Comments on: Google Ice Cream

By: Ad Man

Ad Man — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:57:47 +0000

Hello, I agree! I am from google’s marketing department, and since all this free marketing about ice cream and crazy happiness in googleland, my budget has been cut! Apparently things like this capture people’s imagination more vividly than boring tech data.

I agree that they should stop this and divert their funds to my budget,and do honest to goodness PAID for advertising.

I have a friend in adsense, I was hoping to help him get his bonus by making google spend millions to advertise itself on google.com, but now it won’t happen.

Oh, sorry, I meant:

stfu u n00b lolz.

By: ryanwaggoner.com » My Green-Eyed Monster

ryanwaggoner.com » My Green-Eyed Monster — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 03:21:00 +0000

[...] I had lunch today at Google with a friend. Why do I continue to go there? It frustrates me to no end and I’m always left feeling jealous and inspired at the same time. They really put the cult into culture. Probably half the people are wearing apparel with the Google logo (which, let’s face it, looks like crap). It’s a vibrant place where you can see the best practices in the care and feeding of employees. Over on Crunchnotes, Mike talks about how Google smugness is at an all time high because of their “Google Ice Cream” stunt. He’s right about the smugness (it’s a company, people, not a family, no matter how fuzzy you feel), although this particular issue really didn’t seem like a big deal…just a few coolers with ice cream sandwiches with the Google logo on the packaging. I think moves like this are good PR because the cost is very low relative to the buzz. Another perfect example is the anecdote about how Google mailed a blogger some aspirin after he complained of a headache from their site. It all got me thinking about what Google faces over the next 20 years. It seems like their main threat right now is focus. Something like 99% of Google’s revenue comes from advertising. With Microsoft and Yahoo hot on their tail, how long can Google keep growth rates up with just one revenue stream? Google has some of the brightest people in the world working for them. But the challenge is not to hire those people and keep them happy. It’s to figure out a way to harness all that intelligence and create revenue streams. Google literally launches new products several times a month, it seems. Almost all of these products are not innovative (in that someone else has already executed the same concept) and most do not gain significant market share. Other than search, are any of Google’s products at the top of their class? Google has tremendous mindshare right now and they get a hugely disproportionate amount of attention for the moves they make, but eventually that will taper. When it does, Google will have to effectively market the great tools they turn out. And at the end of the day, I wonder if Google has the marketing prowess. They’re awesome at engineering, but marketing…I guess we’ll see. I’m not predicting the demise of Google, by any stretch. But it will be interesting to see the child that is Google grow into an adult over the coming decades. At the end of the day, though, the world needs more places like Google for people to work, and I will do my part to create them. [...]

By: Damien Mulley » Blog Archive » Blogger’s Ice Cream - What flavour represents the various bloggers?

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 18:55:46 +0000

[...] Mike Arrington Ice Cream Vanilla with crunchy cookie pieces, candy pieces and anything else that goes crunch! Unusually there’s a swirl of barbeque sauce in the ice cream too. Highly popular with Silicon Valley nerds but the ice cream spoils quickly when consumed around Mountain View. [...]

By: look

look — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 21:38:37 +0000

Nick you are a dick;)

By: ron

ron — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 21:12:15 +0000

i agree 100%…the google kids are losing it!. especially Larry Page, the man truly believe that he is the next thomas edison:) what a joke.
Nerds Gone Wild!

By: enigma_foundry

enigma_foundry — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 00:35:28 +0000

“As far as perks not being a motivator – that is generally true.”

Wrong. There have been numerous studies that have shown that giving a desired object to employees is more valuable than just giving them the extra cash (within limits of course) The motivation resides in the fact that every time the use or see the object (A special cell phone, or a watch, or a laptop case) the connection between the employer and the reward is made. There exist companies that have built their entire business plan on designing these incentive programs (Maritz of Saint Louis is one).

Second, recall that these companies are in effect brokers in many ways–they get employees, who are stars in their field, and they retain them and their energy, to build innovation. These are creative individuals, not assembly line workers.

I work as an Architect, and observe the same kind of things at my firm–from logo-ed tee shirts, designed for each event, to free cappuccino/espresso service.

So give me a break…

By: Nick Douglas

Nick Douglas — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 00:34:28 +0000

So has anyone tried these ice cream treats? Do they taste all right?

By: Lerican

Lerican — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:11:24 +0000

As long as Google is minting its own money and creating loads of shareholder value I’m hard pressed to think of a reason why the shareholders would focus on the perks. You can bet the large investment firms and financial analysts have sampled the ice cream, and all of the other goodies, no doubt wiping the dribbles with glee.

By: Jake

Jake — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:49:30 +0000

Hate to say it, but I have to agree with several here – ice cream during a heat wave seems like a nice thing for the employer to do. If they didn’t do such things, they’d be getting railed on for not spending company revenues on treating the employees better.

I’m curious… how much were these ice cream treats? Did the company cut a deal with Google, or perhaps give them for free in exchange for the shout out? I have to imagine that this was an incredible PR/advertising stunt for them that would be 1000x more effective than TV/Print/Radio/Billboards in the local area…

Who knows.

By: Jake

Jake — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:49:28 +0000

Who knows.