Google Wants You To Be Its Unpaid Muse 227
theodp writes "So where do you turn to for great ideas when tough times force you to abort your engineers' brainchildren? If you're Google, reports Nicholas Carlson, you simply outsource brainstorming to your users. Google's launched a new Google Product Ideas blog as well as a Product Ideas for Google Mobile site where users can submit feature and product ideas and vote on others. So what's in it for you if you come up with Google's next billion-dollar-idea? 'If you post an idea or suggestion and we put it into action, we may give you a shout out on our Product Ideas blog,' explains Google, 'but we won't be compensating users for their ideas.' Lucky thing don't-be-evil Googlers don't have to live up to the IEEE Code of Ethics, or they might have to credit properly the contributions of others." So what's wrong with a shout out among consenting adults?
"Unpaid Muse" (Score:5, Funny)
As I keep telling our sales people, there is something of a gulf between having an idea and actually implementing it. Also, an invention is supposed to solve a problem, not just to state it. I may think it is a good idea to find a way of checking the extent to which bears poo in the woods, but when someone patents the improved device and process for facilitating mensuration and analysis of the sylvan/urban mass ratio of ursine faeces, I really shouldn't expect to profit.
Comment witheld (Score:2, Funny)
GASP! (Score:4, Funny)
My God, how far can this go? Google has the audacity to listen to its customer and actually use the better ideas?
Re:What meme? (Score:1, Funny)
it's just plain paranoid delusional thinking.
No it's not, it's reasonable.
Google has shown that they are by far one of the best handlers of information on the planet. It's more than natural to assume that the average person would probably object to some form of "handling" that they perform with information related to you.
I never said they're the lapdog of Satan or big brother, but still, Google shrouds its inner workings in secrecy (more than is necessary, IMHO) for a reason that I'd wager goes far beyond protecting trade secrets.
I do, however, trust Google leaps and scores more than I'd ever trust Facebook.... that's an entirely different can of worms (though I may add, their kool-aid has been getting quite tasty with all their web 2.0 flavoring).
Re:What meme? (Score:3, Funny)
You must not be Christian. After all, aren't we all sinners in the eyes of the Lord? Google, being formed of many many people, must therefore be full of sin. Sin is evil. If Google is full of sin, then it must be full of evil.
Therefore, Google is evil.
And so am I... ;)
Re:What meme? (Score:2, Funny)
how many people / companies pass your arbitrarily high bar for evil?
Plenty do, and yes, Google is actually one of them.
My point got a little lost in the tinfoil hat I appear to have landed on when I posted, but it was moreso that the general opinion is that Google is in no way evil, that they can do no evil, and will do no evil.
I was simply trying to say that by nature of their size and role in the world we live in, they've broken their motto at least once (their foray into the Great Firewall of China is a damn fine example) and that is all it takes.
I'm not saying that Google should be viewed as Evil incarnate, but for fuck's sake, they're not a shining star of morality, kindness, or goodwill either. It's when you compare it to other companies of its stature and influence that Google is the majority player in doing well by individuals, and I think that conveys a good message about them, but it doesn't overrule the bad one either.
Ah well, Karma to spare, eh?
Re:What meme? (Score:3, Funny)
You don't understand. It's not that Google is evil. It's that they're run by space aliens and unicorns. And until you can prove otherwise, it's a fact!