WebProNews

Tag: Culture

  • Google ‘Unrecognizable’ To Company Veterans

    Google ‘Unrecognizable’ To Company Veterans

    Google has undergone a number of major changes over the years, not the least of which is the two founders stepping down from their roles. Many of those changes have caused the company to be virtually “unrecognizable” to many Google veterans, according to CNBC.

    For many workers who spoke with CNBC, 2018 was a pivotal year that showed how much things had changed. Project Dragonfly became public knowledge, exposing Google’s attempt to build a censored search engine for China. In a company that had long treasured a reputation for open communication with its employees, the project had been kept on a need-to-know basis.

    Despite ending the project when employees expressed concern about the ethics of it, for many the damage had already been done.

    “There’s no way a few years before, they would have had a secret project with these kinds of ethical concerns,” Raph Levien, a former level 6 engineer who left Google after 11 years, told CNBC. “It crossed the line and felt misleading. It definitely felt like this was Google changing.”

    Another factor that has hurt the company’s reputation internally is how it has handled sexual abuse allegations, paying executives millions in severance packages despite allegations. The size of the company has also played a role, as it is much harder for a company of “more than 100,000 workers, many of whom are contractors instead of full-time employees,” to maintain the culture it started with.

    One thing is clear, based on CNBC’s report: For a company that is already in the spotlight for privacy issues and antitrust concerns, an internal breakdown of the very culture that made Google what it is, is the last thing the company needs.

  • Pope Francis Is Facebook’s Most Talked About Topic of 2013

    It’s that time of the year again. Radio stations are playing the same twelve Christmas songs on repeat, you’ve already gained about ten pounds, and companies are starting to release their 2013 year-in-review wrap-ups. Life is so predictable.

    Today’s year-in-review release is probably the most interesting of all (sans Google, maybe), if for nothing else than the sheer volume of data considered. With over 1 billion people (globally) on Facebook, the social giant’s data review can be a fun, if not altogether educational, look into the global culture.

    And if you’re wondering who stole the Facebook show this year, wonder no more. The man with the most Facebook buzz in 2013 was none other than your humble leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. He edged out “election” (generic), the royal baby, “typhoon,” and Margaret Thatcher as the most-talked-about topic of the year, globally.

    In the U.S., he placed 6th, following the Super Bowl, Government Shutdown, Boston Marathon, Syria Crisis, and the Harlem Shake.

    Here’s Facebook’s top ten most-discussed topics of 2013:

    1. Pope Francis
    2. Election
    3. Royal Baby
    4. Typhoon
    5. Margaret Thatcher
    6. Harlem Shake
    7. Miley Cyrus
    8. Boston Marathon
    9. Tour de France
    10. Nelson Mandela

    This list is part of Facebook’s annual year-in-review, which you can check out here. There, you can also begin your own journey with a personalized year-in-review, which highlights your top moments on the social network in 2013. Facebook first instituted this neat little feature last year.

    2013 – A Year in Review from Facebook Stories on Vimeo.

    In other top Facebook trends of 2013 news, the most talked-about TV shows of the year was Scandal, and the place where the most users checked in throughout the year was Disneyland.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Culturalist Lets You Be The Editor Of Your World

    Do you like making lists? Have a lot of knowledge about a topic and want to spread said knowledge to the poor, ignorant masses? Want to let everyone know just what you think in a snappy, visually-appealing, and authoritative manner? Then Culturalist may just become your new internet haven.

    Culturalist is a website devoted to top 10 lists, with topics ranging from Disney Films to the best New York City non-Belgian beer joints and everything in between. What separates Culturalist from other top ten sites, however, is that these lists are entirely user-generated. There are no official “experts” or disengaged magazine editors mindlessly compiling lists to generate sales; instead, lists are compiled by people with passion and experience in areas they are interested in. And the results are pretty awesome.

    Jordan Roth, the mastermind behind Culturalist, was excited to talk about his brain child with this writer in an interview conducted this past Thursday. He spoke about Culturalist being a tool for “broadening and deepening the cultural conversation,” claiming that, while the site is ultimately aimed at everyone, he hopes it will attract “people who have passion and expertise in topics of culture.” He went on to say that his dream is for his website to become a center of cultural conversation, a place that people will visit daily and where one will be able to find “lists by everyone about… everything we think about in our culture.”

    The website was in private beta for a while, and this writer was given the pleasure of perusing and familiarizing with it during that time. The website is well-organized and put together in a simple, user-friendly format that makes both searching for and creating lists a cinch. Lists are also made visually appealing through the inclusion of media for each listed item; a list creator can include almost any piece of media as an example for the listed item, including videos, pictures, and the writer’s personal favorite, GIFs. While comments are not an available means to interact with lists, users can make their own lists which are added to the aggregate, a sort of “list of lists” that, so far, include such topics as, “worst things I don’t like that everyone else seems to love.” Users also have the option to “like” individual lists and “follow” aggregates.

    Culturalist launched into public beta today at 10:00 A.M., as was announced on their blog. Potential users can request an invitation to “join the conversation,” likening this initial vying for membership to the early days of Pinterest’s launch. Public beta is sure to bring in even more interesting content to the site that this writer is certainly excited about.

    Ultimately, this website has a lot of potential and a great idea in mind. Talking about our culture keeps us engaged with it, allowing us to look at it critically and talk about it in an informed way. Any website that makes that more possible, accessible, and publicly accepted is a-okay in this writer’s book. Look forward to great things to come from Culturalist, and be sure to send in a request for an invite as soon as possible!

    Image courtesy of Culturalist’s log-in page.

  • Most Internet Users Search Web in Multiple Languages

    The latest factoid to be pulled out of Greenlight’s “Search & Social Survey (2011-2012),” a global survey of 500 people that sought out information about user experiences and behaviors, reveals that many people around the world conduct online searches in more than one language.

