What would you do if you were CEO of Google?

Every so often I like to play a game I call “CEO of Google.” The idea of the game is that through some combination of weird circumstances, you are now the CEO of Google. Don’t worry about how you became CEO–maybe you won a contest to be CEO for a day. I’d like to know: what products would you launch? What ideas would you fund?

I’m specifically interested in Big Ideas. Things like data liberation or self-driving cars. Or what’s the one huge feature missing from a Google product? In essence, what are the big products, features, or ideas that you would like to see Google work on?

I’m specifically interested in ideas that would improve the world, the web, or Google itself. What would you like to see Google do in 2011 or beyond?

806 Responses to What would you do if you were CEO of Google? (Leave a comment)

  1. And if you need a few things to get your brain storming, here’s some huge ideas that others have proposed in the past: http://www.project10tothe100.com/ideas.html

  2. A lie detector!

  3. Invest in a car inventory database. You already have Boutiques.com and heck, everyone knows that car manufacturers over-invest in advertising. Consumers would be happy to stop hearing that obnoxious beepbeep.com jingle and it would be just another revenue stream for Google. PLUS you could insert some algorithm to understand what type of car someone wants to buy and their budget based on their archived search history.

  4. First of all, Matt… great job at PubCon! I was waaaay in the back, but I enjoyed your presentation thoroughly! Bravo!

    As for being the CEO of Google…

    I know that Google does a lot of good things with education, but I would do more. I wouldn’t want to just donate money or equipment, I’d try changing the way education is administered. I’d try to expand on ideas that are working and innovate using all of the brilliant minds at Google.

    Also… self-driving FLYING cars. Heck yeah.

  5. I would love to see Google take on a project like One Laptop Per Child to get the Internet into the hands of as many under-privileged people as possible. Between Google’s ability to find good hardware partners, and ChromeOS (or similar), this is a real option for a Google philanthropy project. Plus, isn’t Google’s goal to get as many people on the Internet as possible?

  6. Figure out a REAL Energy source that is super cheap, efficient, and non-polluting.

  7. I would try to get GAE better than AWS.

  8. If I were CEO of Google I would put a memo out to all engineers with;

    “In light of your recent payrise”

    “You`re all on involuntary overtime”

    But as I have only won the position for the day, they would probably reply with a big scribbled smiley face, while making remarks about me on facebook.

    How would I improve the web? From Google`s point of view?

    I would employ another 20,000 staff on the webspam team 😛

  9. I would create Google Banking service abit like paypal but better with no charge.

  10. As Google CEO, I would work on creating cheaper ways of integrating microtechnology and analytics into the products we use everyday, specifically designed to help improve physical and mental health. Refrigerators, toothbrushes, shoes, etc. I don’t know how to monitor, measure, and track many of the things I do daily that impact my wellbeing.

  11. Matt, this one is obvious (at least to me given my previous musings, postings, and essays on the issues of Google and customer support). I would immediately appoint a team to explore how best to effectively implement an appropriately scalable Google “Ombudsman” (or more likely, a high-level “Ombudsman Group”) to provide a structured escalation environment for Google users (both free and pay) who have *serious* problems and/or issues related to Google products and services, for use when these matters are not routinely being dealt with effectively through existing online help and messaging facilities, etc.

    Definitely a nontrivial task. But you said you were looking for Big Ideas. I believe that this qualifies.

    Thanks.

    –Lauren–

  12. I’d want to tackle two major areas: education and environment.

    Environment
    Piggybacking on Google Street View I’d want to equip Google vehicles with environmental gathering devices, recording the temperature and air quality. I’d liken it to a black box recording everything in the air and matching it up to the specific Lat Long.

    Making this data available to researchers and to the public in general might provide insight both into how we impact the environment and how quality of environmental life impacts us – health, crime etc.

    Education
    Create a Free Google Textbook – a simple hardware eReader device that would deliver textbooks and other teaching material directly to students.

    This would reduce the cost of education (I imagine Google Editions would sell the textbooks but at a VERY low price), help the environment (since we wouldn’t pulp so many trees), break down some of the digital divide and avoid back problems (have you seen the backpacks stuffed with books!)

    And … as an SEO I’d want to tackle one major issue: fixing the link graph.

  13. Google already leads the charge on corporate sponsorship of open source in many ways.

    And it’s painfully aware of the problem created by open source licenses that don’t include patent grants — exposing casual users and extenders of allegedly “open source” products to a minefield of other intellectual property litigation.

    I’d love to see Google use its experience in this area to champion new OSS licenses, or improvements to existing ones, that ensure not just copyright freedom, but also patent freedom. As an OSS developer, I don’t know a good way to free my users permanently from any risk that I or my successors may assert patent rights over them. But I’d like to.

    It may take more than just legalese. Perhaps a prior art registry is needed — a one-stop shop for punching holes in crazy software patent claims.

    Little volunteer organizations are struggling to fix this. Big Google could step up to make a real difference.

    I’ll take a self-driving, flying car too, if that doesn’t work out.

  14. Well Matt, this your blog and your question, but, with that in mind,
    I think you’re framing it wrong, with the Big Ideas you’ve
    Referenced for context.

    It’s not that one big, earth shaking app or gadget
    That would dramatically improve Google.
    It is an overhaul of the public-facing culture
    That could affect each aspect of the giant, for good.

    I’ve thought about this and have dicussed it
    Far and wide. I believe Google could be twice the force it is.
    But it would require open ears with Brin and Page
    (I’ve given up on Schmidt).

  15. Improve the situation of higher education.

    Start, sponsor, or take over a college. Find a way to bring education to the next generation that doesn’t leave them so burdened by debt that they can’t take the risks to create the next big thing. Get rid of the ridiculous prices for text book. I have seen a story where a guy was a failed author but he turned around and sold it as a text book to make a hefty sum. That’s wrong.

  16. Categorize search results. I wanted to do this myself Matt and sell the technology to you guys but I figured I ait got the skillz 🙂

    For example, if I am looking for “Fifa 2010 soccer ball”, most, if not all, SERP I see are a bunch of eCommerce stores selling that item. What if I wanted to simply “learn more” about that ball. At this point from user prospective, I have to try a bunch of diff. longer tail version of the keyword in order to get the result I wanted. But image how good would it be if in the search results I would see categories like

    – Shop For “Fifa 2010 soccer ball”
    – Learn more about “Fifa 2010 soccer ball” (blogs, etc)
    – manufacturer “Fifa 2010 soccer ball”
    – Other info about “Fifa 2010 soccer ball”

    Something like that….

    That way I would click on what I was really looking for without trying different keywords or going through second or third pages of google.

    I would appreciate your feedback on this.

    Thanks

    Al

    My suggestion is that break the search results into more organized mannger

    Apple –

  17. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I don’t want stuff so blue sky (e.g. solving all energy problems) that we’re not even sure whether it’s possible. But concrete stuff like Scott’s “surface analytics about my time that would help me improve my life” or Lauren’s suggestion are the sorts of things I’d love to hear.

    Maybe a good idea/proposal is something that 1 to 20 people could deliver in 2011 if they really worked hard? Thanks!

  18. I’d also add a preview option to your comment system so folks didn’t miss say … a strong close tag. Sometimes it’s the small things 😉

  19. I would ramp up Google Health and really make it a one stop resource for everything health related. YouTube videos of anything and everything health related plus health answers to questions and a symptom checker. The imagine can run riot here as to the possibilities.

    I would also set up as a domain registrar and host all over the world. Using local town and county domain extensions would be a major plus for local businesses. For example I once had a business in San Francisco and would have loved a .sanfrancisco address I know live back in Plymouth, England so would dearly want to have .plymouth

    I would help junior and primary schools with everything internet and set up a fund for poor neighbourhood schools to get online and interested in business.

    So many things I would like to do to help the world

    Best Wishes

    David

  20. 1. Roll out nationwide fiber to homes. Net neutrality is flailing and even the proposition at this point is a compromise. Clearly the only way you’ll get around the lobbyists is to make the current providers compete on your terms.

    2. Build in wireless/phone within the fiber infrastructure. Despite the current wireless carriers jumping whenever Google threatens to compete in their space they have made it clear they have no intention of playing nice with their customers. Once again, the only option is to compete directly or nothing will change. Android is a good attempt at capturing the mobile search market, but carriers are already letting companies like Microsoft pay them off to get around your efforts on this front.

    3. Offer more phones/data service directly. You’re part of the way there already with the Nexus line and Google TV. Stop beating around the bush and make the plunge already. Also, offering more than one phone would be nice. If any of the Nexus phones had a physical keyboard I’d be carrying one already.

    4. LAUNCH YOUR GOOGLE ME FACEBOOK KILLER ALREADY! I’m so sick and tired of Facebook and ready to abandon that entire platform. You could release a “beta” Myspace clone at this point and I’d sign up and delete my facebook account on day one. Provided you can avoid repeating the Buzz fiasco with user privacy.

    5. Invest more in direct user interaction. Webmaster forums/tools are nice, but severely lacking considering the audience you’re attempting to reach. Look around at the Web 2.0 space, now look at google.com/webmasters.. This is some kind of sick joke. This is not supposed to be an Engineer’s interface. It should be more approachable by the general public, because that’s how you’re pitching it. Let the Engineers decide what data they want to display and hand it off to the usability team. Sometimes I think the entire reason the SEO industry exists is because of Google’s terrible webmaster interface and customer interaction attempts. I will say the Google webmaster videos are a huge step in the right direction though.

    6. Google Beat.(http://www.youtube.com/user/Googlebeat) There’s a HUGE opportunity here that it doesn’t seem you’re currently capitalizing on. Clearly there are people already mining Google trends and making real world correlations. If you could roll this out somehow in real time it would become a HUGE draw instantly. Whenever I look at Google Trends the one big missing piece is cause and effect and/or real world correlation. Often you have to do some real searching to figure out the reason behind trending topics. Once you’ve made this determination you could roll this out in a more friendly interface and even allow regional options. This would be a huge draw, or at least I’d be checking it on a regular basis. In it’s current form it’s a nice attempt but it clearly hasn’t reached it’s full potential.

  21. My idea is Google Partners. We all know that Google engineers get a certain amount of work time to work on ideas outside their normal work environment. How about letting outsiders team up with a Googler to create their next big idea together? Create some sort of online system where the public submit an idea and Google employees can reach out to partner with them. (and yes, I have a specific “big idea” I’d love to share if an engineer wants to reach out.)

  22. Purchases:
    1) Saleforce.com
    2) Nuance
    3) Dopbox

    Upgrade the Google campus with Racquetball courts

  23. I know Google’s already investing in alternative energy, but I just wanted to mention it again since data portability and self-driving cars don’t matter in a post-oil world unless we have new ways of generating and storing energy. So, RE<C is great, the coastal wind stuff is great, smarter energy grid, all that is great. I'd say we need more attention given to better nuclear power plants and better batteries.

  24. Add features to Google Profiles. This should be the profile page where everything can be done. All the data Google collect on someone (like reviewed books on Google Books, user-maps, docs…) should be publishable on that profile page. Easy, but can be so interesting 🙂

  25. Sorry. I meant dropbox

  26. A grocery store search engine. I can never find anything on my wife’s list.

  27. One area that I believe Google needs to tackle is offline advertising. LCD screens have become so cheap that anywhere from elevators to soccer matches to shop exteriors have started to make use of them for advertising purposes. This is advertising in the digital realm – something that Google is king at – and I believe that Google can extend their core business in the offline realm as a result.

    Think of something like Foursquare, but instead Google powered LCD displays can on the fly capture the information of users (through their mobile phones) in the vicinity and display targeted ads based on the demographic or even more specific if the user is signed in to Google on their mobile.

    Of course there will need to be an opt-in process, but perhaps that can be established by offering ‘free’ Wi-Fi with the cost being that you have to register by giving your basic personal info.

    I think that having these huge electronic screens display non targeted ads is inefficient, and Google should be the ones to step in once again as they did on the internet.

  28. Wouldn’t it be great if Google could develop a suite of apps for governments. I live in South Africa where it can take up to 2h to pick up your passport from Home Affairs.

    If I was CEO, I would create apps for Governments with integrated access for civil servants to find the kind of data on citizens we take for granted as Google users.

  29. Actually, I would do two things:

    1.) Found an own country.
    2.) Found an international party in all major countries of the world.

    Since I trust Google more than any politican of our own country (I do live in Germany), point 2.) would allow me to vote someone trustworth, and, if the cannot get the majority of votes, I could emigrate to 1.).

  30. …how about participating in the standards bodies before making up extensions for meta/@name or link/@rel?

  31. Local Inventory Search

    I hate driving from store to store looking for a product. Yes, I realize I can order most things online, but there are things in life (like groceries) that are just easier to get locally. I’d love to see a simple way to search local store inventories to know exactly what they have in stock and how much it costs. I realize this is currently possible if I were searching for a digital camera or HDTV, but it’s not currently possible for more mundane things like a bottle of wine or a toy.

    Most startups wouldn’t be able to do this because it would take a monumental effort to get the stores to cooperate with the system and use compliant software. Google has the clout to make this happen.

  32. Hi Matt,

    My idea of a ‘big idea’ is way out of alignment with the kinds of things you had in mind, yet it’s something I feel strongly about and wish Google was more focused on.

    As much as I admire Google, there appears a distinct lack of holistic innovation in the features and functionality of it’s products. I’d love to see greater interoperability between Google’s products as opposed to the existing disjointed efforts.

    Google is very much an engineering driven company, and this has led to some truly awesome developments and individual products over the years, but I’d really love to see creative user experience designers getting greater input into the product strategy and execution thereof.

    So my ‘big idea’ is more along the lines of empowering designers/innovators to introduce a more holistic approach to product innovation.

    Cheers,
    Paul

  33. What project would I instruct a team to tackle if I were Google CEO?

    Add support for SNI (Server Name Indication) for every browser, OS, web server, and TLS library with more than 1% usage. The intent being that no one should be able to claim that they aren’t providing HTTPS access to their site for tech or IP restrictions.

    The list of applications that support SNI has grown, but it is still no where near high enough. Every browser over 1% – http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200910-201010-bar – should support it.

  34. Good morning Matt, you rock!

    If I were the CEO of Google I would buy Adobe Business Catalyst, iron out its bugs and add better Google SEO and blogging features. Then I would make the software more user-friendly to small business so they could truly build a professional online business and stop having to pay to fight their way through the damn mess- every one kicks small business in the arse from banks to online scammers!

    Here’s the big one- incorporate Google Adwords into the platform- what a truly awesome product this would be small business.

    My Partner Fiona would like to see virtual shopping in real-time in Google Street View- she would like to be able enter the shop in Street View then shop on their website.

    Beyond 2011 Google should fly the flag for small business online representation and training.

    The world needs dreamers…
    Todd

    Google would

  35. Google Accounts

    There is no really good accounting software in the cloud – that is what is stopping many small businesses shifting to Linux.

    I use XP for QuickBooks accounting (with inventory) and Dreamweaver otherwise I am in the cloud with Ubuntu.

    Kompozer has possibility on the website front for Linux.
    Nothing for accounting though that has basic inventory available for Linux.

    A little more whacky idea is music notation software in the cloud – a Finale, Sibelius clone.
    Small user base though.

