Some of the stuff on Google Labs is great, but every so often something so pointless appears that it just begs the question… why? I know it’s a pre-beta ideas forum and those ideas can develop (like Gmail did) but take Google Ride Finder, for example. It allows you to find a nearby taxi. Taxis move. By the time you shut down your PC, put on a coat, run down the stairs, get into the street and run down the road, it won’t be there. This, like quite a lot of the stuff on Google Labs, feels like what it is – written by a programmer with 20% of their time spent on whatever project they like. It lacks direction or point, and while I see that “pet projects” breed innovation, I’m unconvinced that most of the stuff on Labs will give anything like the returns that could be gained if, for example, the time spent on Ride Finder was instead spent improving Gmail.

Google Labs can be found here.

Posted Sunday, January 14th, 2007 @ 5:03 pm
Filed in business and productivity, science and tech

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Further reading

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1. Google products patchy
2. Property of Google
3. Premature Gantting