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Google just put out JAM, for Chrome, which is basically Garage Band for your browser. It’s pretty cool! And after today there’s basically zero chance you’re ever going to think about it again.
That seems to happen to Google a lot; it comes up with some novel ideas, throws a tonne of money at them, and then no one ever uses them. And that’s just fine. We’re all for trying new things and innovating seeing what works. It’s just funny how much time and money and effort Google’s thrown down the drain over the years.
Here are some of the biggest wastes of Google’s time and money, the things that may have seemed great at the time, and then fell away into the land of forgotten internet toys.
Do you remember Google Wave? Sure you might. It was going to replace email! It was a better email. And then it was gone.
No one really thought the Nexus Q was going to be groundbreaking when Google announced it, but the streaming device was at the very least supposed to band together all of the Play Store’s content into one, centralised hub in your living room. And whatever you thought of its orb/jellyfish design, a ton of money clearly went into designing the thing. And now, you can’t even buy it. RIP, little Google ball.
Pool party. POOL PARTY. Google made an app called Pool Party. It was for sharing photos of groups, and was made by the Slide team, which also made the Disco messaging and photo sharing app for Google. Google paid $187 million for Slide, and then whatever else developing these apps cost. And all it got in return was a pool party no one showed up for.
Yes, Google Plus has fallen completely out of the consciousness of anyone but tech nerds. We don’t even get stories about how dead it is now. But at least it’s inarguably necessary. But Google Buzz? Buzz was like an offscreen little brother in the Google show. It wasn’t just worthless, it was a privacy nightmare. A terrifically expensive privacy nightmare that we all woke up from very quickly.
You like cinemagraphs, right? They’re fun. Here’s a photo… that kind of moves! Google’s version of that is, basically, “You like scrambled eggs, right? Well how about scrambled eggs… THAT COME WITH LUXURY ITALIAN LOAFERS.” That’s cinemagraph GIFs and event planning. Gilding a lily that nobody wants to pick in the first place.
Google Googles lets you point your camera at landmarks, paintings, and other stuff, to reveal all the world’s information about that thing. It’s incredibly advanced, and impressive. It’s goddamn magic. And there’s no way more than a very tiny sliver of the population 1. Knows it exists, and 2. Actually thinks to use it, ever.
What a wonderful project from Google’s famed work-on-anything time! Don’t send drunken emails to your boss or ex or dad. Perfect. You need this. It would make your life better. There’s no chance in hell you have it activated or plan to actually use it in real life. Again, super fun, and aggressively forgetten.
Yes, you’re excited about Google Glass. Terminator vision! Iron Man HUD! MY LIFE, RECORDED. Except, uh, no. No, you’re not going to actually wear those in real life. No, they aren’t going to work like you want them to. If these even ever do come to market, the technological hurdles—battery life, or your eyes having problems focusing on information displayed too closely—are too great for this to be anything much more than a glorified Go-Pro for your face.
The driverless car is a miraculous technological feat. You know what else is? A Segway. And while it’s thrilling to see automobiles scoot around of their own volition, you’ll only ever see one when the USA Men’s Basketball team is riding them around at the Olympics in 2024. We’re glad these exist. But man is it a lot of time, effort, and cash down the drain.
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I don’t know what all the hate is about with Google man, can’t we all just get along? Just because I have a fleshlight for my ipad doesn’t mean I don’t want a car that drives itself. That could give me so much more time with my fleshlight ipad.
Almost everyone I know who has an Android phone uses Google Goggles.
How are Google Glasses and driverless cars a waste of money? Personal HUD’s are going to be everywhere in the future and so are cars that drive themselves.
I get that the prototypes might look a bit silly but all prototypes do, that’s why they’re prototypes, to showcase the hardware can exist but isn’t ready to mass produce.
Giz appears to be increasingly populated by writers with no clue about the path technology is taking. Saying driverless cars are a waste of money is probably the single most pig-ignorant thing you can say in tech right now. Give it a few decades and they’ll be ubiquitous.
This is true, but I so wish it wasn’t.
It reminds me of iRobot, where Will Smiths character, Will Smith in Converse, is driving a car and takes control of the wheel when he’s attacked by robots. When he crashes someone shouts at him “You even took control of the car!”.
