It's difficult to get excited about any Google Cloud product launch, because Google almost seems committed to being difficult for businesses to trust. Just today on HN there were multiple stories about Google banning entire companies for arbitrary reasons, possibly as a result of poorly-conceived automated decision-making. And Google Cloud is gaining a reputation for massive price hikes - sometimes doubling rates or introducing charges for services that were previously included.
Some of their services are pretty slick, and it's tempting to build off them, but I don't recommend relying on Google without a backup strategy in case they suddenly pull the rug out from under you.
Lost access to my business on Google infra / services after leaving a positive review on a bakery while on holiday to Paris - for "violating Google Maps policy".
Yeah, the general consensus I get from reading HN* is that the winds are blowing away from Google services and associated vendor lock-in / account banishment risk, rather than towards.
Given some recent discussions, I found this excerpt amusing:
"... supercharge their websites and mobile apps with Google-quality search. Built on Google’s technologies that understand user intent and context, the solution helps businesses improve the search and overall shopping experience across all of their digital touchpoints."
*My choice of posts to read may be (strongly) biased towards those moving away from Google.
> Just today on HN there were multiple stories about Google banning entire companies for arbitrary reasons, possibly as a result of poorly-conceived automated decision-making.
There might also be some selection bias here since "escalating Google issues to HN" has become a thing. Complaining about Google is popular on HN, for good or bad. Yet, they grow revenue, so they aren't losing customers in droves. It's quite possible customers of other companies just don't escalate to HN (yet).
Google is a psychopath business partner. It is important to understand this if you are to benefit from a relationship with them. They seem perfectly normal and useful, and then one day will "snap" and destroy your business, banning you for no seeming reason.
This seems a useful service. Yes, use it for your business benefit, but just understand that the psychopath may turn any time, and plan your business contingencies accordingly.
Youtube could use their programmable search engine to search inside playlists and comments. Too bad the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing.
I used to maintain a website that gives simple definitions for terms, before Wikipedia was well-known. It had integrated Google Search, specific to the site. I just checked now (the site is still up, though unmaintained for a decade and a half) and the Google Search feature in fact does not work anymore. I have no idea for how long that has been the case. I'm apprehensive about clicking the links to AskJeeves and Fark still on the sidebar!
> 64% of U.S. retail website managers have no clear plan for improvement.
I have a feeling that a number approaching 64% of U.S. retail website managers may disagree with this.
They may however have a plan that: Doesn't align with Google; doesn't align with Google's understanding of what they need; isn't understood with Google; or even Google didn't ask that.
Some may indeed not have a plan. Some may not have a plan for very good reason. But I doubt it's 64%. What it is is a cheaply aggressive play for the ears of 'leadership' of organisations with dysfunctional communication or trust.
Didn't Google once prioritize design? I remember when people would talk about the Google Logo of the day.
The fine article starts with an MS Paint rendering of a woman, whose entire body from the waist up is smaller than the distance from her foot to her knee. The arm hangs down almost to the knee, like an ape. With the small head and long arms it looks like the artist is trying to emphasize how unintelligent the character is, is that possible? Is this an attempt to appeal to people who themselves feel unintelligent, that they might think "if she can do it, I can do it"? Am I reading too much into this, or did Google simply lower their design standards?
It's called Corporate Memphis and it's a fad that graphic designers at seemingly all tech companies have fallen for despite the fact that it's ugly and people hate it.
That's a stock art image. It's one of those free artworks available online that you can put on your website and has caught on for some reason. No one at Google made it, they just put it on their corporate blogs and websites like many others.
You damn well know what that style is. ;) But nice wording, haha.
This style is not only trying to induce the feelings of "unintelligent", it's even the childlike - no, babylike - feeling that they are after, I guess.
Just implement your own semantic search or work with one of many vendors! HuggingFace OOTB pretrained models + Vector Databases provide a much cleaner user-experience than Google that your team can control.
I don't do a lot of online shopping, but one place has a built-in Google search with the "site:xyz.com" search parameter pre-specified. Seemed to work pretty well, 5+ years ago.
My recent disappointments with shopping search is along the lines of "Radeon" -> "out of stock". ie. unrelated to search technology inadequacies.
a long time ago an organisation I worked for purchased a google search appliance (and actual bit of rack hardware) and I was tasked with setting it up. the inherit limits in this bit of junk made it almost useless, I expended a lot of effort trying to get it to work as it should.
Part of it was that it was purchased without considering these limitations vs the orgs use case.
> "Some 94% of U.S. consumers abandoned a shopping session because they received irrelevant search results"
This would often be because the product is simply not in stock, leaving no other option for the user other than leaving the site.
> "It’s a phenomenon known as “search abandonment""
A phenomenon? If you say so, Google. Please tell me more about how adding Google search to my client's website will magically materialize the out of stock item.
Google makes these claims for self-serving reasons. They're behind the survey that supports the claim, which in turn supports their agenda to have websites install their cloud search product.
