Does anyone know if they are still working on the barge in San Francisco?
Apparently they bought 4 barges, so they had big plans for this project (which doesn't seem smart without at least testing it out once first, also doesn't allow them to use lessons learned from the first build on the second barge).
What a crazy project, kudos to Google for thinking outside the box. Even if it doesn't work out I'm sure they've learned a lot from this build. Hopefully they'll share some construction video, designs, and lessons learned someday.
For a company the size of Google, 4 barges probably DOES count as a tiny initial test. I suppose 4 simultaneously has some advantage over 1 at a time because it allows you to do A/B/C/D testing.
Anyone else would have a striped + mirrored RAIB. But I suppose at Google's scale, they need geographically distributed barges to cover for a failure at one port.
You'd want aabc, at least. You need to test your treatment against itself as a control. If you see significance between control A and treatment A, you have noise.
I don't know if the whole idea is dead yet, but it did seem pretty tone-deaf to do luxury party barges as a way to showcase an already hated exclusive product.
It was a bizarre idea, in step with the tone-deaf nature of Google's leadership which seems to exhibit traits of megalomania. I like ambitious projects, I like people creating new things, but some of the words that come out people's mouths about creating places in the world to experiment without regulation, and that people's expectations of privacy are wrong, etc. It's just off-putting and some day when some other startup starts eating Google's lunch this barge will come across as the early signal that Google just had too much cash than was good for it.
Au contraire - I think we need more ambitious / divergent projects, and I think with this ambition and divergence comes the likelihood that you're going to piss a lot of people off, and I think that's okay.
"creating places in the world to experiment without regulation, and that people's expectations of privacy are wrong, etc."
Both of these sound like divergent and large scale, but they don't seem unreasonable.
People let the world in front of their eyes convince them of its permanence / correctness - when in reality we need to break some of our cherished beliefs to move forward.
You mean like "conserving" your beliefs against "progress". Hmm. Seems like we should invent some sort of political system where we can "conserve" on one end and have "progress" on the other end. They will meet in the middle and get absolutely nothing done. Brilliant!
While not cheap, these likely weren't an extravagant expenditure (probably a few hundred thousand each).
This seems like part of the noise of a company trying many different things and cutting their losses when it makes sense. The only real difference is that we don't see many of these other projects because they can fit in a building
From the article, new the barges would have been $4 mil apiece. Even if they got them for a song, that would still put each north of one million, and that's before you buy 64 containers gut them, weld them together and install windows.
Not saying this was a big loss for Google, but it wasn't "a few hundred thousand."
And which/how many of those would it take to justify a special trip to a special-purpose building to introduce people to it?
Their more-interesting projects would make a particularly-popular exhibition in an interactive museum. And that's about it.
e.g.
Why would someone want to spend more than 5 minutes on a 3D mapping phone? What would they do with 3D models, aside from playing Interior Decorator in their own living room or Hollywood Makeup Artist on their own face?
Those are neat ideas, don't get me wrong. But while more apps may eventually be found, it could hardly justify a specialized gadget for most people as-is. Particularly when traditional mobile device cameras are turning out inferior-but-quite-usable versions of those same apps.
Google Glass is similar. There's been a handful of really compelling use cases for HMDs for more than a decade. But the general public has never had more than about a 2-minute-demo-reel level of interest. And Google hasn't found/developed anything in Glass, yet, that changes things for people who already have a magical slab of glass in their pocket, everywhere they go.
(Google's actually dug a slightly deeper hole, in that people's 2-minutes-worth of interest in Glass was quickly dominated by how incredibly unsettling connected cameras can be, when they're potentially on anyone, anywhere. Including on the anti- and a-social, in places where people had traditionally let their guard down.)
Depending on how accurate it is the 3D mapping it could be huge. Any object on your desktop to 3D CAD for < $1000. The software would be the most critical factor in that and Google is one of the best at software in the world.
Google Glass will be neat around v3 or v4. I want augmented reality, not a portable monitor for notifications only. Some people that require both hands for work and need those critical notifications could really benefit from this though. Sports taking pictures would be useful.
Google Glass isn't for everyone, but it's definitely useful to many people.
You're right that most developers wouldn't go to the barge, but think about the places that the barges would dock. It could potentially draw some of the more wealthy population to come in and see all the interesting stuff their building. They usually have Apple products (because more expensive is better, right?) so getting them to take interest in some of their other products could be profitable.
I'm missing something here. Why would barges be a good place to host events? Why not one of the many traditional land based locations that are always used? Is there something particular about being on the water? Or is it just being funky? Are we to believe that they were in areas that available space is so scarce that going to the water was truly sensible. If so, why weren't others doing it already?
I remember seeing a google talk on data center innovations; efficiency and environmental impact. Specifically mentioned was the purchase of barges for a prototype datacenter. The advantages were free cooling from the ocean which would be maximized by submerging all the servers in oil to conduct heat. Sorry to lazy to pull up the source, but I thought that was what all these barges were for.
I wonder who's pet project this was and if there were any consequences inside the company for its failure.
It really did seem like a dumb idea from the beginning. I had a hard time seeing myself take the time to go to a pier to get on a floating flagship store. Even in SF where the port is integrated with the city I couldn't see myself doing it.
It wasn't even tough to get to. Grab the BART to the embarcadero, grab the MUNI down along it, hop off at the right pier and walk right on. Although we all were hanging out at the restaurant right in front before leaving.
I understand Joe Blow wouldn't be used to hoping on a yacht, but I don't think people who can blow $1,500 on an expensive accessory would lack that sort of experience. I hear Google has a commute boat as well they were trying out to go along with the busses.
I'm not familiar enough with the local real estate markets - but big flagship stores like Apples cost millions just for the buildout - it's conceivable that something like this might actually be less expensive (and certainly more interesting) than a traditional brick and mortar shop.
Google is definitely in better shape than you are. Quarterly earnings last quarter were about $3.4B.
Put it this way: $4M is about the fully-loaded cost of a team of 8-10 engineers over a year. Projects involving 8-10 man-years of engineer time get canceled all the time.
Your assuming it was a total loss of which seems unlikely.
They receive something when they sold the barge. More imortantly when doing A/B testing it's a bad idea to think of building the worse option as wasted time. It was a hedge that never got used.
Apparently they bought 4 barges, so they had big plans for this project (which doesn't seem smart without at least testing it out once first, also doesn't allow them to use lessons learned from the first build on the second barge).
Here is a good video of the one in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLueLIcUrwc
Here is a closeup of one side: http://www.vosizneias.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Google-...
What a crazy project, kudos to Google for thinking outside the box. Even if it doesn't work out I'm sure they've learned a lot from this build. Hopefully they'll share some construction video, designs, and lessons learned someday.