I can imagine I’ll have to pay a prohibitively expensive sum to insure my car if I want to drive it. Not cool.
I think the purpose of a lot of this kind of thing is to make Google an appealing place to work for engineers.
Whats with the google hate? I agree some things on that list were a bit of a waste (Like Buzz for example) but the investment towards driver-less cars and Google glasses are a glimpse into what the future is capable of and drives money into research.
and the reason it happens to google a lot, is because google is one of the probably only a few companies that have a go at this stuff (i cant think of any others that keep putting stuff out, but there probably are)
as for them being ‘wastes of Google’s time and money’ i reckon that they probably weren’t as they probably gathered a lot of info for other projects out of them
i would rather these things were put out there for us to try and mess with, and if they flop then fine, at least they had a go.
Loads of companies do this stuff…. MS build and udate a “house” with all the future tech in it that they are developing etc that people can walk around. Out of the big 10 or so tech consumers its hard for other companies to do it though because they just dont have the money to waste.
I love Google Goggles!
I’ve even used it. TWICE!
4 times for me!
I use it on a regular basis.
I use it to solve sudoku puzzles when I can’t be bothered to work them out!
I use Google Goggles regularly, it’s the fastest QR code reader I have used on android that also does other bits like landmark canniness etc.
Google Goggles is essential for cheating on any Pub Quiz Picture round
This post proves that society isn’t serious about letting people try stuff and fail. We like to say failing is ok until someone does and then we take attack.
I LOVE that Google tries new and wacky stuff. Many fail, some become Android. Love may it continue!
Kyle, Bravo on the ridiculous article. Are you a journalist or a troll!? How is a driver less car a waste of money? So driverless trains are a waste of money too. Google glasses a waste of money again what a ridiculous statement. It may be a opinion however it doesn’t change the fact your making stupid comments with very little to back it up
I must say a lot of the products up there are to prove Google can do it for a fraction of the cost of Apple, and still manage to make it free e.g. JAM
But Google glasses and driverless cars, as said in other comments, are prototypes and will be used in the future
Also a big point, you need to spend money to make money
Clearly the writer of this is a complete Muppet.
Next he’ll be saying hydrogen powered cars are a waste of time as you can get a perfectly good bottle of Evian from a supermarket.
Goggles – Good
Google Glass – Amazing potential for the future.
Driverless Cars – This is the Future.
The rest i’ll agree with.
A very poor article which tries to ridicule a company that tries…..shame
I do find it pretty funny though that people on this board always laugh at MS for the Kin and other devices, but when it comes to Google’s failures (not that all of them are) they defend them with a passion haha! You would have thought some of these people own google the way they go on about them!
I don’t think it’s that, I mean when a big company fails miserably it’s hilarious.
The thing with Google though is that this is their whole bit, they make random shit that probably won’t ever make them any money, but they do it to prove they can. They devote unreal amounts of money to this task, so they’re quite likely to come up with a few that don’t work.
That’s different to a company that makes these things to make money and fails.
My reference to MS kind of points to the fact that people mock them for it and your saying it shouldnt happen to Google because of the insane amounts they spend on R&D?
Have you ever compared R&D spending between the 2 companies? MS is far and away ahead of Google in that department.
and if you would like some 2011 figures to back that up
Microsoft (MSFT): $9.4
• Pfizer (PFE): $8.4
• Intel (INTC): $8.4
• Merck (MRK): $8.3
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ): $7.5
• International Business Machines (IBM): $6.3
• Cisco Systems (CSCO): $5.6
• Google (GOOG): $5.2
• Eli Lilly (LLY): $5.0
• Oracle (ORCL): $4.4
I’m gonna take a guess and say its in billions.
Well for a start, you’re living in the past man, 2011? That’s like five years ago.
What I meant wasn’t necessarily that they spent the most, but it’s more in their ethos than that of other companies. It’s kind of like I expect Google to come out with some crazy new idea and put tons of money into it. I mean, photographing every mile of road on earth? Insane.
I wouldn’t expect that of any of the other companies, so when Google do fail it’s different somehow. Let’s take Apple as an example. If Apple come out with a new e-reader to break that market and it’s phenomenally shit – I’d find that hilarious.