    Thanks Matt
    S

  36. Kill fake-address-near-the-centroid spam in Google Places.

  37. Two ideas I would look at if I were CEO for a day.

    A simple task (definitely in the small group of people who could do it in a year) would be to develop a way to allow you to merge multiple Google Accounts, that is simple enough for my mother use. For various reasons I have a couple of Google Accounts. It would be nice to be able to merge all of the products from those into one, and keep all of the associated history and info with a single click, (and verify with an email/SMS to the other account) not an export this, import that type of situation which some products allow at this time, and is too difficult for my mother to figure out.

    For a slightly more complicated task, I would look at an Analytics for Public Schools. That way school administrators and parents can easily see what classes and other resources students want (need), see which teachers are better performing (to reward them and/or mentor struggling teachers) and more easily identify struggling students faster, so they can get the additional help they need faster, and not fall so far behind in the system.

  38. I’d be studying apple closely for how to innovate into new markets. google hasn’t managed to diversify much beyond its original core business, while apple is doing that very successfully.

    if this change doesn’t happen, at some point google will turn into microsoft and be a cash printing machine that becomes less relevant every day.

  39. I’ve been thinking about this for some time and it’s an idea a big company like Google could invest in: a new alphabet. I don’t mean a new grammar or new linguistic structures, just new graphical symbols 🙂

    I’m always wondering, how would an alphabet designed to be user-friendly look like? One that would allow you to write more easily by hand and by keyboard. One that would be easier to read, one that was designed for OCR in the first place! I’m picturing humanity in 1000 years and to be honest i don’t think they’ll be using these boring symbols 🙂 Only one favor Matt, if you guys do implement this sometime i want my name in the credits 😀

  40. Commenting bc I tweeted my answer to Matt here. My idea comes from an annoying experience where I was trying to watch some NFL games last Sunday during a tailgate. We were feverishly trying to locate a wireless card to use but nobody had one, and those who did, just warned of the astronomical costs to try and watch 3 hours of a football game online. Basically Google needs to offer nationwide access to a wireless network. From there, they sell inexpensive wireless cards, with an annual fee or a cheap monthly fee (could even be based on usage). I currently pay $45/month for Cable Internet from Comcast, that is only accessible within 50 yards of my apartment. I would IMMEDIATELY cancel my Comcast Internet service for something of this sort, that I could access anywhere on the go. In a few short years, Google could become the sole provider of wireless internet in the US.

  41. Not easy to make it for one day but:
    1) Web based OS, something like Ubuntu, but with a lot of graphics, able to use Photoshop. Not gimp, but real photoshop for about 10 $ /€
    2) Really big learning platform for mathematics and English. These two subjects are cruisial to the planet and every kid or adult should have the right to learn.
    3) Bring Google back to normal- kill instant, kill vertical search, kill the website preview, kill the new picture search. JavaScrip and Ajax are nice, but come on.
    4) Start a personal blog, but very personal, like a diary and encourige Sergei and Larry to do the same. As I saw a video on the internet a few day ago, a guy was explaining that you are very ahead of your time and a lot of people are giving you a hard time because they are afraid of you. So if you write everyday very personally, like “I hate mark”, “I wish the senate could understand me better, or my wife ?” Staff like this. Probably will make people believe you more.
    I really hope you find something useful in the ideas in comments.

  42. I’d love to see Google tackle the Genealogy industry. There are not a lot of contenders in this industry. Ancestry.com is probably leading the pack. But I would love to see a way to do a newspaper search, obituary search, social security death index search, etc where it could pull up all of there datasources but display it in a useful interface. Making it free would be even better. Google wants to index the world’s information, tackle genealogy data next.

  43. Here’s my top 10 list from August 2008. Looks like only #10 has come to fruition. 🙂

    1. Update the mission statement.
    2. Give everyone in the world a computer.
    3. Blanket the globe with free WiFi.
    4. Buy Tivo, Comcast, Spot Runner and Blinkx.
    5. Buy Motorola, JumpTap and Sprint Nextel.
    6. Buy Facebook.
    7. Introduce display ads on the SERPs.
    8. Launch a full-blown marketing campaign.
    9. Poke under the hood of the algorithm.
    10. Google myself, over and over and over and over.

    More in .

  44. Big idea; make access to the internet free!

  45. Make the “historical web” (e.g. Wayback Machine) searchable.

  46. I’m sorry Matt, but I think this question is kind of greasy (although I highly doubt that was the intention).

    My issue is this:
    If someone suggests a truly remarkable idea, something which Google takes and adapts into a full-scale offering, Google (one of the largest companies in the world) is simply poaching this idea from the thread.

    While I believe your intent is the true progress of the internet (through Google… and thus Google monetization) you’re creating the scenario where you (Google) can profit greatly off someone else’s idea, without any commitment or even mention of compensation.

    As we all know, a single idea can be worth a large fortune in the online world. It’s greasy to take other’s ideas, simply because you can, and the people donating the idea might not fully understand the scale or brilliance of what they have come up with.

  47. Great question. This may sound very mundane, but I was thinking this week about Google’s deep pockets and the financial difficulties of Wikipedia. The first thing I would do is find some way to fund Wikipedia so that it can prosper forever. It is one of the best sources of information on the web, and it fits Google’s business perfectly. Whether Wikipedia should get ads is another matter.

    I would also do something about improving Google’s privacy policy. If this isn’t fixed, it’s going to haunt Google in the future. Think: government regulations.

  48. I’d push for Google to become an ISP in Europe, extend as many fiber optics networks as possible.

  49. I think tablets could be huge, i would work out deals with big media outlets, abc/cbs/nbc wall street journal, garnet news etc where they paid to have their apps on your android platform on tablets, this money could be used to supplement the cost of the devices and could drive down the price and make you dominate the market

  50. My plan for GoogleMe, the Facebook killer.

    Think about what the big features of Facebook are, then compare them to Google’s existing products. Lets see what we come up with…

    Facebook News Feed: Google Buzz
    Facebook Events: Google Calendar
    Facebook Messaging: Google Mail
    Facebook Chat: Google Talk, plus Video Chat and Calling capabailities
    Facebook Profile: Google Profile
    Facebook Photos: Picasa
    Facebook Video: YouTube
    Facebook Notes: Blogger
    Facebook Market: Checkout

    So right there we have enough to mimic Facebook with Google’s products. Now lets see what else we can do with the rest of Google’s products…

    Integrate Wave into all commenting aspects to allow for real-time and relevant commenting and conversations (on posts and status updates). Use Goo.gl to shorten all links across the web going to the social site, also allowing the opportunity for shortened vanity links. Allow users to take advantage of Google Sites to professional style Business pages to create a more unique advertising platform for businesses. Auto translate all pages to the users native language to remove language barriers between global users. Also and most importantly, Google has a history of handling sensitive data far more professionally, even across platforms.

    Oh, forget about the rumored Facebook phone, Google’s already got “Google Experience” android phones that could be easily integrated with more advanced social tools.

    This would be my first order of business as the CEO of Google.

  51. Continue the plan of forcing ISP upgrades by rolling out free service. Invest heavily in Midwest wind power and the power grid. Work towards a single high-efficiency pipe (energy/data) model for consumers.

  52. Oh, I forgot about ads….

    Facebook Ads: Google Ads

  53. Google Concierge: it’s the next obvious step in having Google be helpful in organizing people’s lives. GC would act as a virtual personal assistant; helping make reservations, schedule appointments and research travel destinations. GConcierge would be available on a usage or subscription model (by the month, day or hour), and users could delegate varying levels of authority to it. GConcierge would be a mixed service integrating human representatives in the context of a machine managed service offering, so human reasoning could be applied to the fuzzier requests, but the overall service management and follow through would be handled by the software system. Some scenarios: “Book dinner for me and my wife, somewhere near both our workplaces.”; “I have business meetings in Milan and Frankfurt next week; I’ll need flights and hotels and I’d like to do something relaxing and cultural on Wednesday.”; “What’s the best Barbecue on this side of town?”

  54. If I was CEO of Google I would try to make all the datacentres of Google green and set an example for the rest of the world. Google is so incredibly innovating, why not give this a serious try? Oh and I would try to buy Facebook as well 🙂

  55. Augmented reality application with face recognition (tell me who that guy is). Ideally on goggles, but could easily be tested on phones first.

  56. I can see most of the posters here aren’t actual Google users or they would have already posted my suggestion for the CEO which can be summed up in two words:

    CUSTOMER SERVICE

  57. Fully integrated Google desktop/laptop operating system that has native Gmail, Calendar, and Docs integration to seamlesslty work either online or offline and have everything automatically sync up when you connect to the web (like Gears on steroids).

    Most of the product already exists, but I would love it all integrated into one place.

  58. How about helping to push quantum computing forward through investment and attracting the brightest into a research lab? The impact of computing at this scale can bring computers into every aspect of life without having an overt physical presence. The computer would basically always be there without being seen.

    Once this becomes a reality, it completely alters what we think of as a computer. Yeah, we’re a little away from this one (maybe 10 years before commercial systems), but a large amount of progress is being made by researchers. The company that wins this race, wins the next round of high-tech imho.

  59. I would launch an initiative much like Google Books, but for sheet music – hymns and classical being my primary personal areas of interest, but certainly there would be other areas for other people.

    I know there are some hymnals and presumably other songbooks on Google Books now, but if they were split into separate files, with metadata for authors and composers, and perhaps other pertinent data . . . who knows the possibilities?

  60. Alessandro Proscia

    Open days at Googleplex ! What is better that a tour inside Google(ok, I admit it: I want to see your t-rex:-))

  61. Bring back the focus on users, instead of finding ways to use them. Not really a 1- to 20 men show but the title says ‘CEO of Google’ and not some small company nobody has ever heard of 😉

    On a smaller level I’d invest more time/money in creating small(er) verticals. The new Boutiques.com is nice, or at least the idea is. The way it’s done is just really ridiculous…

  62. When I heard self driving car news I thought it was a joke. Self drving car maybe useful several drunk people but data for everyone in the world. For economy, trade. education,future ect. Even compared with each other in my opinion. Google is a interesting boy 🙂

  63. Just read the follow-up. Sorry for the blue sky in my previous comment.

    Much more robust stylesheets in Google Word Processing Docs. I have clients that can’t use the current Docs because they have elaborate formatting in their existing Microsoft Word templates. A middle ground would easily meet their needs.

    Work with browser builders and standards groups to create a printing model where a Canvas can be dumped directly to postscript/printer without having to create a pdf or allowing the browser to add extra elements. (And probably expose methods to get document dimensions and set margins.)

  64. Pay myself a MASSIVE dividend.

    Has to be said 😉

  65. i would create a place for manufacturers to upload their product databases. Much like merchant upload to google products. You allow the manufacturers upload their information.

    There are numerous benefits. Firstly Google can now have standardized information on google product search. Imagine if google new the MPN of a canon camera because canon sent it in.

    Google can share or make that information accessible to retailers through API and or with permission from the manufacturer.

    Talk about organizing the worlds data.

    Ive been in the comparison shopping field for about 10 years. Worked in multi billion $ sales to small mom and pop shops. In electronics, books, home decor etc..

    I think this would be a major major blast

  66. As for a serious suggestion:

    Since we’re talking about BIG projects: better LSI support. Almost to the point where Google can truly understand what a piece of text’s content is about.

    That way backlinks wouldn’t need to be such a major SERP factor, since awesome content would usually win out (or at least, have more weighting in the SERPs).

    So yeah, since Google Search is Google’s main product, I’d go for this: a project which aims to truly understand content.

  67. Adam J. Humphreys

    Hi Matt,

    I also enjoyed your lecture at Pubcon. You’d mentioned if you know where Google is going it’s a lot easier to be successful.

    One of the places I see Google in the future is doing economic forecasts and trend analysis based on social/web trends, with their correlation to financial spikes/drops in stocks/publicly traded companies/commodities. This transparency would make companies more accountable to their stock holders, make them communicate more effectively about what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it. The simplification of economic forecasts and real-time analysis would allow for positive socioeconomic impact the world around. People are paying already paying and subscribing to similar services so it would not be difficult for Google to monetize with relevant aggregate semantic meta-data trending etc. With some of the best analysts and mathematicians in the world at Google this only makes sense.

    I would start with commodities using charts with commonalities between stock history, seasonality, recency and projections based on basic economic formulas. A comprehensive dashboard with trending pertinent topics around that time might make investors more educated about what they might expect and some history rather than blindly investing in potentially irresponsible companies. One of the things that saved the Canadian economy was the banking systems valuations of homes being based on true value not bubble effects. It’s effective communications like this that could prevent world economic bubbles in the future.

    With a nearly 4:1 ratio of cellular to desktop users the voice analytics data for common keywords and questions is becoming more relevant to the communications model all the time. With voice recognition software and Google voice the software would be able to extrapolate common keywords determining topic trends. Voice recognition + Google ID would also give Google the ability to monetize the relevant content extrapolated from users across multiple platforms.

    Google Places enhanced for Google Me (Supposed social platform) where users would be provided relevant interests and events happening in the area they’re in (especially if accessing the site like 4square from a mobile phone). An enhanced market platform for Google ads would lead to much higher conversion rates using profile form meta-data, and aggregate account extrapolated pertinent data. Instead of just Ads Google could tie in Google Base with Google Checkout giving merchants the ability to actually sell directly through Google Me. One of the current setbacks of Google Ads is its inability to expedite the conversion sales funnel. You’d said it yourself Matt that more than two clicks deep is often too much. If we directly connect Google Ads with Base (where ads currently are) for those users going for CTR instead of impressions the ROI for Google would be much higher because of the revenue generated from Google Checkout. If you were really smart you could charge for Google Base feeds to connect through Google Ads, and then the final conversion through also results in further profit with Google Checkout. If you can apply that model I’m pretty confident Google’s revenue will go up quite substantially.

    I don’t have a doctorate, or anything fancy.. just good ideas. The beauty of being an entrepreneur is identifying what you’re good at and what you’re not to get smarter people than yourself to help improve the world around you. “Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Ghandi

  68. Matt;

    Maybe you should offer a prize to the winner, to the project that gets picked. Or pick you top 5 and have people vote for the one they like best.

  69. I’d like to see something like ‘Google Meet’ where individuals and businesses can run effective meetings online (audio, visual, file sharing etc.,) that moves us towards the stage of collaboration without the need for so many journeys for physical meetings. Part environmental, part time saving. I know there are plenty of online webinar providers but all have limitations and I think it’s going to take a company with deep pockets to turn in to a reality for all users.

  70. I would remove Facebook from SERPs

  71. Cross-client, cross-platform video chat.

    #1 priority would be to break down the ridiculous barriers in video chat. I want chat from my iPhone to a PC or android device or a netbook or to a msn user or to a skype user or whatever. Video chat is awesome except anyone you want to chat with is on a different device and/or client.

  72. I’d take the 5 minutes of effort it would take to fix the Google Apps/Gmail/Accounts log in cross-contamination problem.

