Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372489,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K0000584&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ziffdavis%2Fpcmag%2Fdvorak+%28PCMag.com%3A+the+Official+John+C.+Dvorak+RSS+Feed%29

by Deprecated • 16 years ago

55 70 16 years ago

pcmag.com

Deprecated2• 16 years ago

I don't know if it will bring on ruin, but I certainly found the old image search much more friendly and usable. Both this and page preview seems like "another useless feature that someone thinks improves the experience when it does nothing but show off the fact that someone can code JavaScript or some other display manipulation language." Clean and fast wins the day with me ... Duck Duck Go?

tariq2• 16 years ago

this. the "improved" image search is terrible. very finicky and even hard to use--hardly simple.

re: ddg. regular user, but as others have pointed out already the ajax load for results is annoying (because it's slow and flashy/jerky).

epi0Bauqu2• 16 years ago

Note we now have html (non-js) & lite versions at http://duckduckgo.com/html & http://duckduckgo.com/lite

Dylan16807• 16 years ago

I like the new one for the most part. Sometimes I would prefer the sizes to be listed under the image, but having the page full of images with minimal whitespace is nice; less clicking to see the results.

DanI-S• 16 years ago

OMG something changed, the end is nigh.

cullenking• 16 years ago

Yeah, a bit shock-jockish, which is funny considering the pcmag source. I forgot they even existed. Oh, probably because they dropped in relevance like a friggin rock.

Incubus• 16 years ago

Old men don't like it when things change, and assert their opinion as fact, trust me.

ergo985• 16 years ago

Old men? You could have just said people and been done with it. When Facebook moves a button there is outrage and mass demonstrations. You younguns and your confirmation bias. Amiright?

werthog• 16 years ago

Has Dvorak ever been right about anything? (And no, he doesn't get credit for the keyboard layout, that was a different guy.)

fragmede• 16 years ago

Prediction: Apple Computer Corp. will switch to Intel processors within the next 12 to 18 months.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,939886,00.asp

(Technically, he was short by 9 months, but Apple did the inconceivable, eventually.)

chc2• 16 years ago

I think this is an instance of the broken clock rule. People had been throwing this rumor around for years. That he repeated it at some point before it actually happened (but got the timing wrong even with a big window) is unremarkable.

For example, the rumor is mentioned (though rightly dismissed as impractical at the time) in this eWeek article from 2002: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Apple/Apple-Keeps-x86-Torch-Lit-wit...

InclinedPlane3• 16 years ago

He predicted that Apple would switch to Itanium processors, they didn't, not even a little bit. This is as wrong as if he had predicted Apple would switch to ARM.

The fact that Apple would have to switch off of the Power architecture for its systems was pretty obvious at the time. The idea that they would switch to Intel processors was not guaranteed but pretty obvious (I predicted it), given Intel/AMD's production volumes and performance characteristics. The idea that they would switch to Itanium was based on false premises and never came to pass.

estel• 16 years ago

In a list of great predictions of our time, "There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in [the mobile phone] business" has to be right up there.

qeorge2• 16 years ago

John Dvorak seems to have an unlimited supply of complaints, and rarely anything constructive to say.

Wikipedia suggests he's never built anything of his own. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Perhaps that's part of it?

grantheaslip2• 16 years ago

It's possible to be a good tech journalist without having coded something yourself (though that's not to say that Dvorak is a good journalist). Sure, it would probably be an asset, and a lack of technical context can make people write some stupid stuff, but not having built something does not automatically invalidate anyone's opinions.

Most journalists have never worked in their fields, but nobody's complaining about that. The asinine idea that nobody's allowed to have an opinion about any tech company without being a programmer is getting old fast.

qeorge2• 16 years ago

Absolutely, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. But Dvorak seems particularly quick to call tech companies stupid, and I wonder if that's a result of not having been in the trenches himself.

InclinedPlane3• 16 years ago

Dvorak is not a good tech journalist. His "criticisms" are no better than the ravings of your cranky senile neighbor who hasn't been satisfied with anything in the world since WWI started (indeed, he may be that cranky senile neighbor depending on where you live).

roadnottaken• 16 years ago

I think Google deserves the benefit of the doubt, for now.

rbarooah• 16 years ago

I've found the combination of google instant plus the new previews to be impressively useful when using Google professionally.

I'm working with clojure at the moment which is new to me, so I find myself doing a lot of rapid-fire Google searches to answer "is there a library for x?" or "how do I do y?" like questions.

Before instant and preview, I'd typically do a search and then open a list of the most promising answers in tab - and then possibly do the same with other variants of the search. Then I'd use keyboard shortcuts to move through the tabs and close the irrelevant ones.

