Has it occurred to anybody else that Google seem to be really interested in whatever they are currently working on, and then lose interest as soon as something more interesting to them comes along?
It’s difficult to judge if nothing is going on in terms of development of their various properties, or if they are just bad at communicating news. Granted, they are not as bad as Apple, but surely they could do a little better? (but not perhaps as transparent as Steve Ballmer, who told the world a couple of weeks ago that they may as well wait for Windows 7 than purchase Vista).
Perhaps part of the problem is that news tends to come from Google via one route - the “Official Google Blog” - and the blog typically only reports on finished articles (which makes sense). It might be sensible - given the huge coverage Google receives if they even add a damn font to Google Mail - that they had a blog for each of their properties, and included posts about future direction and ideas.
The best example of a company being wide open with the community is without doubt Automattic - the people being WordPress. With their recent posts about the new features they are working on, they let the community see everything from the concept artwork through to the in-house prototypes. They also listened to the community response.
With Google, you get the impression that Mail, Reader, Notebook, Docs, Talk, Blogger, and many other properties could be a lot better if only they weren’t left to rot for months on end. Google seem to love pushing new ideas out the door, but they do so at the expense of their existing ideas that are working.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter. As I mentioned earlier, Google have such a strong reality distortion field around them that they only have to stick a different logo up and a million bloggers will report it - which then wags the media dog.