    76% of the study’s participants claimed that they search for information on the internet in two more languages. 100% of internet users in Belgium, Italy, and Spain all conduct searches in multiple languages. Belgium’s sort of a given, though, as it has three official languages: Dutch, German, and French. Italy and Spain, however, only have one official language (Italian and Spanish, if you didn’t put that one together), which could mean that the popular American stereotype is true: most Europeans speak English in addition to their countries’ official language.

    “The fact that Italy and Spain top the chart with 100% of respondents claiming to search in multiple languages, despite reasonably homogenized language use, is possibly a testament to the position of English as the quasi-official language of Europe and the relative prevalence of English language web pages,” says Adam Bunn, director of SEO at Greenlight.

    What’s peculiar – and humbling, depending on where you live – is that in the countries for whom English is an official language, if not the official language, most internet users don’t do internet searches in a language other than English. One wonders if this is due to linguistic access issues for native English speakers or if these internet users simply do not need to search for content in a second language given so much of the internet is available in English.

    Multilingual Internet Users

    Rearranging the information so as to reflect a different demographic, you can see below in the table that the occupations that are most likely to employ the internet at a high frequency typically conduct searches in multiple languages.

    Multilingual Internet Users

    “The real takeaway here of course is not that marketing and IT firms in Italy, Spain and Belgium should instantly start optimizing their sites for multiple languages,” Bunn added.

    When considering the data in this report, it’s worth considering that of the 500 participants in the Greenlight survey, only 3% represent Asia and 2% represent “rest of the world,” which I infer to include the continents of Africa and South America. 70% of people surveyed were in Europe with the remaining 25% in North America. In other words, it’s not exactly a globally-relevant study but if you want to focus exclusively on telecommunication or online dealings between North America and Western Europe, the data could prove to be somewhat valuable.

  • Online Dating Characteristics [Infographic]

    Online Dating Characteristics [Infographic]

    Online dating is not an unheard-of term anymore, but is very commonplace now in today’s society. I am sure you know of at least one couple that met on the internet, or is in a long-distance relationship and uses the internet to help their relationship succeed. I remember when I was back in high school, I knew of an older couple that met online and thought to myself “I’ve never heard of people doing that before.”

    Now that we live in a digital world, and with social networking, texting, and instant messaging having such an integral part of our lives, the premise of online dating is easier than ever. It can also be “up in your face” when you’re not expecting it. I am sure that you have seen the commercials on TV for online dating that reach out to specific audiences (e.g. ChristianMingle and OurTime).

    Here is a “behind the scenes” look at how online dating works in today’s society:

    (image)

    April 4, 2012

  • Google+ Discourages Innovation For Employees

    I don’t know what to think about this story, according to ex-Google engineer James Whittaker, Google+ was the nail in the coffin for the climate for innovation and creativity at the technology giant. Their competition with Facebook to be the number one social networking platform became the driving priority at Google and that stifled creativity in a major way. The creative climate that yielded many mile-marking accomplishments like Chrome and Gmail was in jeopardy.

    Of the culture when he joined the Google team in 2009 Whitaker writes:

    “The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate.”

    But today he feels differently:

    “The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.”

    He makes the assertion that Google had a long tradition of empowering employees and had policies in place that encouraged innovation:

    “Under Eric Schmidt ads were always in the background. Google was run like an innovation factory, empowering employees to be entrepreneurial through founder’s awards, peer bonuses and 20% time. Our advertising revenue gave us the headroom to think, innovate and create. Forums like App Engine, Google Labs and open source served as staging grounds for our inventions.”

    So what changed the environment and the tone of the workplace? Whitaker explains:

    “Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong. Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+. It was an ominous name invoking the feeling that Google alone wasn’t enough. Search had to be social. Android had to be social. You Tube, once joyous in their independence, had to be … well, you get the point. Even worse was that innovation had to be social. Ideas that failed to put Google+ at the center of the universe were a distraction.”

    “Google Labs was shut down. App Engine fees were raised. APIs that had been free for years were deprecated or provided for a fee. As the trappings of entrepreneurship were dismantled, derisive talk of the ‘old Google’ and its feeble attempts at competing with Facebook surfaced to justify a “new Google” that promised ‘more wood behind fewer arrows’.”

    “The days of old Google hiring smart people and empowering them to invent the future was gone. The new Google knew beyond doubt what the future should look like. Employees had gotten it wrong and corporate intervention would set it right again.”

    His conclusion about these changes after spending months working to improve and distinguish Google+:

    “Google+ and me, we were simply never meant to be. Truth is I’ve never been much on advertising. I don’t click on ads. When Gmail displays ads based on things I type into my email message it creeps me out. I don’t want my search results to contain the rants of Google+ posters (or Facebook’s or Twitter’s for that matter). When I search for “London pub walks” I want better than the sponsored suggestion to “Buy a London pub walk at Wal-Mart.”

    “Recruiters often asked me to help sell high priority candidates on the company. No one had to ask me twice to promote Google and no one was more surprised than me when I could no longer do so. In fact, my last three months working for Google was a whirlwind of desperation, trying in vain to get my passion back.”

    “The old Google was a great place to work. The new one?”

    Hopefully this is a temporary phase for Google, but I fear it is not. Many of todays largest organizations started out as centers for innovation driven by collaboration and a spirit for innovation only to fall victim to the demands of stock holders and blind ambition to dominate a market.

    Perhaps Whitaker just had a negative experience, but I suspect he is right, once you start down a path that discourages employee creativity, you stop attracting the best and brightest and end up with a bunch of bottom-feeders who would just as soon steal an idea than come up with one of their own. But this is just one individuals account of things at Google, I wouldn’t take it as fact.