Now, I've found that I can usually refine the search to a single good one using instant, by looking at the immediate feedback of the results being returned, and preview lets me quickly see which of the results are junk and which are actually salient before I even get as far as opening them in a tab.

They've made an operation that I do many times a day considerably faster and more interactive and reduced the cognitive load. This is usability where it matters - bringing information closer to my mind so I can get things done quicker.

Most impressive to me is that these improvements seem make a more significant difference for the long tail of professional work, rather than the more trivial searches for new products or celebrity gossip etc. I'm thankful to see Google choosing this as a priority.

I'm reminded of the famous Steve Jobs story about faster boot times saving lives: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...

Google's saving lives too.

jameskilton• 16 years ago

Hahaha, just a few days ago this article hit http://www.fastcompany.com/1701119/adwords-is-dying-and-goog...

which is a LOT better look into what Google is doing and why. The sky is not falling Dvorak, never has been, never will be.

drivebyacct23• 16 years ago

This article is awful. Terrible, terrible awful.

mithaler• 16 years ago

Rather astonishingly, he presents no data whatsoever on whether users (y'know, the ones who matter) actually like instant search and the new image search.

Without that, his argument that Google is in some sort of "decline" because of their introduction can't be taken seriously, and the article is nothing more than a rant about how he dislikes them. This is a fact about John C. Dvorak, not Google.

joblessjunkie2• 16 years ago

I like some of Google's recent changes, but I must agree that the new Google image search is a mess. I much prefer the old one.

treeface• 16 years ago

I don't really understand people's complaints on this issue. How could you not prefer to have hundreds of images on one page instead of clicking for the next page over and over? It's the difference between a mousewheel scroll and click/scroll, click/scroll.

joblessjunkie2• 16 years ago

My complaints are mostly around the Javascript mess that has stolen our direct access to the images.

The image I want is usually in the top row of results anyway, so an endless collection of thumbnails isn't much help.

I don't want to view an image in some kind of weird half-sized shadow box. I want to see it alone, at full size -- or directly download it. In the old Google image search, these tasks were as easy as a right click on a context menu.

Now we get strange hover boxes that are only 50% larger than the thumbnails, and clicking a thumbnail takes you to a confusing pseudo-page that isn't the full size image, nor the actual source site. Who does this help?

siglesias• 16 years ago

This is the man who invented trolling and link-baiting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOHzHVF-4Mg

At best it's satire, not to be taken seriously--if you get up in arms about what he says, he wins and joke's on you.

ergo985• 16 years ago

Dvorak could legitimately be described as a professional troll.

"you get over 20 pages of large thumbnails all on the same huge page....And because thousands of useless large thumbnails are loaded, a huge waste of user bandwidth takes place each time."

Beware commenting on things you don't understand, because often it just makes you look like a fool.

In this case, Dvorak apparently didn't notice that while all of the images "were on" the same page, they were simply placeholders until you scroll.

If an image exists outside of the viewport, does it exist? Not necessarily.

As to them being large images....welcome to the high speed world, John. We've graduated beyond dial-up.

"So instead of being able to scan the entire page with a simple glance to find an image from say, usgs.gov, you have to put the cursor on each and every image and wait for a pop out with the information."

Who searches for images by domain like that? Few users of Google image search, I suspect, with the average user casually looking for some images to "borrow" for their book report or blog. The source domain just doesn't really matter to most users, again speculating (though presumably Google has actually verified this).

But say you really want to see images from usgs.gov? site:usgs.gov, e.g. http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=site%3Ausgs.gov+...;

And of course you can search by size (larger than, or a specific absolute size), and so on.

There will always (always) be people who complain about change. John, in this case, is just plying his trollish trade, however.

jshen2• 16 years ago

Beware splitting hairs when you are ignoring the main point. The new google image search is worse than the old one imo so dvorak's point stands even if he got a few technical details wrong.

I also agree with him that it's a bad sign when a company seems to be doing things just because their competitors did something similar.

ergo985• 16 years ago

Beware splitting hairs when you are ignoring the main point

Splitting hairs?

These are the specific things that he complains about being wrong with the new version, and they're ignorant bullshit.

The new google image search is worse than the old one imo

I think the new image search is vastly improved. I doubt I'm alone. For the purpose of finding images it is much more efficient and usable, and if you want advanced searching, it's still there for your advanced searching needs.

But of course, we're just two people with subjective feelings. If Google changed it back, however, I wouldn't cry like a baby and pound my fists because it no longer specifically targets me and my personal usage needs.

It is human nature that whenever something changes the complainers tend to be the loudest. The fact that you don't personally like it, and Dvorak affirms your opinion, says absolutely nothing to whether it was a good move for Google or the average user.

Though I have no doubt that everyone with a gripe with Google's image search changes will we drawn into this discussion to add their "Rah rah yah yah!" I hope we're all wise enough to know how to judge that and to not overestimate the scope of that group.

