Vinnie linked to me after I wrote some negative comments about Blogger yesterday (others agreed), and pointed to an interview where Marissa Mayer talks about how Google builds products around constraints. Fast company also used the theme back in November.

What a crock.

Google believes in constraints the same way vice president Cheney is a sniper.

This is another good rant by a very intelligent independent tech analyst. The premise is that constraint-based design is critical, and Google doesn't follow it. From there, we get Not Invented Here, flailing design, etc. The first Google page was constraint-based and brilliant. Since then, it is mostly just 'throw enough smart people at every large problem must produce some great results, right?'

This is the technology version of the business model problems I've been recently meme'ing about. And like that, these are very subtle and hard to argue when they face a track record of success: Google Maps is better than MapQuest; Gmail is becoming the default mail reader among the tech-sophisticates; Google News is influential (although I've switched away).

Orkut was a nice demo but fell flat. Google Base hasn't taken off. Google Video Store isn't so hot. But those three examples took effort to remember, and there is still some cognitive dissonance (Google doesn't always win? What?) When they lose that dissonance, when their introduction of a product is met with skepticism, when they have to market an offering to get traction... that's an important step back.

And it is happening already. Google Desktop should be so good, Dell should be willing to paying for it (like they do Windows, and will with Vista which will make GD harder to adopt). I shouldn't hesitate to download Google Package (haven't even really thought of it). I should have real motivation to use Google Earth more than once.

Because if Google has to pay Dell $1B to bundle its software, and $1B to AOL to keep it on its side, then a sizeable warchest looks less intimidating. And its talent pool is going to feel the Web 2.0 lure when it is clear they're no longer all going to be multimillionaires.

James Governor's MonkChips: Why Google is not about constraint-based design, 37Signals is, Europe too