  73. Take your pick – smaller projects :
    – Revisit Picasa as its feature set is incomplete and outdated (see more here: http://www.istudioweb.com/googles-picasa-to-do-list-wake-up-and-get-it-done-2010-04-16/)
    – Add project management piece to Google Apps (all editions)
    Push Chrome for iPad Create a universal mobile payment platform (a.k.a. Mobile Google Checkout) capable of processing credit cards by swipe/camera scan (or buy Square and improve it).
    – Enable server-side programming on Google Sites

    List of larger projects:
    – Become an ISP with uncapped/unlimited plans so that we can watch online video without thinking “what if I go over quota”
    – Lobby for uncapped/unthrottled mobile broadband plans – for the same reasons mostly
    – Make school and college tuition materials available online for free or low flat fee. There’s a huge amount of information that should and could be made available – yet is impossible to find. This will help not just domestic (US) educational efforts, but mostly will make this information available to students in countries that lack such access (think third world, Africa, etc.)
    – Take over Wikileaks project

  74. I would like to add my vote and expand on Lauren’s suggestion – an ombudsman group to be able to escalate reinclusion requests and other Google issues.

    Sounds like you have heard it Matt “Lauren’s suggestion are the sorts of things I’d love to hear.”

    A client website homepage is cached, but unique content on that page is not able to be found using a google search. Several reinclusion requests, and posts on the webmasters help forum have not managed to get the issue resolved. I have seen the issue with other sites. Mostly the cause of it is webmaster error, but once the cause is corrected, the switch needs to be turned of by Google. On one site, a reinclusion request was successful. My clients issue should have similarly been able to be resolved.

    We need some way to be able to escalate such requests, and no issue with it being a paid service. Account managers for SEO’ers that have passed some sort of training/examination procedure so that escalations are based on valid things. The reinclusion team must get 999/1000 reinclusion requests that are fixable by the webmaster, with that 1/1000 being lumped with the rest. We need a place that the 1/1000 can be escalated.

    If there were specialist third parties registered for each Google niche (having passed examinations like currently with Google Adwords Certified Partner and Google Analytics Certified Partner) that such problems could be sent to. And those people then had Google case managers that could be escalated to for real problems… Then you would have a scalable multi-language solution, and Google would get less of the 999/1000 issues.

  75. Retire and take up a crack addiction!

  76. I have 3 ideas:
    1)Provide street view in subways. I want to know where to turn before I go in the subway station so I do not become lost.
    2) provide domain names cheaply. Provide a way to integrate with adwords so the adwords profit goes to pay for the domain name.
    3)Brian’s idea from above but add a way to pay people money to buy routers to extend the network further.

    If any of these ideas are used please email me.

  77. Open Source Textbooks

    Reducing the cost of education and increasing access to knowledge.

  78. found the Google State.

    without land, without borders. some discrete facilities spread around the world.

    Just like The Knights of Malta.

    they are sovereign without being a nation.

    count me as citizenship cert number one!

  79. If I were the CEO of Google, I’d demand the “Google Places” department to police the listings and remove the fake and keyword stuffed listings.

  80. Adam J. Humphreys

    I neglected to mention one thing about Google Checkout is to keep the credit card rates to merchants low. One of the most annoying factors for webpreneurs is making super competitive markets like electronics viable online due to high payment gateway fees. Google has the muscle and flexibility to negotiate some seriously good rates to make it the preferred platform to use. The simplicity of an ecommerce platform for merchants with xml feeds from wholesalers etc with rates you could set would be a welcomed thing on the market. Currently there’s very few ecommerce platforms that work well and do all the things Google is asking for. Imagine the power of an ecommerce platform that Google could easily tie into etc and charge a residual fee for. It’s a lot easier to sell to existing customers than it is for first time buyers.

  81. Hi i´m luiz from brasil, sorry for my english… 🙁

    Well, I think IF someday social media will become bigger than google… I thought why google don’t insert in the customized search (when you’re logged on) comment´s from what you think about that site you already visit and you can see the comments your friends do about the same site.

    Maybe this is the way google can start a new social network from the current tool. :d

    Regards.

  82. Google Bank
    A new Google currency
    Google loans and mortgages
    Google savings
    Google Law

  83. Since I am not that technical and tend to be more practical, I would like to see Google Docs improved (especially the excel spreadsheet functionality). At times, I have trouble uploading files, formatting changes, desiring Excel functionality that doesn’t exist, creating folders, etc.

    Another suggestion would be to improve Gmail. Headings for the columns, preview pane, ability to customize the columns, move them…I just have a very hard time finding old emails and typically have to type in a search query to track down a specific email.

    These are not ‘earth-shattering’ ideas but ones I’d like to see in 2011.

    Elaine

  84. 1. Deemphasize the importance of backlinks (a bit).
    2. Tell web developers the reason(s) why their sites were deindexed.

  85. Let the Google Docs Mobile edition EDIT and SAVE on Any Mobile Phone (Android, Blackberry, Iphone, Sony, Samsung ETC)

  86. Cure cancer.

  87. I would make a new mobile device and call it G-Buddy, which is a smart mobile device that you keep with you all the time, this devices collects different sorts of data about you such as your location, what you do, where you go, what you like and what you don’t like, so basically it is your buddy that knows everything about you.

    What you could do with your G-Buddy?

    – Plug to your PC and have a customized experience for you
    – Plug to any mobile phone and call your friends on their mobiles
    – Make it wake you up in the morning on time
    – Plug to your car and it will play the right music for your mode

    G-Buddy will not only use information it collects about you and put it in your online digital private profile but it will also use public information about things, people, places, to help you take decisions and make your life easier.

  88. Google was created with the aim of researching the information. Now Google is also involved in creating the information and entered the Operating System world with Android, Chrome and with the next Chrome OS.
    I as Google CEO I was thinking information management capabilities (what is sought can be viewed without leaving Google) and better tools for information creation (very visual web page editor no longer need to write the html code, new generation of httpserver; that offer web services installed natively like a plugin and allow the visual site creation such a cms).
    This new vision of the web would allow Google to become the center of interest and development of all things, and would open new frontiers of business: new google code repocitory; remote visual development environments; new features spread across the network and it installed directly on httpserver as a native windows software; all web pages would be indexed in real time.
    With this new vision of the Web, the current browser and the current httpserver must be rethought because they represent the prehistory.
    What do you think Matt, do you want to propose my candidacy to the Board as CEO 😉

  89. I would transform Google Voice into a tool that would eliminate cell phone bills for everyone. Maybe that would take creating a Google Phone…not run through a carrier ie.. Verizon At&t

  90. I would sell off every business unit that didn’t have to do with search, and put all that extra man/womanpower into figuring out how to really and truly show the best search results, rather than the most spammed results.

  91. I like what Todd Mintz suggested about creating a searchable wayback machine. What ever happened to that link where you could search Google like it was 1999?

    Also mentioned, was customer service, I’d make that priority number one and I’d focus on educating Americas small businesses on Place pages and local search. I get hammered with Google marketing mail/email regularly and I honestly still cannot tell the difference (in some cases) between genuine marketing from Google, from that of scammers. I have no idea how the average small business owner differentiates real from fake inquiries.

  92. Two words – Google implants.

  93. “My” Objects Search Engine

    Thank you, Matt, to give us a voice !

    Most of us would dream of a search engine to find our cars key, wallet, last magazine, daughter’s teddy bear before bed time, pull over ands administrative papers, etc… at home, in cars, at work

    Well… it’s crazy I guess, but I’m sure Google’s genius may open the way !

  94. More feedback for webmasters on google webmasters site. Like real info, list penalties, etc.

  95. You know Matt, I, being the techno idiot that I am, would like to see improvement in search options. If I request a search, it will give me about 100,000 options. I type in exactly what I am looking for and get a lot of paid advertiser spam before anything that can answer my question. I use Google a lot for Smartphone problem issues that run the Google system on them and getting answers to the questions is sometimes not easy. If you are going to have your Google software run a phone, make the problem solving easier to get to. Saves me time and my customer frustration. I have no clue how to make the internet work so this is my ONLY suggestion.

    Thanks for asking. Raeanne

  96. I would go a step further for businesses. And especially the google docs side. Right now Google wants to be an alternative for the docs. Why not go a step further?

    Google should be the first in robotics too. I want iRobot for real. 🙂
    I think we’ll need to wait another 5 year for that.

  97. If I were CEO of Google I would develop a Google Apps ‘Database’ application that could front end the sources of data a user has in the cloud. Simplify feeding of data to and from other Google apps providing a central knowledge repository for users/businesses information with reporting and sharing tools – and I’m talking about something that doesn’t require Google Spreadsheet API knowledge to operate.

  98. I would give every Google employee in the world a day of. Give everybody a yellow post-it paper block and let every employee ask the common people on the street exactly the same question you just asked me.
    Al the answers should be collected in a database – and now you a different kind of answers. These answers is worth much more than you can imagine.

    Mart!n

  99. Bring back NexusOne and this time do it right!

  100. Buy a small country and move Google out of the US.

  101. Buy, compete or integrate dropbox.com into Google-Apps (maybe also in Gmail).

  102. Something around improving personalisation for travel, like flights, hotels, car rentals, entertainment, etc would be good (the conceirge service idea above is a good one).

    ….I’m also still waiting for my Back to the Future hover-board, so sorting that out would be next on the list 🙂

  103. Making politics more understandable to the masses is more important than ever now that we are so overwhelmed with media spin. How about a Google Politician Rank? You could rank politicians for all their promises, expose all their political alliances, list benefactors and lobbyists and rank them according to effectiveness, honesty and reliability.

  104. After his next trip to Iraq or Afghanistan come to Istanbul/Ankara to meet with Turkish politicians. Help us to get Android Market, Google Maps and Streetview.

  105. Education big time!

    With the resources Google has at their disposal, they really can transform this ancient and largely outdated higher education system, particularly in the arts. Why do students still have to pay huge amounts of money to sit in overcrowded lectures with no chance to engage with the content? Why is higher education being shrunk in content while the price tag explodes? Why does meeting diversity goals mean dumbing education down to the lowest common denominator and dragging underachievers along without actually catering for the needs of a diverse student body? Why standardising degrees when individualising them would be more appropriate?

    Instead I’d love to see something driven by participation in the spirit of Open Source. Education is about acquiring knowledge, knowledge equals information. Google is all about harnessing the power of the connected world to organise information and make it useful. Universities (I’m speaking particularly as a design student) are no longer innovating, they’re struggling to play catch up. There must be a way to create something new, something user-driven, free, open, inclusive and relevant. Combining all the existing and powerful education tools (Google scholar, Google books, etc.) and creating a virtual institution that advocates and nurtures vital principles such as collaboration and interdisciplinarity, preferably tightly involving the industry, would be really exciting. It’s needed so badly.

  106. My biggest gripe with Google is the huge lack of customer support for Google products outside of AdWords & AdSense (which have dedicated customer service reps obviously since they directly generate revenue). However, the Google Webmaster Help Forum is not very helpful since most of the top responders are not Google employees. Oftentimes, many valid questions go unanswered. And while a lot of the “top” posters do provide correct answers for basic questions, most of them are not officially affiliated with Google and sometimes their guess is just as good as anybody else’s and in fact, could be just flat out wrong.

    For example, I agree with Will’s point above that Google should tell webmasters exactly why their websites were de-indexed after submitting a reconsideration request. The generic response that somebody at Google has manually reviewed the site and may or may not add it back to the index eventually sometime in the unknown future or to point them back to the Webmaster Guidelines or Help Forum to try and guess why the site was banned in the first place is frustrating! It could easily be solved by either offering detailed responses or by having some way to contact an actual human being employee at Google. And it’s not just webmaster support, but there are thousands of similar complaints across the web about lack of customer support for products like GMail.

    I understand that Google is a huge company and would probably get flooded with questions, but every other major company in the world has at least some kind of human customer support available so that’s not a good excuse. A phone number, email address, live chat, etc. with an actual Google employee would be 100x better than just simply pointing users to a never ending loop of FAQs and Help Forums.

    And I think the bigger Google gets, the more important it is to establish a solid reputation as having quality customer service.

  107. 1) Get something better going for “customer service” increasingly with the help services and Groups being migrated to help services that often cannot be easily found it seems that Google is taking the Microsoft approach of: “if we hide well enough no one will ask…” good interaction breed good vibes, poor gains lots of ill will..
    2) I’d like a Mint-like service for managing finances (with a small amount of sm business capability (a few invoices)
    3) Combine Sites and Blogger. It is silly to have such parallel products with so much overlap that cannot come together..
    4) I agree with one other for some sort of Google apps DB system beyond Spreadsheets..

  108. First order of business would be to change all the fonts over to Copperplate Gothic Bold. Second, would be to have everyone in the company working on all the disparate projects lock themselves into a room until they figured out how to communicate internally between product teams. Then I would provide a way for users who don’t fit into the rigidly defined help sections that never seem to work in my case to talk with someone who actually is there to help. Especially with critical services where downtime literally means whether your business survives or not.

  109. Hey Matt!
    I would love to see the amazing analytics tools provided be Google combined into 1 spot. Specifically Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics and the stats on Google Places and pull in the Google Trends so you can see what’s going on and how whatever is being tracked fits into that mix – all-in-1 analytics data.

    (mmm data) 🙂

  110. Another idea: Bus MGM or another film studio and push global online video distribution.

  111. @ stephen vardy

    Grand idea (pardon the pun) – Google Accounting could be integrated with Checkout which I use as much as possible through my gmail.com

  112. Learning efficiency is an area I’m convinced there’s a lot that can be done. What new exciting ways are there of presenting various subjects such that the reader or viewer will understand and remember it better? For example, I like the thinking behind the Rosetta Stone language classes, though I’m not sure that is as efficient as they claim.

  113. Anything analytics based to give webmasters more / better data would be good

  114. Matt,

    Google needs to dump all its distractions. All the talk in the comments here about solving energy problems and green issues is pure crap. Its way outside the companies core competency. Google does search. Anything that falls outside that is off the table. Google needs to find new ways to advertise outside of traditional and adwords. Its needs a new adsense. Google is too engineering centric – its too heavily focused on the product side on engineering and PhD thought. Its creates too much group think and missed opportunities are clearly abundant. The current team is not going to solve Google’s massive black hole in the social media space or figure out a way to reach outside of the algorithm and add a human or crowd source element to the SERP.

    All the best.

  115. e-Government. Transparency on government can only be achieved if data is available, searchable and understandable. Google know how to do it very well. I would love to see, for example, an Augmented Reality application on my Nexus One showing how much money was spent on a hospital during the past couple of years, which senators voted for and against it, etc.

    I believe this is simple enough to be done in a few weeks, but big enough to make a difference. If people get used to look at government data, they will enhance the sense of community, and hopefully make the world a better place.

  116. 1) Add heatmap support to Google Analytics
    2) Add user demographics support (age, gender, etc) to Google Analytics based on Google Profile
    3) Add the ability to purchase hi res Google Maps photos

  117. A nationwide, mostly ad-hoc, wireless mesh network

  118. Free Marketing

    I would make a project/software that will cut costs with advertising (possibly for advertising to become obsolete), save time for everyone and help to bring in front innovations or free products from young people.
    So how it works: there will be something like a web directory/torrent tracker in which anyone can submit his website – it is important to be the main/big one in the whole world. The ranking of the websites to be done by how many unique people bookmark that website, instead of number of visits. (dont thing about digg or the likes, those are not web directories)
    – the main idea is that people who give first something for free to be able to rank up quicker because they will have more followers. The idea is for people to start giving and sharing and ranking up so doing. Selling can still be a part of distributing goods/services and the more we get closer to a circle of gifts, the more wealthier we become without the need of “debt money”.

