Comments on: Why Google buying Twitter would be a disaster (for one person)

If rumors of Google buying Twitter turn out to be true, consider the predicament of Douglas Bowman, Twitter's new creative director, who left Google with some harsh words only a couple of weeks ago.

[compbry15]

Meh. I guess it sucks in some respects, but not to too much of an extent.

Sure, it sucks that Doug posted his rant about Google thinking he would never have to see them again, but it isn't like he relies on Twitter for anything. Such a prominent designer such as him could have an easy time finding a new gig if Google did let him go out of spite when/if they buy Twitter. Just the mere fact that there are 1-2 stories a week about this guy shows that he wont have issues getting a new job. This is free publicity for him.

Regardless, Google and Doug may have conflicting ideals when it comes to design, but if I were Google I wouldn't take his rant as an insult. He wasn't insulting Google in the least. Their strategy obviously works for them, but wouldn't work for everyone. Doug has his own strategies as well which have been pretty successful during his career.

In the end I'm sure it will all work out.

[benjwah]

I'm sure Google knows how much creative types don't enjoy being dictated to by data. It's anathema to the creative process to do something because data supports it. Frankly, that's a reason to find an alternative. But Google would know all this. At the very least, the data would have shown them.

[ddhboy]

Well, it was kind of inevitable though. I mean how does twitter make money? They don't have ads and the bandwidth and servers must cost them a fortune.

[Harlan879]

This is so silly. Google is right. Creative people should come up with innovations that make them happy. Then statisticians can test whether the instincts of the creative people generalize to the population at large. If they do, great. If they don't, try another creative idea.

[Hunnter2k3]

Data led to The Rule of Thirds.
As in, splitting a page up into a 9x9 grid, and having the most "impacting" parts on those lines.

Data can drive design quite easily.
Designers who don't accept that are quite delusional. They like to think that there "is something else" to it.
There isn't, design (in this sense) works to influence the human mind. Data on viewers can aid this massively. (some prefer a particular color, some prefer font A over font B, etc)

[Maclover1]

Forget that guy, I wonder what they are going to pay for twitter? What is its worth? I guess Google see it as a place to put ads???

Twitter with out ads or some other way of making money is just a collection of digital verbal diarrhea, with millions of posts, 99% of which no one really cares about.

[lonestarState]

At the end of the day, who cares about this crap anyways... I mean this sounds like some obsession with some clown, we will never know. Think about it, we just read some bs about some dude. Just wasted brain cells reading this TMZ gossip.

[taphilo]

It sounds much more technical to say "data" than to say "statistics" on TV - but in Google's case it is the same thing - it seems to be that a statistical analysis has to support every decision since the whole "being" of Google was founded on statistics.
It worked, so why change something that can always be "proved" to work?
Tom Philo
http://www.taphilo.com

[Maarek Stele]

Next, all that google needs to buy is 2nd Life and they have their own METAVERSE.

Call me "Hero Protagonist"!

[russkeller]

I can think of one very basic reasoning that makes Google buying twitter a bad idea, it goes to the heart of a lot of the problems in the US. The whole philosophy of the last two decades of allowing companies to become so titanic in size they've become "too Big To Fail."