It's also suspect to argue that they did it "just because their competitors are doing it". Could it be that the state of the art on the tubes is improving? Did Apple add multitasking to the iPhone just because Android did it, or because it's actually a good feature to have?

jamesaguilar2• 16 years ago

> The new google image search is worse than the old one imo so dvorak's point stands even if he got a few technical details wrong.

It may be worse for you, but it is better for almost everyone else. Dvorak is getting two things confused here: first, he assumes that because of his special uses cases that aren't supported as well, GIS is overall worse now. Second, he assumes that because a certain Google property is worse, the entire company is headed for doom.

tingley3• 16 years ago

Dvorak could legitimately be described as a professional troll.

Stopping right here to reminisce for a minute.

When I was a kid, my parents bought me a subscription to MacUser magazine, because I was glued to our old 512. I would read the issues cover to cover. (I have particularly vivid memories of the April 1987 issue, which unveiled the Mac SE, the original Mac II, and the release of Dark Castle.)

Dvorak had a column on the last page of the magazine. It was basically an Andy Rooney routine -- he was a grump who liked to complain about messed-up technology. One of the first of his columns I read (some time in 1986) was a rant about his experiences trying to play ICOM's "Deja Vu", a fairly innovative adventure game with a noir theme.

Dvorak claimed to be unable to master the interface (point-and-click!), and described in great detail his attempts to fumble through the first few rooms. I was 9, and I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever read that involved a computer.

At some point he stopped writing the column, and I lost track of him until I was out of college and suddenly he was a notable tech pundit. That has always seemed strange to me.

dasil0033• 16 years ago

> At some point he stopped writing the column

Wasn't he around til the bitter end of MacUser when they folded or merged with MacWorld or whatever?

drats• 16 years ago

I got modded into a smouldering crater for pointing out that another article was a massive troll.[1] I think I was modded down for the fact that I enjoyed it: despite the fact I was highlighting it was a troll and that people shouldn't take it seriously. Almost everything in tech journalism these days consists of hyperbole or trolling to get maximum hits or, failing that, thinly reworded press releases and superficial reviews to minimize the actual effort required to publish. There are a few exceptions - namely things like the really in-depth SSD reviews conducted by Anandtech which actually had well constructed benchmarks, told you something new and really valuable and actually went and did interviews with major players - but these are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Bonus points: video of Dvorak admitting he trolls Apple users in his columns.[2]

[1]http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877219

[2]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMQv0j29WHA

Stevenup7002• 16 years ago

>> Dvorak could legitimately be described as a professional troll. Dvorak is notorious for having an overly negative outlook on things. "Why would I want to use a mouse?" "I don't like the idea of having the power button on the front instead of the back" "The iPad will never sell 5,000,000 units in less than a year.. that's insane"

InclinedPlane3• 16 years ago

I never understood why anyone would take anything Dvorak says seriously. His track record is a joke, his grasp of technology is tenuous at best.

clistctrl• 16 years ago

Personally I love the new google images. However I would quickly point out that some of the reasons people have left google is their frustration with the magnitude google relies on "the numbers" I highly doubt that the changes are hurting them, becuase if they were... they wouldn't keep it.

guscost• 16 years ago

I'm not going to actually go check, but I'm pretty sure the images still load one page at a time, when you scroll to the bottom of the last page (or farther). How can you have a job at PCMag and not acknowledge or even be aware of this?

ascott• 16 years ago

I disagree with the author, and think that he hasn't used google image search very extensively.

"Instead of the single page of thumbnails, you get over 20 pages of large thumbnails all on the same huge page."

The (near) endless scrolling model works better for rapidly sorting large sets of images, not worse.

"There is no information, just endless thumbnails. No sizes, no locations to scan, nothing! ... Now you have to place the pointer on top of each image for ... size and location information."

If you are optimizing for a an interface for sorting the most images possible, removing text makes sense to me. Also, sorting options for the image size is now on the left, which I find more useful than reading text below each image.

The pop-ups also contain controls which the author ignores that are very handy: similar images, and different sizes of the same image.

bkj123• 16 years ago

Putting 'Dvorak' in the title would have saved me some time.

batasrki• 16 years ago

I'd upvote you twice if I could. I actually audibly groaned when I saw who the author was. Didn't even read the article, I knew it was going to be full of crap. I can't believe I graced him with a pageview. Ugh.

CamT• 16 years ago

I was going to leave a snarky comment but yours saved me some time.

