Maybe as a general assessment, but I think the google+/youtube merger specifically is being driven by ideology, not metrics. Remember that memo Steve Yegge wrote a few years ago? I think the company took that message very seriously. Maybe a little too seriously...
I don't see the connection though. Yegge was lamenting Google's unwillingness to be serious about being a platform company for third-party app developers (, developers, developers, developers ...) The latest changes don't seem to have much to do with progress on that front.
I didn't say they understood it correctly. The way I see it is that they read it and decided to act on it by making Google+ their core platform and giving it the killer app that it had been lacking - youtube. Opening up their platform for others might come later. Or maybe they forgot about it. Who knows?
This is true of all partner+ or close to partner level management due to that they are there for the long haul. They do not have metrics only ideology.
In the long haul, brand collapse will be seen; see MS where it has trickled from the bottom to the top, hence the exiting CEO and exec shedding.
But who is implementing and setting all the short term 'features', lower mgmt and ICs. The issue is that ideology is not enough for measuring success in mega corps, data has to used. The translation form ideology to metrics is where they fail.
Now that I'm re-reading this, it seems to me that Google is doing exactly the opposite. It's even more product focused, and is now moving towards making everything one big product called Google+.
There's no platform here at all. Not externally (who develops for or on Google as a platform?), but apparently not internally either.
Because the haphazard way in which different properties interact, the way functionality and data bleeds through, and all the damn bugs because of it are all signs of products and data being hooked up to each other with duct-tape.
I'm not asking for myself as much as the community. Linking to things you reference to helps multiple people & makes the thread, site and your comments all that more valuable.
And not linking certain things helps people more by helping distinguish between which references are particular enough to merit linking when mentioned and which can be assumed as common knowledge.
