Blogger Isaac Mao posted an open letter to Google Founders, which provided three suggestions. For me, I don’t quite agree with him, so here are my comments. I do believe that Dr. Kai-Fu Lee is the right person for Google China and the current strategy is right. (Come on, I have no relationship with him:) Well, probably in detail, Google China needs some improve/change, but the fundamental strategy is right. You can say no to me, please leave your comments freely.

Dear Larry and Sergey,

I’m writing you the short letter on behalf of many Internet users in China to have some suggestions to resolve the current dilemma for Google in China, from both business and social perspectives.

Google China now is not exactly in a dilemma. When we say dilemma, which means you can not go either way. However, we can see the progress in China. The marketing share decreasing in China is not necessarily the dilemma.

During the National Day holiday week in 2002, when Google.com was blocked in China for the first time, Chinese Google users made an online protest spontaneously. They appealed to free the purer search engine wave by wave. Its seemed its also the first time grassroots power was demonstrated in China on Internet. You can imagine how eager they are to have a complete Internet instead of a shrinked one. At last, people won, Google backed. However, after 4 years, we started to question whether we should continue to support Google. Many users here were disappointed when they found Google.cn filtered many keywords. The compromise remarks by you in Davos made us more frustrated. Seems you are adopting self-censorship which hurts those loyal users a lot which also devalue your motto of “non-evil”.

Here your basic assumption is that GFW is evil, and when Google filter the content himself, it is kind of evil. Let’s put it this way, if you can access google but usually get a connection reset, are you annoyed? Yes, we are professional user, we can bypass the sensitive keywords, we can setup proxy, we can do everything to fight with GFW. But the problem is, what should the common user do? The are expected to get a result, no matter sensitive or not, related to their search. However, sometimes, even their keywords are not sensitive, unfortunately, in the returning result, there is a sensitive content. Boo, they get a connection reset. Who can they blame? They are using Google, right? GFW will not say: “Sorry, your connection is reseted by GFW, please try later or dail XXX for more information”. To guarantee the user experiences, some compromises are needed here in China. I know nearly every blogger in China consider the GFW as evil. However, self-censorship is a down-to-earth strategy to make things work and protect Google itself in China. I think the Google’s philosophy is first make it work, then improve it. It is hard to say this is evil or not. For instance, if you can use Google but usually get the annoying connection reset everyday, what will you do? Will you choose Yahoo! or Baidu? Actually Google.cn is facing the small-business more than the blogger as the small-business will bring google the major income in China. Thus, to make the Google search work in China is much more important than other issues like the content. To assume every user has the technical knowledge and is patient enough to use Google behind the powerful GFW is gratuitous.

Google is ever regarded not only a leading Internet business, but a hope for many people around the world to open their thinking. Many bloggers in China still believes that in their everyday writings. We guess you were misled by incomplete information on how censorship is good to Chinese people. The fact is Google in the 130M-Internet-Users country is losing loyal users with loosing your principles. We understand its tough to anyone to make decisions. But it high time to change it back to the right track. Here we would like to propose 3 ideas to Google for its China strategy in a long term run, to survive, and live better:

The question is, who is the loyal users for Google now? Let me put it this way, do you really think that the Blogger in China will contribute more to Google China than the common user in terms of the income or searching market share? Do you really think the small business will not pay for Google only because Google self-censored the content without the overall quality of related AdWords?

1. Set up a 1B US$ corporate venture fund to invest in China’s Internet pioneer sites and cutting edge companies. The venture fund can be managed by experienced fund managers and industry gurus who really understand the value of Google, as well market potential of China. In my estimation, a venture fund with such a size can invest over 100 deals totally cover 60% of Internet traffic in China. With venture fund strategy, Google can play its manageable chaotic game in a capital way.

This idea is really bad. If Google really wants to setup up a VC, the best place for this fund is Silicon Valley instead of China now and in the near future. The main problem for Google China is the market share in the searching market instead of the whole Internet market. To invest the Internet company in China, which is actually invest the accessing point of Internet and the content producer or communities in China, Google will maintain a very long product line. The things is: you can not solve the dilemma in China in a capital way, Google China needs no money from the capital market. If this fund is for obtaining the market share or communities in China, the best way to manage this fund is Google China team themselves. We always emphasis the concentration of a company when they make the decision, which is also true in China. If Google want to play the game in a capital way, OK, please just suggest them to move the whole China technical team to Seattle or MV to develop other products or do the localization, and convert Google China to another Sequoia. VC can earn money, but is it really what Google China want? I don’t think so. The marketing share in search is quite hard to gain simply via investing. Google China now has 200- technical members and probably about 200 marketing/hr employees, which is rather a small team. You can image that for them, the localization is quite a heavy task, not to mention the product development for China market. Of course this small team can not take charge with the management of the fund. However, without their feedback, how can the VC choose companies to comply with the whole strategy of Google China. In one word, VC is good, but not helpful to solve the dilemma for Google China now if you say it is a dilemma. This strategy is in fact not a strategy. If this is a strategy for Google, it is also of Microsoft, for Oracle, for IBM, even for Citigroup, for American Express, for every Top 500 companies that wants to gain more money/market share in China.