Deprecated2• 16 years ago

Sorry, I see a lot of people don't care for Dvorak, I probably should have put his name in the title. I do think he occasionally has something interesting to say. Simple, clean, fast is why I've used Google and I think that is primarily what has made them a success. If they complicate their applications, will that be a detriment to their business? That's an important question.

kristaps• 16 years ago

Technology people may not like Google's recent work (me included), but two things must be kept in mind:

1. techies are the minority

2. Google is said to split test heavily, maybe even pathologically

So if a new feature stays it's probably because non-technical people liked it and Google is probably doing the right thing from a business perspective.

aristidb• 16 years ago

You know a writer does not have a convincing case when he adds "trust me" to the first paragraph.

pyre2• 16 years ago

Apple is dead! Long live Windows! BSD is dying! NetCraft confirms it!

... and now:

Google is dying! John C Dvorak^W^W^WAn internet troll confirms it!

castis• 16 years ago

Knowing nothing about the man. I only got through the first paragraph before I realized the man has no idea what he's talking about. I am not likely to listen to anything he says says ever again.

Edit: grammar;

xiaoma2• 16 years ago

Yes! I agree completely with this. I was just trying to do an image search on google earlier today and it drove me nuts having to hover over each image to see the size and then get shunted off to some weird ajax light box display after finally picking one.

It was bad enough that I abandoned the google search and went to baidu, which was actually the more minimalist option for once.

corin_2• 16 years ago

Agree with the many other people commenting here that the article was full of nonsense. And the idea that these changes spell "Google's inevitable ruin" is pretty hilarious.

That said, I do hate the changes. I found the old image search far nicer to use. The most important negative change is that when looking for an image, I like to open up multiple options in new tabs, sort of making a shortlist from which to chose from later. To do this I, while scanning the images, click on ones of interest with my middle mouse button. With the new version of Google images, the images don't become actual hyperlinks until you have hovered over them for about a second, so there's a considerable delay when trying to open multiple images in new tabs quickly.

I also dislike the live results stuff, I'm not sure if there's any specific reason or just because I'm used to the traditional method - I haven't actually used it nearly enough to know if I'd get used to it, given the chance. I use https://encrypted.google.com, which hasn't rolled out that feature, thankfully. (Possibly my issue is this: I'm a very fast typer, so I can complete my exact search query without it taking noticeably longer than completing half of my query, and it's therefore more efficient to wait until I get the most accurate results, rather than hoping that a less accurate search will have found what I'm looking for.)

drivebyacct23• 16 years ago

>With the new version of Google images, the images don't become actual hyperlinks until you have hovered over them for about a second, so there's a considerable delay when trying to open multiple images in new tabs quickly.

That is patently untrue.

[source: I just tried. I middle-clicked as many links as I could as fast as I could. Each one resulted in a new tab instantly]

corin_2• 16 years ago

I just tried in Chrome and it's as you said. In Firefox, however, it's a different story (and FF is my primary browser.)

hyperbovine• 16 years ago

Just when I was going to sell my Google stock, Dvorak goes and pays it his highest complement. Guess I'll wait a few more months...

kin• 16 years ago

I've been impressed by both the new image search and the web previews. With the introduction of Rock Melt, the instant page preview while simultaneously browsing my searches was a productive environment and now Google added it to their page.

The image search I feel is even faster now that I don't have to click through every single page. Before I used Cool Iris. The whole point of image search is supposed to be a visual experience. If you liked an image, check its size. Also, why is his browser crashing? What's he using?

dasil0033• 16 years ago

Flagged. Anything with Dvorak's name should be auto-flagged. If he ever raises an argument that's credible to the HN audience than that means he failed his own quality criteria: that is to write a specious argument designed to appeal to the uninformed reader but that fails any sort of detailed analysis so hard that anyone with half a clue who reads it will be compelled to debunk it and thus angrily drive traffic to the article.

anigbrowl• 16 years ago

Some valid usability criticisms, swamped in less useful ones and linkbaity headers. I actually agree that some of the new features are a little too bandwidth hungry, but am OK with that because I want to see greater demand for last mile broadband on the west coast. Reading about the speeds available on FIOS makes me cry.

I'm surprised he didn't take a few stabs at Google News, which really does have fundamental problems. He has touched on them [1] but the criticisms are rather shallow and miss the mark.

1. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363874,00.asp.

I don't like seeing Dvorak called a troll. Disclosure: I wrote for PC Mag in London for a while, so there's a bit of collegiality at work, but I've always seen him as a gadfly - a literary nickname for the horsefly, an annoying creature that buzzes and has a painful bite, but which perform useful functions of pollination, providing forensic evidence, and contribute to the weeding out evolutionary misfits. Trolls (by my definition) deliberately seek to mislead or irritate others for amusement's sake - occasionally everyone's, but usually only their own. Dvorak honestly thinks the things he complains about are broken, even if he's often wrong about how, why or what extent. He is the Ur-User :-)

louisalley• 16 years ago

dvorak is a troll

Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

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