Two of the Google Video t-shirts. These always irked me because they lacked our URL, which you’d think might be google.com/video but is actually video.google.com. T-shirts like this should always have a URL visible. Okay, rant over, return to watch video clips.
It’s looks like a plain black t-shirt, but oh it’s so much more. This was the first piece of clothing Google ever gave me, and I wasn’t even an employee yet.
I think it was early 2001 and there was some event at Stanford. It was nuclear winter for internet and my wardrobe was suffering because of it (no free t’s). But Google was just starting to gain steam and it had 100% cotton for me.
Information wants to be unlocked. Whether information can be free is a separate topic.
From a seriously long article on digitization of data in today’s NYTimes:
But the reality remains that a new generation of researchers prefers to seek information online, a trend made all too clear to Mr. Hastings of the National Archives last year, after Google, in an experiment of sorts, digitized 101 of the National Archives’ films — including World War II newsreels and NASA footage — and put them up on its site, at video.google.com/nara.html.
“Before that happened, we had 200 requests total for the whole year in our research room,” Mr. Hastings said. “The first month the films were available on Google, there were about 200,000 hits on them — a thousandfold increase.”
Is your business model aimed at your generation, the current generation or the people after them? At Second Life i was excited by the fact that our target customer is kinda the next generation – that is to say, we’re riding some pretty exceptional trends about how kids use technology. Each year the average 20 year old becomes more technically adept, less interested in being fed content they can’t interact with, etc.
Contrast this with comments like:
“People who grow up with tech don’t tend to value content.” – Les Moonves, CEO CBS
Geez, if that’s true then Les and others are in a pretty tough business since i wouldn’t bet future generations are likely to have LESS exposure to technology. So do you try to teach/legislate “respect” for content, or do you change the model to capitalize on what they DO value?
Richard Brandt says Yahoo and Microsoft have the same challenge:
The only thing that keeps them [YHOO and MSFT] afloat is the fact that some people have been using Yahoo so long they find it hard to switch, and Microsoft software automatically sends people to MSN by default. Younger people will not settle for Yahoo unless its products improve vastly (such as ceasing to charge for a decent email system) and will not settle for MSN because they will know how to reset the default home page.
So while I don’t think this is truly all Yahoo has going for them (c’mon people, they have several very good products), I’d imagine there are groups in their company that do rely solely upon this fragile notion of lock-in.
Related, I was happy to see Matt Cutts’ post this week about how Google tries to ensure you can always take your data AWAY from our services if you’re not satisfied. We’re far from perfect but we’re trying. It’s not just good customer orientation – it’s smart business – lock-in tries to retard Darwinism by not forcing your product to compete in an open environment. And you know what happens? Sooner or later you find that you haven’t evolved, you’re genetically unsuited for the new environment and you’re extinct.
Build for the next generation and minimize lock-in = healthier products
“Did you hear they’re giving out a t-shirt at TGIF?”
“No, for what?”
“Some Codelab thing”
“What’s that?”
“I have no idea, but let’s get one”
“Okay”
Before we were 11,000+ employees, the entire sales organization used to come together every January for a conference in San Francisco. 2005’s theme was “base camp” because although things were going well, we had clearly only begun the climb to the summit. While I’m usually dismissive of corporate metaphor this was a reasonable picture to paint and indicative of what you hear from all corners of Google — we’ve got a big project and it’s a long journey.
Given the theme I had to chuckle a bit when Opus One started flowing at a dinner one evening (paid for personally by some folks, not the company dime). I don’t think you usually have $125 bottles of wine at base camp, but hey, i guess a little celebration isn’t out of the question.
A lowkey mobile team shirt that was distributed summer 2006. See the Google balls on the phone screen. Subtle, eh? Maybe there’s something on the back of the t, but i don’t recall. This is a nice one because it’s a ringer shirt w/o following the normal “white t, dark rings” format.
In early 2004 part of the AdSense team had an offsite in New York City where these excellent shirts were distributed. AFC = AdSense for Content.
While I don’t recall much of what was discussed (it was a few days before my wedding), we did check out De La Guarda (crazy acrobats meets Rent).
From a purely functional perspective, this might be my favorite piece of Google clothing. A lightweight black zip jacket.
I think it just magically appeared on my desk for helping out with some recruiting event.
YouTubers didn’t know what quite to expect at last month’s first local TGIF (the end of week all-hands meetings that Google runs). Turns out it followed the standard Google style – founders give update, note accomplishments of week, open the floor for Q&A – just sub in Chad and Steve for Larry and Sergey.
Everyone then learned of another periodic TGIF tradition – the mad rush to get some new t-shirt or other garment being distributed. This time it was a lightweight fleece pullover in red, green or blue.