    I really believe this idea can improve the world!

  119. Productize Google’s data set and data processing infrastructure in synergy with GAE to spawn an entirely new cambrian explosion of data-driven web applications.

    We are already seeing a huge land rush for data-driven web applications as the software (Hadoop ecosystem) and infrastructure (cloud/elastic computing) for processing large data sets continues to mature. However having Google move in to a space like this would do a couple of very interesting things:

    1.) Throw a ton of fuel on the fire as another big name gets serious about the commoditized big data processing space. There’s a ton of contribution in this space from lots of the big players (Yahoo vis a vis Cloudera, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) but Google seems conspicuously absent from these contributions even though it really is the grandfather of them all.

    2.) Allow Google to have a de facto “first right of refusal” when it comes to people doing very innovative things with their infrastructure and data set. There’s been a lot of rumbling about how now that Google is a big company it is hard to innovation to come internally. This is why Google instead must continually snap up companies for a couple million bucks a pop. Well, if you get new data-driven startups building on your data and infrastructure stack it makes it that much easier to keep up with them and bring them on if they catch fire.

    Selfishly, my company is one of these “big data” start ups and being able to leverage google’s data and/or infrastructure would be a huge boon to my business. Instead I’m having to re-invent the wheel when it comes to data assimilation, storage, and processing. All things I know Google is best in the world at. I know I would pay fair price to have access to the same tools and data your engineers have access to and I’m sure many, many others around the world would do the same.

    -Zach Bailey
    Co-Founder, Dataclip.com

  120. Great question Matt!

    Gmail tells me that Google has figured out how to identify SPAM with a very high accuracy. If I were CEO of Google I would make ridding the world of SPAM job one.

    First, I would make some easily usable form of Google’s anti-spam technology and resources available to every ISP and every publisher of email server/client related software.

    Second, I would institute a much stricter guidelines on what is allowed in the Google search index with a very low tolerance for spammy web sites.

    Third, I would spare no expense in starting, funding, and fighting the extraordinarily wasteful time, energy and bandwidth that email SPAM is consuming.

    I am frankly amazed that Google isn’t doing these things, BTW.

    Keith DeLong

  121. 1. Create opensource voting software and generally modernize voting – text to vote, NFC to vote, etc…. and provide the platform to make sure people are accountable.
    2. Google spacecraft to Mars – I mean, come on.. some 40 years ago we went to the moon using a computer with the memory of a calculator.
    3. Geo-fencing ads

  122. I would publish all of the Google algorithm factors that are directly related to the improvement of a user experience on a website, like you guys did with Page Speed.

    I would still keep the “PageRank” like factors that provide better results for users and a better understanding of sites to the Google Bot. But users don’t care about PR when they are on a page.

  123. If I was the CEO of Google I would fund projects trying to find or create substitutes for important chemical elements that the earth is (probably relatively soon) running out of, e.g:

    a) helium[1] – used e.g. in nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectroscopy, welding, fiber optics and computer microchip production
    b) lithium[2,3] – used in e.g. batteries (e.g. electric and plugin hybrid cars) and medicine
    c) terbium[4] – used e.g. in low energy lights
    (and plenty of other rare metals)

    [1] http://www.science20.com/news_releases/next_on_the_endangered_list_helium
    [2] http://gigaom.com/cleantech/what-the-looming-lithium-squeeze-means-for-electric-car-batteries/
    [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_pharmacology
    [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terbium

  124. Adam J. Humphreys

    In regards to the above removing SPAM. I’d expedite the removal of the heavy weight of keywords in domains as the result has made for a great many domain squatters and spammy generated content sites which have no search value.

  125. – Start providing registrar and hosting services to everybody.

    – Offer Google Check Out to the WORLD! Adsense and Adwords are huge, why not providing some sort of Google Paypal and allow everybody to use it.

    – Integrate Google account in all the popular sites Itunes, Facebook, etc…

    – But most importantly get back to what google is all about, great search results for users! Too much spam lately, forum profiles and posts from .Edu and .Gov domains are still controlling the SERPS and nobody is fixing this! It has been a problem for years now… You are downgrading “gray hat” sites and not banning “hardcore black hat” redirects, if a site is hacked and doesn’t fix the hijack or redirect promptly it should be banned or downgraded immediately, it doesn’t matter if it is a .edu, .org or .edu, if the webmasters from Harvard (for example) can’t secure their site properly that it shouldn’t have the “weight and importance” it has!

    I love google as a search engine and for all the amazing services you provide, but if you don’t get back to what made you great people will eventually stop using you!

  126. I would create a seed fund that give early stage startups both cash and an office in one of the buildings set aside for such a purpose on the campus. However, because the cash is given in exchange for equity that is essentially under the control of a tech giant, I would include an option for the the founders to buy back those shares during future rounds of funding. That way Google can essentially keep a number of small promising startups incubating in their back yard without the startups feeling like they are nailed down.

  127. Plain and simple.

    I would be true to what I say in conferences and not do otherwise, but most importantly will actually tell the world what Google is seeking, which is world media domination.

    I would not try to pose as a transparent and open company and will actually tell the world, I will give you everything for free, as long as I know everything about you and make a profit doing it.

    I would change my motto for what it actually is, which is don’t be un-evil.
    any comments

    Anyway, Google will be acquired in about 15 years 😉

    apuvail@aol.com

  128. Google gets it right 99% of the time so it’s hard for me to point fingers at any one thing. However, if I were CEO of Google, I’d do three things….

    a) Data Liberation would be built into projects before they launch. Part of Google’s charm is it often makes better “free” products than paid ones–let people decide what should be done with their data. Personally, I think there should be a “Kill Switch” built into Data Liberation where one click and it wipes out all of your data from all Google services. Something like…. I click the kill switch and it takes 72 hours to take effect–that window of time is more of a remorse period rather than a necessity.

    b) Privacy disclosures would be in the vernacular, not written for a lawyer. More videos (minus young hipsters) would be ideal.

    c) Offer scholarships for people in the Humanities. Sure it’s nice that Google does a TON of stuff for CompSci students but people in the humanities love Google too. Google Books and Scholar are two of my favorite things about Google–I’d like to see more done to support education, especially in the Humanities.

  129. jetpack technology

  130. First thing: I would hunt down all spammers i meet in my surf ( maybe i would improve the actual software that google use to detect spammers) and second i would hunt down site made just for adsense.
    I think there are much more things to do/improve but i can’t think about it right now, i need some time to think about, maybe i will write a new comment tom.

    have great day,

  131. Partner with a great H/W company (such as HP) and build a great geeks Laptop, nicely equipped and polished, full ChromeOS backed, Google labeled, etc

  132. Buy Twitter

  133. I had a couple more ideas:

    1) Google Media Library: Start with Picassa add in music, video and other media organization. Then, let my Picassa share what it has with my wife’s and other computers on my home network.

    2) Partner with cable and sattelite providers to have Google Tv on the actual cable box… Basically, like android is to cell phones, Google Tv should be to set top boxes.

  134. Information so valuable that people pay money just to see it (like Lexis Nexis, Bloomberg, Edgar, etc.) is largely absent from Google’s index, and often very hard to search. Find a way to make them googleable but still monetizable where necessary (Lexis Nexis does take a lot of manual work to build).

  135. Fernando (noteca)

    Wow! 🙂 I’d like to have a Social Media Reputation analytics tool, integrated with Google Analytics. This is not a very very big idea, but it would maje easier monitoring a business or brand reputation on blogs, forums, blogs, twitter, Facebook…

    A bigger idea… Uhmm, What about a tool for social coordination in emergencies, a hub of tweets, Facebook friends messages, news, posts.., all the interesting information for you & all the community affected, organized. With colaborating tools for organizations, volunteers, people who want to help. Mobile and web. And maybe some kind of internet wifi for the affected area. Today when this dissasters happens, the radio is the only tool that keep people informed and create some kind of organization.

  136. Offer all the best schoolbooks available online.
    Add user improvements.
    Add interactive learning experiences.
    Build tools that enables every child to learn everything they need to know.

    No fancy stuff around – no major overachievment. Just plain straight forward good information.

  137. Cyber hosting in space with no-restricted wireless support all around world to access net “hard disk”, drivers, apps etc. and all that based on web.

  138. The answer is Google Rail — high speed trains from coast to coast in festive primary colors. Unobtrusive text advertising would be displayed throughout the cabin and on outdoor signs along the routes.

  139. Acquire Intuit.

  140. To speed up the websites using google products, I would tell the AdSense, Analytics, etc. teams to work together and have their scripts optimized, reduced in numbers and merged to remove the redundancies.

    Even Page Speed (!) is complaining if you use AdSense and/or Analytics (Too many domains/http requests, too many js files, etc.) .

    Facebook has done that work for their giant js files (that each team were making heavier) with great success! Can you? 🙂

  141. 1. STOP with the social network experiments. Or consider trying to acquire Twitter. It really is cool site. (Integrate into Gmail right away while still offering it as a standalone site) For the most part, I believe this social media trend will eventually fade away.

    2. Ask people to submit ideas for 20 % time projects: I am sure the end users can come up with some really innovative stuff.

    Example: I was on an airplane the other day and thought lets see if google maps can find my current location. It had no clue where I was. I believe GPS data could be tied into the WIFI on the airplane and it would be cool to:

    A. Drop pins of my current location to zoom in and explore where i flew over earlier in the day.

    B. Perhaps show interesting items over the projected trajectory of the flight path. Example: If I was flying from Las Vegas to Florida: Google maps could show this route along with points of interest along the way.

    3. Un-fragment Android: Remove control from the phone vendors and make them all launch your OS updates on the same date. (Perhaps this would require separating and software settings so a company like Verizon can rip of the end user for an additional fee for MIFI)

    4. Acquire a company like Carbonate or build in similar functionality into Google docs. If the end game is to eventually get everyone to the cloud… this must be done in small steps.

    Step #1 is getting the data into to the cloud.

    5. Offer an “Export all data to a PST” option in Gmail. I would never want to leave Gmail… but some people might. It is very “Microsoft like behavior” to not offer your end users a method of leaving your service with their data if they choose to. Offer the best product and they will never want to leave.

    6. Offer real-time updates on the Google Apps Dashboard. Whoever is in charge of this is not updating this fast enough. If there is ever an issue it usually require me to call Google… Wait… get an email with an explanation 4 hours later…. then about 3 days later a blurb is posted on the dashboard saying that 3 days earlier there was an issue… (See Captain Hindsight reference from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_2:_Hindsight)

    Joe

  142. Things I would do if I were Google CEO:
    – Launch a hardware research initiative. Question the von neummann architecture

  143. I agree with Mark Collier, I think that’s a great idea. I would encourage people to optimise their website to give Google as much information about their topic and give recommendations so they can improve their visibility for keywords related to their topic of authority. This can be implemented in Google Webmaster Tools, in a similar way to the Page Speed suggestions.

  144. Google Distributed Computing. Google has lots of users, Google should make use of those users and compensate them [both monetary and non].

    From the user perspective, part of the account options allows a user to specify if they would like to contribute unused processor cycles to Google’s distributed computing platform. If they choose to do so, they can browse the Google Distributed Computing catalog, which lists all of the available computing projects [example: seti@home, human genome]. The catalog lists the projects, brief descriptions, and monetary reward for processor cycles. Ie, 0.001/workUnit of processing [pricing to be determined based on workUnit which is based on 1ghz cpu/second. A ratio is used to convert wu to faster/slower processor speeds. A chart indicating how many WU’s can be achieved per hour based on common CPU’s is available to help users decide what to support]. For not-for-profit computing projects the monetary value is zero of course. However, in order to encourage the good nature of the human spirit, a non monetary reward is offered, processing points. Processing points are categorized by commercial/noncommercial tags. The processing points are used for leader boards and general show boating. A social API is provided to poll user statistics like how many projects users are involved in, how much processing time has been devoted, and even funds earned [if approved by the user to be accessed].

    From the business perspective: Using the Google Distributed Computing API, the company produces a program that can be processed on the GDC platform. The program will pull data from a “stack” of work to process if: a. there is work in the stack to be done, and b. there are funds left to afford more processing. The API is sand boxed for security of course, allowing the program to perform required processing but exclude it from accessing the user file system [except for a work directory]. The company then uploads the program to the GDC catalog, and loads their account with funds for processing. Note: funds are only required if the job is listed as a commercial project–non commercial projects do not require funds to process and instead require volunteer processing. An API is provided to add work to the stock, and retrieved processed results [which can also be done through the catalog control panel].

    Briefly mentioned already, is the API used to generate programs for the GDC platform–it should be noted there are two main versions of the API. The full and lite versions. Full version is for computing solutions targeted towards desktop processing. Generally solutions require a lot of time and processing power. Lite version is designed for creating solutions that can be run in JavaScript as web solutions. Computing projects that have lite implementation will be run on the Google home page and or Gmail [pretty much any web based Google service–you can opt to have a piece of work chunked when you load a page], when ever they are loaded [IF the user has specified this option in their profile].

  145. Things I would do if I were Google CEO:
    – Launch a hardware research initiative. Question the von neummann architecture. Google’s engineers and researchers are constantly going down the technology stack, questioning everything and rebuilding (sometimes even from scratch) increasingly lower levels of computer systems. Google already has a browser, two operating systems and a language to it’s name. If the web really is the platform of the future (and native client lives up to it’s promise), maybe it’s time to allow a rethink of the basics: given today’s process sizes you can put memory very close to processing cores. Maybe there should be explicit memory (not cache) close to the core in addition to memory outside of the core? Maybe there should be new hardware systems which allow an array of specialized cores to communicate efficiently (say, traditional super-scalar pipeline, GP/GPU and DSP cores – like IBM’s cell). Since google’s systems is probably heavy on thread and process communication (Go’s Go routines and channel are a nice step in this direction) maybe the hardware should support it natively?

    – I strongly agree with the banking initiative. Google could just buy/invest in banksimple.com

    – Initiatives in education: Connect students with teachers, help form study groups. Harvest and organize education information (help finding content on a general subject X).

    – For a large revenue bump of Google Ads: Add a free service for chatting and live web site monitoring for e-commerce web sites. Live chat is known and proven across many industries to add significantly to conversion rates. This could very lucrative for Google since higher conversion rates could lead to larger advertising budgets on the internet. This could then be linked to (possibly interactive?) Android and Google TV ads.

    – integrate with/build/buy wolframalpha

  146. First, I’d reduce the barrier of entry on Google products. Currently, most business service type things (think Google Apps) turn away many potential businesses (including myself) that have sought cooperative efforts for no other reason than the 1000+ users I could bring to them “isn’t enough”. That’s just silly.

    Second, I’d increase the number and availability of support staff at Google. For one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world, they’re sure not big on answering questions. Have you ever tried using a generic name and asking for help with a Google product? You’ve got better chances of being struck by lightning on a clear day.

  147. Hey Matt, great question 🙂

    First of all I’d keep Google doing what it’s doing. I think (despite all the doomsayers) Google’s not in bad shape.

    Next I’d do some more work around the Internet of Things – enabling better understanding of real-time data, getting more sensors online (and new novel sensors). I think Google’s history in big data would mean Google would bring something really interesting to the IoT.