2. Develop anti-censorship tools and service for global Internet users. In China as well some other coutries, censorship is still a tradition in culture. We are accustomed to control or to be controlled(It’s true!). But it’s too far from modern humanity and universal value. It won’t target China only, instead its a global issue to be solved. So it won’t cause Google’s operation in China into trouble. The budget to complete the mission will be not more than several millions dollars.

Good willing, but not easy to implement. I don’t know if you have heard about Tor. Tor is a tool to protect your content from GFW. However, to develop the product officically and distributed it openly is under a very high legal risk. For example, if we have this tool, can the gov-er-ment say: It is not legal to use this, as it is not legal to use a GPS speed camera detector? Of course the gov-er-ment can ban this tool like banning the speed camera detector, even these two things are inherently different (one is dangerous, one is for freedom). Actually, GFW is not the Google’s source of trouble in China. If the only issue is GFW, how can the smartest people at Google not come up with this idea? As you know, it is hard for google to obtain a permit to collect the news in China, that’s why Google News in China is called Google Information. It somehow reflect the key issue: the gov is the key constraint for Google China. However, how can Google blame/fight with the gov apparently in China if it wants to start the business? The only way to solve the dilemma is the combination of time and public relationship, which is in fact not a technical problem.

3. Increase the incentive to Chinese Google Adsense users. This can dramatically encourage more Internet users to participate Google’s business ecosystem. It’s a pure business strategy to increase loyalty as same important to Google’s products in China. Anyway the tactic should be deployed with better localized customer service to respect to individual users and protect their less to hundred-dollar income.

True, but unachievable. It is in fact the unfair competition and will essentially impair the whole searching market in China, which is also not good for Google.

Google is not alone. There are still several millions Google fans in China, especially those bloggers who are more real time intelligent to outside world. If Google do good as they did in early days. There will be more supporters for sure. Google is not playing a game of itself. You may under-estimate that before with limited information sources. People here are looking forward that you can pick the three suggestions(or partly) as China strategy in the coming years which can keep Google’s “non-evil” motto alive in people’s mind. It will also benefit to Google’s business in China. It will be also benefit to the whole Internet neutrality in China. All the Internet users will appreciate that eventually.

True. I am also a GFan. Support is not everything in China, right? We have supported someone in the history, but the result was not tah as we expected. If Google’s opponent in the game is baidu, support is everything. If the opponent is gov which you want Google to be the other player, it is a fatal game and usually no winner, support is nothing.

All of all, the pure the better; the more compromise, the worse.

You bet, but it is a further goal. Now, let’s face the truth: In China, more people choose Baidu while Baidu does the self-censorship ever since the very beginning. Why Baidu success, because of the pure? Well, I am not going to say: be evil. The key is: know the real situation in China, understand the local policy and have the good relationship with the gov. Sounds evil, but it is true. And I can see the progress, I think Google will be out of this trap soon.

[Translated From Ask Blog and Googleblogoscoped] (快速翻译一篇文章，仅做调侃搞笑用)

Google牌笔坏了 [原文]
Ask.com (美国一个搜索引擎公司) 的Blog上又贴出了一个Google 的产品最近出现了小问题一个帖子。这次的问题产品叫做”Google圆珠笔” 这里还有一个 Google迷宫游戏坏掉的视频。

下面是Ask.com的帖子的翻译

Google 最近的一次当机

世界上有些事情就是巧啊，才读了 Nick Gonzalez’s 在 Techcrunch 上的一篇 Google 又当掉 的文章，又一个Google产品让我们当了一下，这次是；

2007年2月2日: Google 圆珠笔没油了.

Scott Grieder, 是Ask.com 团队的产品经理。他在一个很重要的电话会议中用Google 圆珠笔做纪录，不幸的事情发生了，那支圆珠笔居然没油了。这个Google基础产品／服务的失误使得他在重要时刻不得不换一支笔，并且造成了显然的不便以及数据的丢失。

在最近一次见面中，Scott和我们说，”我应该更多了解一点Google产品用于商业用途的(利弊)，Google 圆珠笔适合家用，但是当考虑到我们公司的生产率时，（他就不一定适用了） 我不得不在纪录过程中换了一支笔。而且我也不知道我丢失了多少数据。

下面是Google圆珠笔的生产效率图

这个笔的笔体和笔芯都是透明的，用户可以看到笔中间并且大致预测什么时候没油了。但是因为可能有些杂质，圆珠笔油把笔体弄脏了，所以给用户一个笔还有足够多油的错误印象。

“现在我用其他的笔办公了（或者，我现在申请其他笔的服务了）”，Grieder说，”唉，我一直相信Google一直支撑着他的产品，现在看来我错了”

