I couldn't agree more. A prototype is always going to be more valid as a point of discussion than a powerpoint slide, because it represents something that can be implemented.
In the UK there are regularly very large projects that never go live, because they were implemented from a specification which is divorced from the real world requirements.
Sadly, large corporations are not prototype-friendly. As Paul points out, it wouldn't be possible in Google nowadays to gain access to the ad database for prototyping purposes. I don't see why not though, assuming we're talking read-only access. |
According to the book "the search" the relevant ads (now known as adwords/adsense) was an idea of goto.com grabbed by google search (they ended up settling for alot of money).... and now another google person claims relevant ads it's his idea? I don't really understand the timeline here: goto.com, google search, google search + relevant ads, gmail, gmail + relevant ads? |
I agree with Paul Buchheit,
Infact, I like to decide idea within 15 mins, and finish prototype within 4 hours. finish beta within 7 days, a week.
if a project hard to do, you should notice, the user maybe, can not unerstand your product also.
Simple is good.
For old chinese words, 不做不知道,Just do it and get the result! |
Don't confuse search ads with contextual ads, they're different things. I don't think Paul claimed that it was his idea to show relevant ads, he wrote a prototype and some of his colleagues liked the results. Google later launched a contextual ad service and then acquired Applied Semantics (Oingo), which has already come up with AdSense.
http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/market-research-analysis/6585174-1.html http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/applied.html
Also see: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-07-06-n82.html |
[Edit: In the post, to make it more clear, I changed "targeted ads when working at Google's Gmail" to "content targeted ads when working at Google's Gmail".] |
Ionut Alex. Chitu
Search ads is a kind of contextual ads, the keywords can be treated as content, the special content.
Google adsense is a kind of relevant ads, Google adsense decide the keywords from the content, then search within the ads via these keywords. then display the ads. |
Roger Browne "[...] As Paul points out, it wouldn't be possible in Google nowadays to gain access to the ad database for prototyping purposes. I don't see why not though, assuming we're talking read-only access."
Paul spoke of fully unrestricted Google-wide access. I understand why Google chose to close that apparent internal-security hole: real risk – if ever so minute [in that ever-happy Googleland, er... Plex] – of conscious, or merely coincidential leakeage of DB structure and/or contents. Not to mention the risk of outright copying of, and/or sabotaging by "future ex-employees." That's bound to be worth aplenty to competitors. Besides, it's never a good practice to be playing around with live data, even within a "Googlesandbox" – be they ads or account records.
For such prototyping there ought to be a specially-scrambled (i.e. "prototyped" ;-)) database, rewritten for the purpose of testing with random strings and other suitable "looky-like-but-fake" elements. |