    Second I’d push technology in Government – now this sounds like a ‘big idea’ that you said you didn’t want, but I think there many specific thinks I’d like to see improved in government that Google could help with. First I’d change up technology/IT teaching to be much more programming focused (Over here in the UK we’re taught how to be good office minions with Microsoft Office). Then I’d push like crazy to open up Government data, all of it, and in machine readable formats.

    That’s the big things for me… It’s cool to see so many comments

  148. I would build a payment solution for online payments in India!

  149. 1. G-Drive (as some people have called it) — Cloud based Google Storage that anyone with a Gmail account can use, like Dropbox. I think this could be standalone or an addon to Gmail.

    2. Radio — A music service where people can listen to radio based on likes/dislikes of bands and/or songs. This would replace what used to be Launchcast. It could be ad supported.

    3. Job Search — Could be an aggregator of job sites (Monster, Careerbuilder, HotJobs, Dice, etc.) that can identify and take out the headhunter postings (or provide an option for them) and/or scams. Or, this could be Google run, where the results are not aggregated, either way.

    4. ERP – You already have some of the tools for this. But, this could be a big hit for [small to medium] businesses who see some of the traditional ERP systems far too hard, too expensive, or too time consuming to setup and use. This would also encourage the use of other Google items like Google Docs.

    There’s probably more that can be done, but those are the first that came to mind, and I think a team of 1-20 Googlers could do this. The ERP one may take a little longer, but would be solid.

    -Aaron

  150. 1/ Economic/environment modelling platform – design a data exchange mechanism that allows creating ecological and econometric models by plugging together, for example, a demographers data model for population, and an epidemiologists model for disease spread; this should be extensible to smaller modelling problems, relying on experts to deliver (potentially paid) data model “black boxes”. Suitable major ideas would also involve genome=>proteome modelling; drug activity modelling; social policy modelling; farm output optimisation. Modelling units should define inputs, outputs and possible alternate interior data connections. Users clip together models and data sets…

    2/ Reduce spam in search listings – cut AdSense to a fraction of the current program (think of it as data liberation)

    3/ LEO X Prize (Low Earth Orbit, not just the edge of space)

    4/ Serious robotics kits for kids – make Lego look like a toy (partner with Lego: more sensors, more effectors, more power, smarter modular systems). Sponsor genuinely global competitions with level platform e.g. RoboCup/Junior.

    5/ Sponsor DNI Research initially for impaired users – direct neural interfaces, starting with vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell for people with those impairments.

    6/ Extend Google Analytics to allow third party data sources – e.g. call tracking, CRM

  151. As others have mentioned, Education. There appears to be a huge opportunity for someone like Google to undercut the overpriced education system. Create a program, buy and integrate sources like Khan Academy if necessary, put it all under Google University, make it free, then charge for exams which are required to earn the accredited Google University BS/BA/whatever. Or figure out some other appropriate, cash-flow positive business model.

    Google University would have more pedigree than sketchy first-movers like University of Phoenix, it would fit very well with your heavily academic-oriented corporate culture, it would indeed change the world (especially if you made it all multilingual and offered it everywhere), it’s very scalable once you get all the material in place and translated, hard to pirate/cheat if you charge only for the exams and the degree while making the content free.

    You could even set up a system where online tutors who have already passed the courses can provide help to students taking them, and figure out an Adsense-like profit sharing algorithm to pay them.

    Whatever the details, there’s a clear opportunity to undercut the modern education system that puts people in debt the rest of their lives. If you can figure out how to deliver high quality, government-accredited degrees, for half the cost of the modern system, then scale it to most of the world, you could make a mint and improve the world.

  152. I would make Google search more semantically aware.

    Google can calculate rankings for web sites and web pages very well. I would focus on a product to go beyond page ranking.

    This new product would identify all people, places, objects, companies, products, and any other entities. Similar to pagerank, this product should rank all entities in their own semantic classification. Ranking of countries, cities, artists, movies, products, companies, anything. That’s possible, without deep diving into the academic caves about ontology.

    This is not something comparable to ranking of the related keywords, it’s not only about the context.

    Google is Google because it can search very well. But the web is getting larger, older and dirty every new day. The future will be about searching the meaning.

  153. Google must question it’s “pull” only logic. http://goo.gl/4BZMU. Today the push technology is better.

    Google must pick its fights. As of now it seems to be picking up fights in non relevant industry players. http://goo.gl/LI5M

    Google must get into credit card business and acquire payment gateways.

  154. 1. Find a way to render completely & totally harmless all of the nuclear waste on the planet and do so without creating pollution or ancillary damages / harm; when complete, the nuclear waste might as well be dirt or rocks.

    2. Create and distribute globally a super-inexpensive, super-ingenious, super-compact, totally non-polluting device that allows anyone to generate a year’s worth of energy from a small rock, clump of dirt, or few drops of water; it’s important that this device us some super-plentiful existing substance so that that substance does not become commoditized. The idea here is that energy is plentiful, cheap, non-polluting creating energy so cheap it might as well be free.

  155. MATRIX AI computer.
    I always think that with such plenty of information and the current intelligence systems, google can make a real MATRIX AI governing the whole world soon….

  156. Some thoughts:

    Sync our accounts to maps. For example, if I’m logged in and do a Google Map search on my CPU, this should auto-port to my default search on my cell phone for speed.

    Other map improvements: Have the ability to opt in to an “auto adjust” feature, when you’re doing maps and you get a certain amount off-course, Google would auto-correct to “current location” so that you don’t have to look down at your phone in traffic and cause an accident.

  157. Buy Tivo and set it free. Integrate the best of Google TV with the Tivo software. Great service, but not worth $13 or $20/month. Would you pay a subscription for your DVD player?

  158. I would order a massive push forward of YouTube live and its monetization. Then invite (entice via revenue share), all publicly funded education institutes to start live streaming their classes and lectures to “anyone, anywhere”. No borders, no Geo-blocking or any other exclusivity crap, if they want exclusivity they can pay for it.

    Then I’d release Gingerbread.

  159. MC:

    Among the the first six hours’ ideas, I’d most appreciate 1) access to a lightweight non-Ajax Google, 2) one-time integration of multiple Google accounts, and 3) a means of escalation to an independent, live human being at Google. (The last especially to address obscure AdWords abuse. It yanks straight up dollars out of my pocket — as much as 50% of a given campaign — yet Google pretends it’s valid, no matter how much convincing data I submit: that’s a big, bad mistake.)

    Those leave me… twenty people for eleven months, right? 😉

    With that crew, let me find and manage online “connections” — social and personal — that are purely data-driven. If you’re gonna kill Facebook, you may as well take over the online dating universe in the same stroke! Trust me, man — it’s exactly the same problem.

    For several years, I’ve been documenting online dating’s sorry state of affairs (no pun intended 😉 Online dating sites suck — especially the Chemistry/Match and eHarmony models, which assume they know what you want. (And yet, they have the reputational high ground, primarily because they “claim” to validate their users. Hahaha… don’t get me started!) With Psych PhD’s running the show (and thus little technical juice from the top), the sites and structures are burdened with marginal designs, kludgy interfaces, and virtually no quality control. Some search results are truly random — no matter how well you specify your interests.

    OKCupid definitely has a technical clue, but I fear they won’t to scale well while free of charge. PoF has speed and bulk, but Markus is chained to a boundlessly unattractive audience. (He might win the battle if he spruced up the interface and dumped all his current users… but I doubt that’s his plan!)

    None of the existing sites think in relative terms (a la PageRank) or even bother to overlay a live tagging / karma model (a la Slashdot). That makes their services increasingly irrelevant — they’re doing the same thing they did fifteen years ago, still dragging in the same errors! One day soon, a creative new entry will simultaneously put them all out of business. Whoever first engages the “reality” of human desire within a web interface will own this space, likely for years.

    If Google would invoke quality control from the top down, share reputation data (to reduce natural fears of the space), and allow people to search by every attribute — all those problems are solved.

    I can see the model — it melds perfectly with social, using exactly the same structures, and allows Google to upsell from free “social” to high-end “personal.” We can have it up and running within the year. Tell Rohit to call me. Seriously.

    Either that, or get over here and buy Nexcerpt — so I’ll have time to implement the dating model myself. Act now, and I’ll throw in Googlewhack for free! LOL

    GS

  160. I would stop working on endangered dirt projects and focus more on core G business products.

    I would pour more research and money into the GMAIL project and lite a fire under the GMAIL dev team to allow feature growth (as users needed) for work flow management of email, unified messaging for voice, sms, etc as items. The workflow of email requests and responses are very limited in the current GMAIL state. Having the ability to expand with custom naming for any item to meet the needs of a vertical, somewhat like http://www.capsulecrm.com. The inclusion of database like capabilities like that of dabblebd.com. Businesses live in the email and spend most of their time there. Workflow and task management and project management all revolve around email, why not expand GMAIL. I am not talking about a Wave like, I am talking about email task/project management and being able to build workflow around a business process so I would not have to have so many cloud apps to get things done. Easier integration with third party cloud apps. Email is the killer app no one has taken advantage of yet. IMHO.

  161. GoogleFam
    Some Examples
    – Kids, Schedule their educational progress, help parents, socializing them
    – Parent, Taxes, Expenditures, Budget, Mortgage, Find suitable and affordable products. Showing the closest schools with reviews, Finding the right health insurance programs, pension funds advises
    – GrandParents, Videos, memories, family reunion organization, connecting with other seniors, a personal touch through google.
    Kids are isolated, parents are divorces, single moms and dads, grandparents are lonely
    Creating family bounds again in future terms.

    Google is drawing the lines for a future family. like in science fiction movies pictures, don’t be scared of robots at home, GoogleFam will be family friendly assistant for all of your needs.

    GoogleFam, your new family member

  162. Buy Java from Oracle and Open Source it completely 🙂

  163. -Google version of Paypal and Square combined

    -Let google’s features talk to each other more –> maps, calendar, gmail, voice, docs, etc… they could be so much more intertwined and do amazing things for people (ex: a button on calendar “Map My Day” which creates a map with pinpoints labeling the event location. That’d be awesome for people who use calendar regularly, and buttons from there to get directions directly from one to the other, and THOSE accessible by sync to your phone/tablet)

  164. The first thing I’d do as Google CEO is ..
    1. Take Google a step further into the real world by initiating a grant / fund to support or fund recycle, re-use programs and or businesses and or ideas that can DO something about all our human rubbish that gets into our water systems, ocean and so forth.
    2. Set aside funds (who knows how much) to investigate and implement natural eco friendly energy systems, like Solar or Water or Wind alternatives that would not destroy the current energy Corporations hold on us all, but enhance them to get moving into environmentally friendly solutions.
    3. Create a Webmaster Tool that allows us to have our clients sign up for Google Accounts with us (being the people who look after clients) having the ability to have many clients all in the one place for Analytics, Webmaster Tools, AdSense, AdWords and in fact the entire range of Google’s free suite. As in my experience with my clients after explaining how to go about opening an account with Google the usual answer or comeback is “Can you do it?”.
    4. Create or look into having a Google hosting account set up, being able to host domains etc. Also, having a Domain name purchasing setup whereby people could purchase domain names then host them at Google and have all the free Google suites attached directly to their account .. makes sense?

  165. Personally, I would annex the Sudetenland. Hilarity ensues.

  166. I’d like to see send mail at a designated date and time for Gmail. That is definitely the biggest feature lacking from the Google product I use most.

  167. I’d like Google to handle my paper mail and have it appear in GMail right alongside my email and (hopefully soon) my voicemail.

    I give people the Google physical address as my address. When Google receives my mail they open it, scan it, PDF it, OCR it and put it into Gmail for me where it’s searchable. I can also have originals sent to me / shredded / etc. EarthClassMail does a fair amount of this but I’d really like it all integrated into Gmail like just another message. An outbound option would be great – send to email, send to GChat send to SMS and “send to physical mail”. Of course if the recipient were a GPaper user too, you never have to print it out just deliver it like email.

    Then of course you could have “inbox rules” – mail “like this” should be autoshredded. Maybe there’d be new rule actions too. This looks like a bill – pay it? This looks like a check – deposit it? This looks handwritten – forward to another physical address?

    Lots more data for you to mine as well.

  168. Another suggestion, which would be easily do able in the time frame allowed: allow users to choose “Classic Search”. I might even name it the “10 Blue Links” version. It would allow users to turn off Local, Shopping, Real Time, etc. from the main results if they want to, just like we can choose “Safe Search”, our Interface language, and languages of pages to search.

    If I wanted to get fancy with it, I would use check boxes so users can choose which enhanced types of listings to incorporate into the search results – like the Instant Search which can be chosen to be enabled or not.

  169. First thing I would do as a CEO of Google is to get rid of Chrome OS and focus all those resources on to Android.

    I would spread wifi into homes across the US and make it affordable. I would make every Internet connection that is via Google be gigabit.

    I would continue working with self-driving cars and also start up more charity initiatives.

    I would give Matt Cutts a huge pay raise and make him a Vice President of Spam Killing and PR.

  170. Now that Google has Google TV, I would love to see Google expand AdWords to television. Working in the advertising industry for years, we have always struggled to provide an accurate ROI to our clients on commercial advertisements.

    If we could allow the TV viewer to actually click on the commercials and purchase the products through the TV, we could actually measure some statistics.

    This would open the door up to more innovative methods of TV advertising
    – Watching a Football game – Buy a jersey, Buy some tickets, Buy Merchandise
    – Watching House – you like his shirt, select him with your remote control and buy it.

    If the AdWords platform can be moved to TV, we can start to use its greatest feature; Location Narrowcasting. Then Commercials can be targeted to specific user groups based on the viewer’s location.

  171. Think of the confluence of the following factors:
    – market penetration/saturation of mobile phones (# of people using them, even across borders)
    – capability and integration of mobile phones (features, breadth of apps, etc)
    – bureaucratic banking system totally devoid of entrepreneurs (let’s face it, the Fed/FDIC and similar international agencies have driven almost all innovation and entrepreneurship far from the banking sector – its old, slow, and outdated)
    – acceleration of globalization on the micro level (business transactions in multiple currencies accelerating – think eLance.com, guru.com, rentacoder.com, etc – not GE and Goldman Sachs)
    – “race to the bottom” by Federal Reserve, ECB, etc to devalue currencies

    My suggestion: create an alternative “currency” (or more properly, money) or payment system that is international in scope/practice and fully integrated with mobile devices.

    It would need to be more widely accepted and “low drag” (lower transactional costs) than PayPal.

    It would need to be a stable store of value – maybe not gold-based, but something that is more stable than the “will” of politicians – be portable across borders.

    It would need to be easier, faster, and more innovative than credit cards or PayPal. How cool would it be to “pay” someone with a couple clicks of your cell phone (instead of a $12 wire transfer, if you are lucky and your bank isn’t closed 4 days a week).

    The world’s monetary system is broken. It’s slow. It’s antiquated. It’s unstable. And it’s closed almost half the year. 🙂 It is holding back human progress, free-enterprise, and the speed of innovation.

    A solution to this problem will help entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, stay-at-home Moms in Alabama, and micro-lenders in Asia.

    Google Money.

  172. Buy Twitter and FourSquare and get a handle to the social web.

    Invest in a federated social network platform. Having only Facebook as the main player is dangerous.