Google圆珠笔，谢谢你，你起到了你应有的作用。

－－Ask团队

更新1：他又可以写了。好像里面还有油的。谢谢Matt Cutts 的建议”写前用力摇一摇”
更新2：又不能写啦

[Ask 也是够绝的，拉着这个发挥:)]

作者介绍：Tinyfool 郝培强, 活跃于CSDN的著名程序员，也是知名的Blogger，Web2.0观察者和 Google Fans, 他在网上留下的足迹包括 Donews, CSDN ，微尘程序员网，和 ZMap全能之眼。难能可贵的是在繁忙的工作之余，Tinyfool 向社区贡献了Google Maps API中文同步文档， 他同时也是Wikipedia 的见习编辑. 我从大学二年级就开始关注他并在最近利用 Orkut和他结识。 在闲暇时间，他喜欢 音乐、篮球和看书， 你可以访问他的 个人主页或者通过 tinyfool[A@T]gmail.com 联系他。

谷歌的失败正好证明Google的成功
–原发 TV的Google观察Blog 原文链接
在偏执狂才能生存的世界，放弃偏执放弃理想，就放弃了你与众不同的那一点，也就失去了存在的价值。

谷歌这个名字

谷歌这个名字的诞生，就意味着自信的Google文化并没有跟李开复先生一起抵达中国。谁规定说在中国的产品就必须有一个中文名字？IBM的中文名字是什么？国际商用机器公司，有几个人知道？

退 一万步说，如果中文名字是真的必须的，那么你在地址栏是不是还要输英文字母。谷歌这个名字诞生了这么久，开复先生能不能给我一个统计数字，告诉我中国的用 户更喜欢输入guge.cn和guge.com着两个域名呢？如果，他们真的喜欢这两个名字，那为什么还要把这两个地址转向到google.com或者 google.cn上去？

Google.cn这个域名

除了IT圈子的老鸟，我想知道，有多少人知道Google.cn这个域名，有多少人知道它和Google.com的区别。Google.cn的搜索结果和伟大的Baidu.com一样纯洁，绝对不会引起屏蔽。但是为什么大家抛弃Google投到Baidu门下， 首要的理由都是无法访问呢？

Google黑板报写了这么多篇了，有一篇告诉用户如果你的Google.com访问不了的时候，你可以用Google.cn来代替么？

当GFans都承认在全中文的搜索情况下，Google的结果确实可能比Baidu更差（虽然没有出售的排名带来的不公平，但更多的SEO，更多排名本地化问题）。 Google.cn除了去掉一些可以导致危险的结果以外， 还做了什么？

Power By MapABC的ditu.google.cn

对 这个产品，我不想多说，只能说新版虽然样子跟maps.google.com越来越接近，但是它彻头彻尾是一个OEM产品，技术和数据都不来自 Google或谷歌。数据很好理解，由于政策因素，购买或者租用国内地理信息服务公司的数据顺理成章。但是技术就完全说不过去了， Maps.Google.com是目前同类产品中最好的（Yahoo和微软还在追赶）。有人可能觉得我太技术倾向了，但是我最关心的其实是用户体验， ditu.google.cn中的分词，地址查找等等都垃圾得一塌糊涂。

在国内有go2map和百度地图这样的对手前提下，OEM这么一个产品，对市场分额没好处，用户满意度没好处，唯一的好处是，你看，我们谷歌也在努力工作呢，但是唯一的结果是给 谷歌其实不懂中文这一论点提供了论据。

谷歌不是Google

这段时间，谷歌努力地向我们证明，一个公司的基因，不是它的资本构成，不是它漂亮的办公大楼，不是员工的双屏电脑（我倒宁愿是，现在我也是双屏了，我比他们还强，我有一台PC和一台MacBook一起用。So酷， http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinapodcast/319506132/)，不是随便取用的饮料和食品，不是高薪的大厨，不是20％的创新时间，甚至不是公司总部任命的全球副总裁。

所以，在Google全球业务蒸蒸日上的时候，我们迎来了一个 新的年度搜索报告，

在以新标准公布的数据中，谷歌（Google）的网页搜索市场份额首次跌破20%，仅为14.9%，而根据稍早前CNNIC和正望咨询从其他角度分析的数据，谷歌2006年在中国搜索引擎市场上的份额分别为25.3%和20.6%，都不同程度表明了其市场份额萎缩的趋势。

如果这个报告准确的话，那么Google通过建立一个叫做谷歌的公司来退出中国市场的伟大计划，又得到了进一步的成果。

如果对比，谷歌进入之前的市场份额，那么我的题目就不算离谱了”谷歌的失败正好证明Google的成功”。