PART ONE

I have to say that my expectations for Google are extremely high. They get higher all the time. Further, my technical expectations are through the roof. I’m saying that I expect flawless execution, even with beta products.

Am I being fair? Probably not. But folks, isn’t Google supposed to be wonderful? I believe that other people hold Google to higher standards. Here’s some evidence:

Google shareholders praise management
How do I love Google? Let me count the ways
Google Is God

PART TWO

With all of this said, I was very disappointed to find a simple usability bug with a non-beta (!) Google Service; Google Personalized Homepage. The “bug” translates to an actual end user failure. Here it is:

http://www.google.com/ig yummy…

vs.

http://www.google.com/IG failure!

I’m probably being harsh but given that these guys are technically brilliant, this is a let down. The argument might be that “http://www.google.com/ig” is a shortcut to some other long and nasty URL. I’d buy that as an excuse. Unfortunately “http://www.google.com/ig” is the root URL.

PART THREE

I think that what I’ve found is interesting. Maybe very interesting to some Google voyeurs or insiders. You never know, right?

Here’s a set of questions: How long will it take for someone from Google to find this posting, review the merit of making the technical change (should be drop dead easy), and then make the change? Further, will they post a comment here saying why it was broken and how it was fixed? Will they decide to even fix it? Will they fix it but do it in stealth mode?

I realize that my posting here translates to a small, tiny, insignificant request for Google. That’s exactly why I’m bringing it up. I’m a speck, but do I still matter to Google? Will they validate my existance and my feedback?

We’ll see. The clock’s ticking.

p.s. Terrible error handling: “The requested URL /IG was not found on this server.” Sheesh.