    Social search is key. If I want to buy a digital camera or a car, I want to see what people in my social graph have bought or ‘liked’. Having AdSense get that ‘social sense’ will be important.

    Start a hosting service like AWS and broader than GAE and monetize the datacenter capabilities Google has acquired.

    Enhance Google Apps by adding Google’s intranet features like search, contacts database etc.

    Wolfram Alpha like question answering service over voice.

    New Human Computer Interfaces. See how Kinect like devices can be used for computer interaction.

    Radical ideas like a device that you can plug into and access Google using thought.

    ‘Don’t be evil’

  173. Help the government (U.S.) with their data and process improvement. Every office of government is so inefficient in their processes that the Google touch would be as good as gold. Simple improvements (simple for Google to pull off) could make great strides in reducing taxes for all of us.

  174. I always wondered why there isn’t a Webshop where you can “buy Fix-Price Donations”. The users would shop for a cause, pay and receive a nice print-out confirmation about what his money is used for. You may even be able to give away the donation as a gift to other people.

    one would need certified donation-offers, billing and good marketing. maybe that’s something worthwhile to work on.

  175. The dozens (100s?) of Google products should be more completely integrated. Google login provides access to Gmail, Google Docs, and Youtube among others. Yet still it is impossible to draft an email in Docs, find your Youtube videos to attach in Gmail, or follow Gmail contacts on Youtube without manually importing them.

  176. I would make my puppet tiger character their token masot, test pilot, demonstration child-like learner, and spokespuppet. And get that flaw in mobile Gmail that swallowed a whole handful of priceless idea folders and see if I coulod find them in Google’s secret cloud-based time machine capability.

  177. A number of people here have suggested some cool music-related ideas. As a musician and programmer for 20 years, I’m surprised there is one idea still I haven’t seen. I’ve had this idea from the dawn of the internet and have never had the chance to actually build it, although I’m finally becoming a good enough programmer I might actually tackle it. Actually getting a job at Google to do it would be my ultimate career… but I could never pass the GLAT.

    http://music.google.com should be a Javascript/HTML5 canvas piano keyboard.

    (Imagine the Google Pacman they did, but redone as a Synthesizer, organ, piano…)

    Start playing notes, and Ajax search results come up for the melody, bass line, or rhythm I play.

    C C C A –> Beethoven’s 5th links appear.

    F . . C F . . C F C F A C –> Mozart links appear.

    Surely it can’t be that difficult to do.

    @Steven, sheet music scanned should be simpler to turn into midi than a scanned printed page is to OCR into text due to the staff lines. Duh…

    @Daniel, interactive realtime online 4-track is now doable, but I haven’t seen that yet either. You’d need a LOT of CPU cycles to continuously render mixdowns though. I’d be surprised if someone at Steinberg/Logic/Protools wasn’t working on something like this… to make an online subscription model through one of their pro software products would be an easy way to monetize it.

  178. I would like to see Google take over traffic light synchronization. They could use the data, and drivers everywhere (not to mention the environment) would benefit from the dramatic improvements that are surely awaiting some superior algorithms.

  179. Hello,

    What I really would like to see is something like Google Academic Life where you make contracts with big and respected universities from all around the world to record the full lectures and post them free online.

    So that education can be available to everyone in the world who has internet access and can’t afford to go to university.

    something like AcademicEarth.com but with richer content.

    When I first saw academicearth.com I had a very big anticipation about the impact of it. But now as I have watched most of the interested lectures to me, there has not been new content for ages

  180. Free online teaching resources (quality textbook content and course notes) so that everyone in the world can have access to free education.

    Hand pick the leading schools, publishers and universities and pay for their content to be open source.

    Perhaps one day all learning could be done online, and people only need to do a final exam or two to graduate from school or get a degree.

  181. I want order in the Internet, because I hate when I see just: link doesn’t work…

  182. By South Carolina to keep it off of the Daily Show.

  183. Great. Misspelled “buy.” SC shines again. Stupid swype.

  184. A joint venture with N.A.S.A. bringing astronomy to the public, much in the same way there was that S.E.T.I program where you could lend your computer resources for mapping the stars, only Google maps for stars maybe? That would be a really interesting education resource.

    I have also really enjoyed the Google Tech Talks, perhaps Google Universities for online distance education would be a good idea? I can see this as an area that will probably suffer in quality without the assistance of Google.

    What about standards for mobile content delivery and mobile device interaction?

  185. Google’s own coffee! 😀
    * Super low non-ridiculous Starbucks-like prices
    * Taste filled with awesomeness and magic
    * Donate 1/3 of profits to charity.

  186. Just two things you can work on for me and my children for right now:

    A method of getting products and goods from the ships to the consumer that uses half the oil it now takes. Some ideas, 20 mpg semi’s capable of pulling 80,000 lbs at 55 mph, unloaders that can unload the ships is less time and use less energy, containers that will collapse and take less space for the return trip.

    $30 a month cell phone carrier that includes the Google Voice, gmail, text and the open Internet.

  187. Energy, education and personal fiscal responsibility are important to me. I’d love to develop more efficient solar power and all, but you said to keep it in the realm of present technology.

    1. Offices, grocery stores, etc. all have massive parking lots. The pavement and the cars on them get really hot because the sun always beats down on them. What would be so wrong with covering the parking area with some sort of solar panel covering? Google could get a cut of the energy generated, so it could even break even or be profitable. It would keep cars cooler and generate power (which could include charging stations for electric cars, power the nearby store or go into the local grid). Who knows, it could also be aesthetically pleasing if designed right.

    2. Like some others have suggested, really push education. Develop a tablet tooled for school textbooks/typing/video lectures (like from Khan Academy). It could pay for itself through textbook sales/creation. Create a better version of something like One Laptop Per Child, but give the local teacher some type of hub with internet connection (satellite if no other option, perhaps) so the students could download and share google docs or video lectures (let the things make adhoc networks to share said works). This part would be purely philanthropic, but still pretty cool.

    3. Develop the best on-line personal budget/money management portal in the world with a groovy android app. Something like mint.com or mvelopes.com; only much, much better. And more versatile. Something that works for people outside the US as well. Advertising and sponsored product revenues could be pretty groovy.

    As a Blue Sky wish, I would have Google buy the NFL. Make them open up. My team is in another state and the only way to watch their games are to find a friend who isn’t watching the local team, go to a smoke-filled sports bar, get satellite tv or stream it from Europe. If I could just watch it on-line, the NFL could still get their revenue from ads targeted on my location/personal data. I mean, if I wanted to be told which teams I should be allowed to watch, I would encourage Apple to buy them…

  188. Google definitely has the most excellent search engine for the Web. But I wish I had a similar search mechanism to search for my suits, pants, brushes, watches, towels, perfumes, etc in my own house.

    It’s really mind-numbing to rummage around for an item that you have squeezed somewhere in your house few months ago. It’s time consuming, annoying, and disadvantageous when needed urgently.

    This would be fantastic:
    When I stash a specific item in my closet, I tag it. The tagged data is fed into some machine – maybe an iPad wall-mounted in my living room. Months later, when I need that item, I fire a search and the iPad throws back the precise location. Bingo, I am happy!

    It could manage few more things like “who is leaving the house”, “how many people are in the house”, “how many lights are On in which rooms”, etc.

  189. I would like to see Google get involved in an open source hardware and/or software initiative for prosthetics and sensory aids, so whether it be prosthesis for limbs to sight and navigation aids for the visual impaired.

    This could cover tasks such as build a sub $100 limb, think OLPC but for limbs or sensory aids. Also maybe if this was considered too far off Google’s radar, maybe look at an initiative to or building a browser which enable easy browsing of the web for those with visual, motor, or other sensory impairments. As currently, the existing tools e.g. IBM’s JAWS and the like pretty much seem to suck.

    Don’t know if this is under ambitious or off the radar. But would like to see you smart guys at Google tackle these problems. Even though I personally wouldn’t benefit from this projects I think that they are worth while, and could be really interesting for you guys and gals.

  190. This is super easy: fiber to every home in America…. oh wait!!! Google’s started that project already! :-p

    If I was Google’s CEO I would serious finish it… build a completely free network for all time… –with Google as the default search provider of course!

  191. 1. Fiber to homes (I’d want it and I already *have* fiber to my home… but AT&T fiber kind of sucks. Fiber to the premise, but I can only get 18Mbit Internet. Stupid.)

    2. Android based car stereo/navigation with cellular based connectivity. Would solve the problem of navigation map data being static and always out of date (used Google Maps of course). WiFi connection you could configure to automatically sync up your music when you are in range of your wireless network (ie. at home in garage).

    3. AdSense that doesn’t use blocking (for page rendering) code. document.write() is so 90s. 🙂

    4. AdSense API that isn’t stipulated on you needing to be a revenue share site… not sure who thought of that requirement for API access, but it was a poor choice imo.

    5. Allow Google Apps for Business/domains to specify registered IPs that are using Google DNS servers so those IPs don’t get blocked/throttled. It’s impossible to use Google DNS on medium-high traffic servers because Google temporarily blocks access to the IPs if they do too many DNS look ups (servers tend to do a lof of them for legitimate reasons)… which makes the servers have no DNS resolution services when they get throttled.

    6. Google Apps For Business should have a DNS manager (manage your zone files in Google Apps).

    7. Make a better way to connect advertisers to site publishers who want to *only* advertise on a specific site. I kept hoping for this over the years so we could just send advertisers who wanted to advertise on digitalpoint.com to AdWords and let them bid against each other for the ad space. Sadly this never happened so we had to build such a system from scratch. But would have much rather saved the development hours and just sent them to AdWords to be able to do it.

  192. I’d invest in two things.

    The first would be artificial intelligence, particularly in systems that could carry on a conversation through text. It should be robust enough to read a simple work of fiction and identify the characters and what happens through the story. Or, at the very least, have a short-term memory that would enable it to carry on conversations better than most chatterbots I’ve come across so far.

    The second would be photographic object identification. If you present a photo to a piece of software, it should be able to discriminate different objects in a photo and perhaps even recognize them.

    These are some crazy goals, but if we one day make them a reality, think of the things they’d be able to contribute to our daily lives!

  193. Sophia Yen MD MPH

    Take on the elephant in the room in Health Care Reform – the EMR/EHR (Electronic Medical/Health Record)

    Epic and Cerner/Powerchart are the 2 big players/monopolies in the field and they SUCK! Whoever designed the programs had no concept of how doctors work and it’s such a huge bureaucracy, that every time I say “this is broken, it needs to be fixed.” They say “that’ll take 5 years, or that’s just the way it is.” My husband works at Apple and I know Apple can turn around something in their OS in 6 months, sooner if it is critical ( I think). 5 years is ridiculous!

  194. I Would invest in spacetraveling! Build à spacecenter on the moon. I mean eventually Google has to move cause the earth will run out of recources. Think of it as à long term project 🙂

  195. I have a real good and simple idea that i think would rock Google even more then it already does!! I believe Google should create an official “Page Rank Site” where you can see a real time PR of any site.. not the delayed toolbar Page rank!! Thanks for the consideration.

  196. The virtual doctor. I put on google 2 or 3 symptoms and google tells me what i have. It can be usefull also for strange diseases.

  197. Use your search capabilities to support (web) standards.
    Tell ietf/w3c/oasis what percentage of sites are using
    the new (partly adopted) standards.

    E.g. how many html5 sites are there? Who is using CSS3 facets?
    Your feedback could drive standards, let them know what’s being
    taken up and what’s failing.

    Help drive standards please Google.

    Dave

  198. I’d start a project about Image Search Engine. I am not taking about searching with keywords to find images. I also don’t mean something like TinEye Reverse Image Search, though TinEye may appear a step towards such thing. What I want is something very advanced that would make a Search Engine find an image of a person based on a different image you upload to the engine but contains the same person. This is serious and requires huge loads of processing, but anything can be done!

    I worked a bit on Image processing which was part of a Room Security system BS CCE project and I kinda like this field but didn’t have the chance to work on such things after graduation.

  199. I would like to see a system like dropbox (the best thing to come along in the last couple of years in my opinion) where the encryption is carried out on the client side. In general more integrated systems where it is difficult to tell the difference between working locally and on the cloud (again dropbox is my example of this).

  200. When I worked in the Central Bank of Norway, I remember a similar question posed to the Governor. The question was: “What would you do if you were Norway’s Finance Minister”? Hermod Skånland replied. I would quit 🙂

    Back to the question. I have not read the whole discussion in this thread, but my recommendations would be:
    1. Newer forget that you were regarded as the small companies best friend during your startup. That should be your slogan above “the not being evil” slogan.
    2. IBL’s (votes) are the strength of your search engine, but in a sense also the weakness. You should not end up as a search engine for Wikipedia. I hate it when I search a technical / mathematical term and the Wikipedia hit is above e.g. a Wolfram Alpha hit.
    3. AdSense is fantastic in the sense that you can use the same code on all your sites and pages. Excellent. Never destroy that model unless you have a better. But there is a bias that is good for people in developing countries 🙂 USD 100 earned on AdSense in Norway vs the same amount earned in China / India has very different purchasing power. So is it possible to adjust the income earned on AdSense for the purchasing power parity?
    4. If not, Google may end up as a Ad network for companies in developing country. That is not bad in itself, but you should see my point. The only reason I use AdSense on my sites is that it is so easy and efficient.
    5. Consumerization of IT (see and follow the Tweet link on my home page – signature) is the big new buzz word. Google can continue to deliver “free” (ad driven) solutions to small companies and bloggers.
    6. To sum up: Be the small companies and individual blogger’s best friend, and Google should continue to prosper.
    Kjell Bleivik

  201. Being a CEO of Google I would have planned following:
    I will establish a research center in Capital cities of every states to inspire young generation to come forward and do something innovative. They should not stop researching due to lack of resources and funding of course.

    To improve the quality of results on search page, I would emphasize more on user behavior and some obvious facts. i.e. if user is searching : Paracetamol then there’s greater possibility that some student might be researching on it. So, by unethical practicing or link building some paracetamol selling website should not come on top instead of some informative website.

    I might think of improving the GUI of Google with some really logical and small graphics or character. I salute your technology but some garnisheeing will further improve the user experience.

    I think Google should publish some database showing the website who has faced the penalty and banning. So, user can get the idea on deciding trustworthy websites, specially in case of e commerce website.

    Again, I would like to give focus on “Research” topic. As there’re many people around the world who’s having really innovative ideas to implement but they don’t get the needed support.

    @Google – Thanks for making web a meaningful place

    Dharmayu Purohit

  202. These are a few huge things missing from Google products:

    1) Better identity management consisting of the following:

    – One [amazing] page where we can add or delete all our Google usernames and non-Google e-mail addresses and where we can link or unlink Google Accounts…including Google Apps accounts since they now almost work like Google accounts. If possible, adding options to manage our Google OpenIDs in this page would also be great.

    – Allowing the creation of stand-alone [not gmail associated] usernames in all Google services that allow for URL customization such as Google Profiles. At this moment, this seems to be available only for Picasa Web. People who use Gmail only get 2 options, the username associated with their Gmail account or a string of numbers. We should be able to have control over things like this.