If Google came out with an ereader and it was absolutely terrible, then it’s like ah well, at least you’re trying Google, better luck next time! At least you’ve got Google Maps etc.
I’m not saying I’m correct in thinking like that, and I’m not saying Google put the most money into R&D necessarily, but they make more of it. They publicise that they try new things more.
I think its more that you prefer Google to other tech companies so you prefer their products more and dont mind when they do bad :p If we are being honest!
I’m fairly ambivalent towards tech companies, I dislike Apple, because who doesn’t. I quite like Microsoft, but aside from that, they’re just companies.
I mean, I don’t sit and draw pictures of me and Google getting married or write ‘G + G 4 EVA’ on my desk at work.
Not any more anyway.
Ok but from your post above it sounds like you lean a lot more towards Google, or you at least follow a lot more of their development than you do other companies which is why you think their R&D are “better”
Whereas i keep up mainly with Google + MS (again cudnt care less about Apple) but i would argue MS has a much better and exciting R&D department, not only do they take cars down every street like you said google do, they also fly planes over every mile (or are doing so) to get the birds eye view that looks awesome on Bing…. But more its the technologies like the translating glass where you can see American + Indian kids communicating, their developments in holo tech is just amazing…. Both companies have their really good parts, i just tihnk MS is a bit less flash with theirs than google… They dont exactly jump out of a plane wearing the tech, because they dont need to.
I think that’s it, Google are a lot more flash with it, they make a much bigger deal of it and publicise it a lot more.
It makes it look like it’s more of an integral part of their company ethos. Like every meeting at Google everyone wears giant multicoloured tophats and comes up with wacky ideas. While rhyming.
I’ve got to be honest, I find MS a lot more exciting too, with the Kindle, and that virtual kid, whatshisname. I’d much rather have that technology than Glass anyday!
The fact that Google takes the time and effort to create stuff like that is precisely the reason why I love them so much. They don’t decide to work on things based on how much money they’ll make off them, they do it because it’s fun, and because they can.
Stop being so cynical. I wish more companies were like them.
poor article and something im surprised the comments hasnt picked up on.
Googles so called “waste of time” is something they do with their developers where they get to develop any hobby project they like. If Google decides they want’s the creation then they keep it (as it was done on googles time). If i remember rightly its how maps and street view came around. SO yes, some of this stuff might be a waste of time but by giving the developer 1/2 a day to a day to work on hobby projects they gained Google maps… clearly a waste of time and money!
Won’t use JAM more than once? What the hell, I love these little music apps.
This article does nothing but incite angry comments.
At least half of this list of so called “waste of money” are now a part of Google+.. used by millions but hated by Giz. The rest of it, while maybe not used as frequently or available, will no doubt become something this site will fawn over at a later date.
Finally, who gives a flying f**k how much money google wastes? They’re still trying to innovate and, apart from the recent earnings call (down due to moto purchase), they generally turn a profit.
Surely most of this is proof of concept stuff (basically research). When was research and trying new ideas a waste of money?
Hold on guys and dolls so what if its a waste of time, its given to the world for free and you never know it might just catch on this. I just wish there were more company’s like google and less like apple that rip vast amounts of money from us consumers with there overpriced hardware, just collecting up so much money in their bank (More than america has Itself ) they also have paid so very little tax in the other countries they trade in, they have given sooooo little back to the very people That made them sooooo rich. So i say rock on google i luv you !!!
pure comment bait. i great shame.
but why put driver-less cars on the list, are you for real? well, obviously not.
Shut up Kyle, you’re a waste of Gizmodo’s money.
And that, is my 2 pence.
so hes worth your money but not gizmodos?
We all waste money somehow! For instance, i have I just thrown the physical 2 pence spent above, into the street an down the drain. If Kyle wants it, he can go get it.
i have just bought on Kgb Deals Ttwo of the Giz-mobo 4gb mp 3 players and i can not find the redemption page i really hope this is not a con help please
Comparing driverless cars to Segways? Really? Does the writer not realise he’s writing for a technology website?
The fact that Google’s driverless car managed to drive thousands of miles around California without a single accident is incredible: this is a realistic technology that could have a massive effect on people’s lives. And this article is calling it pointless?!