin robot..

    ReplyDelete
  32. AnonymousMay 19, 2010 at 1:23 PM

    ...uhh yes it can

    ReplyDelete
  33. MattSeptember 17, 2010 at 10:16 AM

    Google apps aren't perfect.

    The difference between Google and other companies, is that other companies provide you with a way to contact them. Google, however, actively discourages this. This almost puts me off using anything Google.

    ReplyDelete
  34. tesSeptember 16, 2011 at 8:34 PM

    Google can't do a Smell Search!
    http://www.google.com/smell

    ReplyDelete

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