    – Fix the issues with linking multiple accounts together. a) Having to login to each account every time is a hassle. Let us link the accounts once and leave them linked until we decide to unlink said accounts. b) Make the “switch between accounts” menu available for all services as soon as possible. c) Let us choose which account should be the “default” for each service. d) Fix all the mess created by linking e-mail addresses and accounts such as invitations going to the wrong calendars and being completely logged off Google when using multiple accounts if your default account is a Google Apps account and you tried to get into a service that is for regular Google Accounts only (it’d be more sensible for Google to seamlessly switch to the account that has the access to that service if you had already logged into it).

    – Let us link our other OpenIDs to Google and allow us to sign in via OpenID. (See number 2.)

    2) Get more involved on improving OpenID. Think of OpenID Connect. Although OpenID overall has improved, its current implementation isn’t without troubles. I don’t want to be my Google, Facebook, or WordPress URL forever or in all sites. In the quest of making logins easier, it seems companies and their users have left aside the question of identity, and it’s going to be a mess when users realize they might not want to be their Facebook URLs any longer and that disconnecting their Facebook personas from everything won’t be easy. That’s why making the OpenID implementation easier and allowing users to remain in control of their identities is important. This idea might also have to include educating people about their online identity management.

    3) Re-think customer support. Google has made some of my favorite products, but customer support is terrible, and this comes from someone who’d rather search and follow instructions than contact a person. I’m not saying Google should give phone support for all their users, but the Help system needs an overhaul. It’s very messy as it is. So maybe Google should consider: a) An overhaul of the help forums. Assign community moderators if necessary in order to merge threads, delete spam, and more. Or do what some support services do and display search results for “possible similar problems” when people try submitting a post regarding a problem they have. b) An easier way to find known issues and what is being done about them. Maybe adding a link to the Known Issues page itself right from the respective service. c) For emergencies such as losing account access, make it easier to find out why that may have happened. Explain suspensions when requested and within 48 hours. Make it easier to find ways to re-gaining access to an account that may have been hacked. d) For your paid services, make it easier for people to contact a person and try to make sure that these people we contact do read the customer’s message before sending something that is probably an automatic reply with a support rep’s name attached to it. (I had a bad experience when contacting your sales team. In the end, I gave up on getting a reasonable answer and decided not to upgrade my account.)

  203. Hi all,

    Whilst not a big idea I would simply love to have a button that takes me straight to the last page of a search result, I have always wondered what could be that far down the list to be considered even remotely.

  204. Visual search. Use built in or external cameras and eye tracking software to let people navigate through google properties. You catch the fixation, double wink is click, left is back, right is forward.

  205. Create a citation tool (like Endnote) for google Docs

  206. Develop a cross-plattform IDE for c, c++, c#, java, ruby, python, perl, php, javascript, html, css and others which just works out of the box with support for many frameworks.
    Chromium is the fastest Browser around and works really well. Why not create a IDE which combines the Power of Visual Studio, Netbeans, Textmate and other Editor. It should be blazin fast and JUST WORK. Similar to how chromium combines everything and just kicks ass.

    I have the feeling that the whole world uses Eclipse and I’m the only one who hates it really bad.

  207. “I hate it when I search a technical / mathematical term and the Wikipedia hit is above e.g. a Wolfram Alpha hit”.

    It should of course be a Wolfram Research – http://www.wolfram.com/ – hit.

  208. Google Data centers goes Green and save energy

  209. Skynet. That is all.

  210. Address ignorance.

    Longlist a series of issues that exist solely through ignorance (or at least where ignorance of the information is a leading factor): racism, bullying, teen pregnancy, sexual health, etc.

    Whittle down a shortlist (with public involvement?) and pick a number of issues – probably not one a day – possibly a smaller number (maybe even one) that you can do more with over the year, then do everything you can to fight that ignorance (links off home page, x, y, z, etc).

    You might not win and you’d probably have to don the ol’ tin hat for making a stand on something, but it’s a fight worth losing.

  211. Couple of ideas for you

    1) Better batteries / portable energy. This has benefits throughout industrial and third world countries. Smartphones, $100 laptops, portable water purifiers … all rubbish without energy.
    2) Google’s mission is to organise the world’s data. Classic techies (at the time), forgot about the people (and hence fell behind Facebook in ). Extend the mission to include organising the world’s people – make a small start by fixing email reminders in Calendar! 😉 Note how organised people are happier and more productive than disorganised people. If you could improve everybody’s “organisedness” by a few percent, how much better would the world be? Especially if you could do it in a way that people didn’t even notice and therefore couldn’t object to – e.g. through their mobile device (see 1).

  212. The most needed is a clear cut video sitemap WordPress plugin that provides all the parameters Google needs to index a video. If it exists, would kindly indicate where to find it.

  213. Build a missile launch station to destroy microsoft, once and for all..*followed by evil laugh*…

    Seriously though..I think super speedy hi-tech internet would be cool to see, and not just in america, but throughout the world.

  214. Hi Matt, hallo from Italy, here’s my thoughts:

    – First focus on Google itself; i imagine a sort of ‘3D search’ implementation, a very different way to search and organize informations in particular mode deep searches. Not a single page to be read line by line (too slow…) in sequence as now but a sort of Magic Sphere where i can enter and dynamically navigate, proceeding step by step from a single, simple term to more advanced and deepest searches…
    – Second; a Global Newspapers ‘Gazette’ writted by people from over the world…no conditioned at all, independent and democratic, as google ‘docet’, and open to all. Tons of thoughts and ideas to organize and categorize, good food for a search engine. Maybe a new President can come out from those pages!

    I think all is possible to realize in few time with actually knowledge.
    Thank you for your work and have a nice day!

  215. I am in the process of developing a social network site, and i think it will solve one of the biggest problem in the world “who do I find a girl/boy that I might love, or like.. or even work in a good relation with it”.
    I my opinion on our world, everything happen for an reason, and I mean everything, from the smallest decision to the fact that we get in love with some persons or we hate them and here is the point where I want to build a social network, or came with an add-on to already existing networks.
    On my blog, adimoga.com I have write several articles on how do I see the relations between people.
    In the last two years I have developed the algorithm for this social network and I have also invest in some internet business to get some money to invest in this idea.
    And to answer to your question, if I am the CEO of Google, I would suggest that the company should invest in developing the society from where Google take money. To give back a part from what they get.

  216. Revolutionize teaching/learning,

    not only for the US and europe but also for africa and those who are falling behind fast.

    We are still using teaching techniques that have been around for ages!

    See Ted.com on various teaching insights

    (by the way: improving the teaching, improves the economy, improving the economy improves google profits )

  217. As ceo i would say keep it simple, don’t be evil and teach people to think like Google.

  218. I’d launch a micro-payments service. Many website owners could make a nice living charging 5c for access to their sites.

  219. I would like Google
    1. To collaborate with Governments to reduce corruption through technology
    2. A cheaper and powerful smart phone in < 100 $ range which everyone can afford
    3. Free Internet access for eveyone.

  220. Idea #1:

    I think the most important thing Google could introduce right now is something very simple. Google provides so many services where you can upload photos, documents, email, etc. all of which are very important aspects of your personal life. We are now in a digital age, so many of us would like to be able to have only digital records of them, but also be able to rest easy knowing that all of this information won’t be either lost because of a server problem or because someone hacked into our accounts.

    Solution: Instead of having everyone rely on their own methods of backup to ensure this doesn’t happen, Google could not only back up everything on your Google account on different servers around the country you live in, then inform us of this so we feel more safe transitioning things to digital copies. Also, to prevent someone stealing your Google account, there should be a way to restore access to it. If someone hacked into my Google account and changed my password, recovery options, and also deleted all my photos and documents, etc. there should be a way for me to be 100% sure I can get everything back. Maybe I could contact Google and they could ask me a bunch of “master password recovery questions” that I cannot change once I put the answers in. Then they could give my account back and restore all my data. Facebook has the ability to keep your data on its servers long after you delete it, so Google should be able to as well if you so choose. (I know about the phone security code thing Google is coming out with, but if someone loses that and the printout then their data is as good as lost. I don’t think it’s ideal at all, and pretty cumbersome.) Giving people this ability would ensure that their data would in no way be lost, and help a great many people transition everything they have into digital versions without feeling they may lose it.

    Idea #2:

    Android is definitely kicking’s iOS’s ass, but there are just a few signification weaknesses it has, all of which I believe can be remedied. I think Google will have the music store/ecosystem problem under control soon enough. I also think there will be more than just the Nexus “S” out there in the coming months, from several manufacturers, and this will greatly help the problems with carriers messing with the OS and causing updates to be slow or non-existent. However, the one largely unaddressed issue remaining that I feel Google has not acted on fixing yet is the problems with app permissions. Many people are scared to download some apps because something as simple as a wallpaper app could have the ability to do all sorts of things on your phone. I know a great deal of the fear people have of this is without good reason, but it is somewhat concerning. I would NOT propose Google pull them from the market, but I WOULD propose Google create a sort of “Google Approved” SECTION of the market where people can download anything they want and go crazy without having to worry about any viruses or malware or apps stealing your data. Of course, all the other apps would still be on the market and still be just as accessible to anyone who wants them.

    Idea #3:

    Google Goggles for desktop. Also, Voice Actions for desktop.

    Idea #4:

    Sound separation in voice recognition. We have the ability to understand other people talking over noise, and Google will eventually be able to as well. However, right now if you try a voice action on Android you have to make sure everything around you is relatively quiet.

  221. Easy, especially as you requested “or Google itself”:

    Google customer support

    The last time we tried to contact Google as we had a problem, it took three (!!) month (!!) before we got an answer. Three month. This is completely ridiculous – you provide services for million of people but you are not able to handle them (or don’t care about them).

  222. 1) A environment friendly fuel which will help reducing Global warming (world)
    2) Google Online Bank, similar to Paypal but with less fees (Web)
    3) Reduce the code size of Google’s home page even more 😀 (Google)

  223. Taking Matt’s request (personal budgeting software) a step further, my 2nd suggestion would be an alternative for small businesses to Quickbooks Online. They are RIPE for disruption – almost Google’s antithesis in terms of innovation, intuitiveness, stability, and efficiency.

    A bad-to-the-bone web-based accounting software would be a huge hit and would help millions and millions of self-employed people and small business owners in this country alone to be more productive.

  224. (cont’d)

    Idea #5:

    Google Shopping. Google already has it, but I doubt it is viewed as a great success. Here’s what I think Google COULD do to wow everybody. First, change the design. It looks way too search result-y right now. Granted, it is search results, but it doesn’t feel right (at least to me) shopping for things like that. Look at Amazon’s design, or the design of other online retailers.

    Second, don’t link the search results to web pages that sell them. Link them to a Google product page, then THAT to a web page. In this day and age people don’t feel comfortable buying something for just any old website. You have to give a bunch of personal information to them, including your credit card number, and you also have to take the time to set up an account with each one. If you are going to buy something, you’ll probably feel (and be) safer on Amazon than opening up a new account for some website you don’t ever go to. Which brings me to…

    Third, Google should try to communicate this to the sites Google Shopping pulls up in results so that they offer some sort of Checkout integration. Much easier to pay, you know that your information is with Google and not them, and it’s easier to contest something if a product is never shipped to your or something like that.

    Idea #6:

    Facial recognition login. Ubuntu can do it, so can Google.

    Idea #7:

    Take the “change background image” off the front page. Google is minimalist. There used to be precious white space there.

    Idea #8: Fix the fact that ever since Google Instant launched the scrollbar has been visible on the right side of the page. There’s no scroll ball to drag, but it’s just sitting there for no reason. An update to Chrome should be able to take this off and have it appear when you start typing.

    Idea #9: Do a Google search for something. Anything. Then click the “updates” link in the sidebar. Note the location of the “updates” link. Then, put your cursor back into the search field and press enter. Look where the updates link is now. Google has a glitch. This doesn’t do that with any other link in the sidebar either. Just updates. I would fix that, even though it’s not a big deal.

    Idea #10:

    Voice guided search. Not voice actions, but something more. Say to your computer “get directions” and it will respond by saying “destination?” You answer, it asks you the other necessary questions, etc. then tells you the route and shows you the map. Google has excellent voice recognition already. Just work on speech synthesis and put a bunch of voice actions and responses for each into the equation and you’re basically set.

    Idea #11:

    Realtime dictation for Google Docs. Chrome 7 has that voice input feature, and Google has voice recognition, so have Google type out what you’re saying word by word in Google Docs.

  225. I’ve thought Google should do this for the longest time. Being leaders in transparency to the user and user control over their data, and highly knowledgeable about security technology positions Google as the first company that would ever do well what dozens of companies have been doing atrociously for decades: provide banking and secure portable personal payment devices (effectively a credit card) in such a way using encryption technologies to provide the user 100% assurance over the security and control over their funds. I’d be first in line.

  226. Would love to see Google 100% self sufficient or at least try its best to be.

  227. David (jed) Thompson

    How about a new way to sell items using Googles adwords existing structure. Basically, someone has an item to sell, they log into Google and fill out a form which would in essence just be a brochure (this would just be a website template, the same basic layout for every item) for their item including descriptions and pictures. They would then choose a few very specific keywords for this item which when typed in the search would bring up a link (in the sponsored link sections) to their item brochure showcasing the item for sale. Google small ads!!

  228. funding and technical expertise support to enable the development of premium quality itunes killers for android powered devices, with the partners that are already keen to make them happen. (think CIA)
    and support with marketing and legal. coz content is always the hardest, but most valuable, component.
    even more massive distribution, which you will have by next year, helps.
    android is gonna SMASH those other guys. just watch the avalanche, its coming.

  229. Announce a company-wide Youtube redesign competition where xfunctional dev teams are challenged to integrate Google products (search, ad buying, apps dev) into the Youtube platform / brand. Once and for all, focus on making Youtube the core centerpiece of socially interactive, searchable, personally relevant internet media.

    Give the world truly social TV produced by professionals & people you know (of course, seasoned with real-time status updates from old high school acquaintances & and photos taken from mobile phones IF user wants).

    Couple that with a change to staffing strategy that aggressively raises Google’s overall emotional IQ.

  230. The first thing I would do would be to un-kill Google Wave. The product certainly needs UI and stability improvements, but were the product developed further and then released with a new look and name, it could revolutionize how we communicate.

  231. Create a well and maintained paradigm for all Google Services that count as Value Chain. Make Google product more effective regarding current scene. Thanks

  232. This seems to be a given but I have to take this opportunity to convey this. If you surveyed 100 google PPC advertisers and asked them about how they felt about google, you would be hard pressed to get very few positive comments. Most people are hoping that Bing will emerge and take more market share so our dependency on google will be less. As a customer who spends $300-400K per year with google, I have to say that I don’t feel like a customer, I feel like google thinks they have given me the honor to advertise and if I stop advertising tomorrow, they would not even notice or care. I realize Google’s goal is to give the user a great search experience but maybe they should start caring about the ones that are paying them. I have worked with 100’s of fortune 500 companies and I have never felt this way about a vendor. So if I was CEO, I would put a focus on the customers that are paying us and make sure they are appreciated and have the support they deserve. Thanks Matt for all you do…you put a great face on Google.

  233. Okay, you want a big idea? Here’s one, albeit somewhat strange…power every Google building using renewable energy sources to the point where you can give power back to the grid. It might be tricky with the amount of juice that some of the big toys you use draw, but it should be doable. Assuming you did this right, you could potentially draw enough of a profit from this sort of activity to reinvest in such sources on a wider scale. For example, you might add solar panels to Habitat for Humanity homes to reduce the energy bills of people who can’t afford them.