> "shoppers still struggle to find what they’re looking for. They often have to come up with a perfectly-worded query that a retailer’s site search engine will understand"
Oh bullshit, Google.
Even the most basic site search will return product results from words contained in the product name. People looking for bread knives on a homewares site can use "bread" or "knife" in their search and get relevant results. And it's trivial for site search to pick up other meta data from the product, such as descriptions. "Baking" for example, the user could find the bread knives by searching for baking accessories.
That last point - '> "shoppers still struggle to find..."' - is only ~75% Google bullshit. I semi-regularly use search engines (usually not Google) to find products on e-commerce sites with wretched built-in search. Or where the built-in search only works if I allow javascript from a dozen or more creep-looking domains to execute.
I don’t know why you’re being so vitriolic, but at least in my experience - e-commerce search absolutely sucks. Even Amazon is really bad for half my queries.
[+] [-] profmonocle|4 years ago|reply
Some of their services are pretty slick, and it's tempting to build off them, but I don't recommend relying on Google without a backup strategy in case they suddenly pull the rug out from under you.
[+] [-] covermydonkey|4 years ago|reply
Lost access to my business on Google infra / services after leaving a positive review on a bakery while on holiday to Paris - for "violating Google Maps policy".
[+] [-] BLKNSLVR|4 years ago|reply
Given some recent discussions, I found this excerpt amusing:
"... supercharge their websites and mobile apps with Google-quality search. Built on Google’s technologies that understand user intent and context, the solution helps businesses improve the search and overall shopping experience across all of their digital touchpoints."
*My choice of posts to read may be (strongly) biased towards those moving away from Google.
[+] [-] tommiegannert|4 years ago|reply
There might also be some selection bias here since "escalating Google issues to HN" has become a thing. Complaining about Google is popular on HN, for good or bad. Yet, they grow revenue, so they aren't losing customers in droves. It's quite possible customers of other companies just don't escalate to HN (yet).
(Said as a former Google employee.)
[+] [-] Skiiing|4 years ago|reply
This seems a useful service. Yes, use it for your business benefit, but just understand that the psychopath may turn any time, and plan your business contingencies accordingly.
[+] [-] paxys|4 years ago|reply
This announcement is for a new cloud service for retailers.
[+] [-] ffhhj|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Skiiing|4 years ago|reply
This new service searches products via an API for the web server.
[+] [-] d--b|4 years ago|reply
1. Google Search is not very good anymore.
2. This is more user tracking to Google
3. This is going to be way more expensive than it needs to be
4. This going to be discontinued in a couple of years.
[+] [-] dotancohen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zhte415|4 years ago|reply
I have a feeling that a number approaching 64% of U.S. retail website managers may disagree with this.
They may however have a plan that: Doesn't align with Google; doesn't align with Google's understanding of what they need; isn't understood with Google; or even Google didn't ask that.
Some may indeed not have a plan. Some may not have a plan for very good reason. But I doubt it's 64%. What it is is a cheaply aggressive play for the ears of 'leadership' of organisations with dysfunctional communication or trust.
[+] [-] dotancohen|4 years ago|reply
The fine article starts with an MS Paint rendering of a woman, whose entire body from the waist up is smaller than the distance from her foot to her knee. The arm hangs down almost to the knee, like an ape. With the small head and long arms it looks like the artist is trying to emphasize how unintelligent the character is, is that possible? Is this an attempt to appeal to people who themselves feel unintelligent, that they might think "if she can do it, I can do it"? Am I reading too much into this, or did Google simply lower their design standards?
[+] [-] modeless|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dartharva|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rambambram|4 years ago|reply
This style is not only trying to induce the feelings of "unintelligent", it's even the childlike - no, babylike - feeling that they are after, I guess.
[+] [-] tartakovsky|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kwerk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wodenokoto|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] BLKNSLVR|4 years ago|reply
My recent disappointments with shopping search is along the lines of "Radeon" -> "out of stock". ie. unrelated to search technology inadequacies.
[+] [-] patchtopic|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exodust|4 years ago|reply
> "Some 94% of U.S. consumers abandoned a shopping session because they received irrelevant search results"
This would often be because the product is simply not in stock, leaving no other option for the user other than leaving the site.
> "It’s a phenomenon known as “search abandonment""
A phenomenon? If you say so, Google. Please tell me more about how adding Google search to my client's website will magically materialize the out of stock item.
Google makes these claims for self-serving reasons. They're behind the survey that supports the claim, which in turn supports their agenda to have websites install their cloud search product.
> "shoppers still struggle to find what they’re looking for. They often have to come up with a perfectly-worded query that a retailer’s site search engine will understand"
Oh bullshit, Google.
Even the most basic site search will return product results from words contained in the product name. People looking for bread knives on a homewares site can use "bread" or "knife" in their search and get relevant results. And it's trivial for site search to pick up other meta data from the product, such as descriptions. "Baking" for example, the user could find the bread knives by searching for baking accessories.
[+] [-] bell-cot|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yunohn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] opisthenar84|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Proven|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]