    When you’re done with that, you should go on a Futurama Bender and spend your paycheck on BLACKJACK…annnnnnnnnnnd HOOKERS! (It’ll be good for the economy.) Iiiiiiiii liiiiiiiiike steeeealiiiinnnng…Iiiiiiiii liiiiiiiiike taking things…

  234. Hi Matt!

    I suggest that Google provides a label like icra.org / FOSI (Family Online Safety Institute) offered until recently, when they shut the service and set the database offline. It would be a great help for parents and webmasters if they could label a site saying, i.e., “This site is suitable for children, too, and Google approves it.”

    Most of the required xml namespaces are (still) available online (RDF, contentlabel, DC). The only thing currently missing is an authority (that Google is) and a matching vocabulary.

    Since Google supported the ICRA label, supports whitelist systems like fragfinn.de and is surely the best informed source in the world: Why not provide this important service for our children?

    Regards, Thomas (Hey’l, theylmdl, TC at the German Webmasters)

  235. It’s not a product, it’s an org structure. Google has become big enough that most good ideas are too small to really be interesting for the company. Provide a mechanism for small teams to spin off and work on “small” ideas with some Google seed funding. Either they become big and make some money for Google, or they don’t, the people come back, and Google does a better job of retaining top people. Too many good ideas die inside big companies, even those that try to be innovative like Google.

  236. I would make SUPPORT for every Google product the highest priority. I am currently of the opinion that most Google products and entities are not suitable for business use, because there’s no support when something goes wrong, and because it’s simply horrible business practice to discuss whatever IS going wrong in a public forum. All the acquisitions, new technologies, bells and whistles don’t matter anywhere near as much.

  237. I would like to see google buy a country. You are big enough now aren’t you? Wouldn’t it be cool to live the country of Google? Have Google currency? Maybe you could be the King in the land of Google.

  238. I would expand Google Health significantly:

    1. I would like to track my full family history as well as all the other standard questions every doctors office asks on the first visit. At a minimum I would want to be able to print this, but even better would be an option to submit it to the doctor’s office so I don’t have to refill out those forms.

    2. I would love for it to track my medical billing records so I don’t have to spend hours on the phone with a doctors office who says they haven’t been paid and an insurance company that states they paid it.

    3. I would like to be able to use it to schedule a doctor’s appointment online and track all my scheduled appointments.

    4. When needing to have a surgery done, I would like to be able to view all doctors who perform that surgery and their availability.

    5. I would like for anyone to be able to view aggregates of this health data: weight by city, how common diseases are by age, what percentage of people with X condition, medication or vaccination end up having condition Y.

    6. I would like integration with all the major pharmacies to manage my prescriptions.

    7. I would like to see the total cost of my health care for a given year, including both what I paid and what my insurance has paid.

  239. I’d go for devloping a Free renewable energy source to take away the stranglehold the fuel and energy companies have over the western world. Cold Fusion maybe?

  240. Hi Matt,

    I am a developer and I need Google’s help to solve one of the oldest problem we have: “writing code”.

    For example. It would be nice if ! could just draw a picture of how the app initially looks (like in Pencil) then draw a second picture how the app would respond if, for example, I click a button. Then the computer will figure out the code how to do this.

    Thanks.

  241. To make the world better, I would like to see Google make a push for everyone in the world to have access to the Internet. Just look at what technology did for economies like China, India, Brazil and others. Charity won’t solve world hunger, but wealth sure would. Bringing the Internet and its accompanying technology to the whole world would give underdeveloped nations a chance.

    As a way to make the web better, Google should become an ISP. Google is all about a faster Internet, and the best way to do that would be to develop your own high speed Internet network so that no matter where you move in the country you don’t have to ask “Which ISP’s are around here?” You know you can transfer your Google account anywhere you live.

    To make Google better, you need to create the Facebook killer. Just as Facebook has now streamlined all communications and notifications inside of Facebook, Google should step in and create a platform that streamlines all online communications and notifications. You have people on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, FourSquare and tons of other social networking sites. You can do something like OnlyWire.com does- you give them your username and password to all your social bookmarking accounts and they save your bookmark in all of them for you. Create a social network that allows people to give you their usernames and passwords to all their accounts online so that you only have to login to one place to see everything that’s going on. Now that would be convenient and frankly awesome.

  242. I second Dustin’s addition of a small business segment to my previous suggestion. Great thought!

  243. I’d deindex the spam site Mahalo.com, along with Demand Medias spam sites.

  244. I’d like to see them hire some designers to make their products look better. While things from Google are extremely useful, they are aesthetically unpleasing which makes it hard for us to sell to clients. Take a page from Apple’s book and make things look as nice as they function.

    Also the engineers are bit draconian in how they approach things. Like not being able to email a test mail to yourself. While I understand why it’s done, try explaining it to a client who thinks his new Google Apps email doesn’t work because he can’t test it. Sometimes the best engineering reasons don’t conform to real world applications. One of the best things Google did lately was give the option not to show emails as conversations. Made my life a lot easier when setting people up on Apps.

    As for world changing, I think there are two major issues today. First is clean power generation. If I had Google’s resources, I’d work to set an example and move all our facilities to alternative clean energy sources that are off the grid.

    The second is that intensively produced chemically farmed food is not giving people enough nutrition to sustain their health. I’d move to supporting organic and local farming a lot more. But that’s more of a personal issue.

    Oh yeah. Self driving cars are cool. Not for me since i like to drive. but it would beat the hell out of the public transit systems.

  245. will People get rewarded if it is valuable suggestion ?

  246. There is a trash dump that’s twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean. I’d pay more than double the amount for an Android phone that’s made from recycled waste material from the ocean…

  247. Boots on the ground – two types

    1) More search spam peeps to monitor and clean the index – the algo seems a bit outgunned these days – more human eyes needed here

    2) Fewer engineers in the ranks overall at Google, hire some anthropologists, social scientists, cognitive scientists, architects, designers and just plain regular folks to help lead your non-search (i.e. social) and other projects. So many Google products are obviously designed by engineers, for engineers.

    I disagree entirely with the recommendations focusing on a “insert-existing-product-name killer” – lead, don’t follow, and allow for competition in spaces. It’s not Highlander. There can (and should) be more than one. A homogeneous web (one company to rule them all) is as scary a thought as a homogeneous real world.

  248. two weeks ago I said to my girlfriend: the next logical step for google is to build a TV-Channel, but I’d also invest in AI scientifics research programs and green energie (solar power)

  249. The one thing that will be for 2011 is indexing for real time infographics which is location driven. This is something that google can surely invest resources for the three R’s – Realtime – Response – Revenue. This can be the killer app that will provide geographic based enhanced user experience.

    This can further extend to helping society by pluggign in an option on how an individual can make a. Difference at that very instant for so many causes.

  250. Hour 1 – Have my team combine GA and WMT’s.
    Hour 2 – Have them add an option to the kw tool that identifies search volume by city
    Hours 3 – 8 – I’d go gallivanting around the Google-Plex enjoying the amenities and talking to the peeps! :O)

  251. If I would be Google’s CEO …..

    1. I would reveal the SEO algorithm Google used last year. Just to show yesterdays news
    2. I would use http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGGabrorRS8 to clean this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLrVCI4N67M and would sell the oil to BP or at ecology auctions
    3. I would build a global hot-spot wireless network

  252. A free, powerful and solid video editor that would work with mp4, avchd, etc. This would go well with YouTube.

    Make Blogger a paid service and offer ultimate freedom to publishers. I built a blog on Blogger, it got popular but all that content is not mine… They can shut me down anytime I guess. And man…they never reply to anything on their Facebook page (the Blogger team). This is lousy for Google…

  253. If I were the CEO of Google, I would launch a product that will actually be a platform for users to review the products they have bought or used, services they have used etc. Such a platform will help everyone, people having good feedback with some products and services may share it on this platform hence helping others who are going for that.

    Now there are already such reviews system but not for all kind of products, companies, blogs or websites. Google will use their search platform and create some new algorithm and integrate onto this review platform where people just need to search a product name, service name, company name etc..
    For eg. Google Nexus one, and they can submit their reviews and ratings, or can view and read reviews and ratings.

    This is one project that if Google not gonna make it, I surely will one day 😀

  254. IDEA: Orkut needs to be developed a lot both in content and style. If google wants to dominate the web world, orkut improvement is must…

  255. Social and local. Did i mention social? What about local?

  256. If I was a CEO of Google I’d turn the boat to openness & honesty.
    Starting by putting the “Beta” back in Logos where appropriate.
    I’d be open about where products are heading.
    I’d work on communication within all aspect of Google, from internal inter-departmental to PR. In cases where I didn’t like the public to know the “why?”, I’d be honest about not telling them.

  257. If you could live transcribe accurately every broadcast channel – radio and TV – in every language and make it searchable that would be great.

  258. ONE Buying Plateform

    Who has already spent hours looking for the best product/service at the best price/quality ? We do it more and more at home, at work or during holidays… We buy travels, food, computers, stamps, industrial materials, imported goods, banking services, pizzas, …

    Today we need to visit thousands of sites :
    – to find the merchands / suppliers
    – to compare specs and prices available
    – to get users feedback
    – to find video reviews
    – to compare, understand, etc…

    What about going even further with Google Shopping and gather as much information as possible for buyers in ONE place on the web?

    There could be found (e.g.):
    – any kind of products and services
    – local businesses / or from all over the world (e.g. asian suppliers)
    – customers rating and reviews
    – bloggers and journalists opinions
    – test videos
    – price & specs
    – Shopping basket ?

    This market place exists yet. It is divided into thousands of places. Should Google gather them, the time saved for all of us, buyers, would be tremendous!

  259. More…

    8. Now that Google Apps/domains accounts are treated more like normal Google accounts, allow migrating a “normal” Google account into a domain account (and vice versa).

    9. Fast track Google Authenticator for all accounts.

  260. I would buy back all of it’s public stock and become a private company again. Therefore removing all the motivation to make MORE and MORE profit and focus back on the core of Google’s success, providing great search results.

    Google has clearly become distracted by the urge to make more money and have had their judgment clouded by greed.

    Google needs to revisit their own ideals which can be found right here:
    http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html

    I have been writing a blog post reviewing these ideals on and off for the past two weeks, when I get done with it, maybe I will come back here and Matt will post a link to it? 🙂

    Great Post Matt, keep up the good work.

  261. Google Politics

    As CEO, I would create a non-profit, unbiased arm that functioned as the new way get political information, nominate candidates and elect them electronically.

    Pieces of the puzzle:

    – List a set of problems on politics.google.com (not being used currently)
    – Party nominees submit solutions (we’ll assume we have nominees for simplicity)
    – Solutions are crawled and distributed on a graph based on similarity by degree. (solution X is .8% off from solution Y).
    – Radical and/or non-viable solutions are tossed
    – Solutions get assessed for economic and political viability
    – Topics are weighted for impact and immediacy
    – People vote on the solutions during a pre-Primary period
    – Nominees with the most highly voted ideas go into a candidate pool.
    – Secure, Online Voting commences
    – Candidates are elected from 2-3 parties and the process moves forward…

    Something along these lines would reduce the waste, corruption and stupidity that occurs in the America electoral process. We deserve a system that doesn’t depend on how much money you can raise and how many special interests you can sleep with. Real, common sense ideas and a political system that actually carries them out would be a BIG IDEA from this Google CEO.

  262. I wish Google would develop a way to translate language, spoken and written into visual pictures / symbols for use by people with disabilities who haven’t the language abilities of the general population. This would be very helpful to schedule their time – especially if it could be linked in to Google Apps and would help these people access a lot of the information on the web which is currently inaccessible.

    Ken Pyrah

  263. google records.. all im gonna say,

  264. I would add reverse IP lookup to Google Analytics. Then I would buy a Carribean island and turn off my Android Phone for a month.

  265. If I was CEO of Google, my first order of business would be to make Matt Cutts my COO. I know that would take away from the Search Team, but he tends to be one of the loudest and most respected voices.

    Second order of business would be to embrace the Webmaster / SEO Community again. Conference attendees want to speak with reps, want to meet Googlers at conferences, want to go to the Google Dance. I believe conferences need some love again from Google.

    Third order would be an outreach to some of the application creators for other phone systems and push them to develop for Andriod more quickly. There are many important apps that are taking too long to make it to the Andriod platform. Don’t they realize how awesome it is?

  266. I didn’t have an answer this morning, but I came home from work today to yet another pile of ridiculous junk mail . I would say 90% of this crap was get-a-credit-card related. I am no longer a credit card user, so not only are these letters annoying, disingenuous and wasteful, but they are also completely pointless.

    I would love to see Google flex some muscle to either force these companies to solicit via email (get thee to Congress)… or create some sort of Google search application that allows people to compare and contrast these “incredible offers” along side credit unions and whatever else credit sources are out there.

    Maybe I should push my suggestion a step farther and suggest some sort of money management application that educates and empowers consumers… and increases financial institution transparency. I know you have Google Finance, but that’s more of a news feed + stock quote situation.

    I’ll leave it to you brainiacs.

    Happy Turkey Day!
    Alison

  267. I’d hire a devil’s advocate for each and every team. Seriously.

  268. Integrate Google with other mediums, such as TV/Radio, etc. Sometimes when I’m looking for programming on TV, I actually get online to look for information, rather than using the antiquated search functions that cable/satellite providers have in place.

  269. wow, who can read all this?

  270. I would like to see Google list sites that have been reported as unsafe or safe to access. Most of the time I have no idea, if a site I am clicking on is safe to go to or not. Is this the day my computer gets infected with a virus or malware form a google search????

    I see this happen all the time and have to fix it.

    If the site is safe, the site gets a green check mark.
    If the site is bad, the site gets a big fat red X.

    Sites can submit to have the red x removed if marked by mistake, a false report on the site was given or the virus was removed and now safe to access.

    Most virus scan soft will do this now. But, you have to purchase the highest priced package to get this feature. As we know any site/server could become compromised at any time, but the more info we have on a site, the better.

    This may help the web surfers in the way of preventing a computer from getting infected by a virus or malware. Google still can give the surfers the option to access an unsafe site…like a ‘Click at own risk button’…lol.

    But, I think this would be an improvement to the w.w.w. and no search engine is doing this right now. Well, Google can be the first or the last. Let me know what your thoughts are? I say lets get it done. Google should also have virus scan software to offer. Why not?

    Just load the Google plugin and you are done. Call it Site Check 🙂

    This is my CEO call for the day. Thanks for the power…now back to you.

  271. At the risk of repeating someone else’s comment, I think Google needs to take on the paperwork mess in the health care/medical industry. Talk about a place that needs more streamlining & better search capabilities.

    Also, how can the vast Google brain effect education (without putting it on an algorithm habitrail)?

  272. Oh yeah, and acquire Ancestry.com. Only seems right.

  273. Gamify all kind of Konflicts to make the game ‘life on earth’ more fun

  274. I’m going to ask a strange question.

    Is this strictly a hypothetical scenario? I know you said you like to play the game and all that, but it seems like a rather odd game to play. Is this something the board of directors is secretly watching? Is there a significant career/employment opportunity shift in your future?

    I’m not mad or upset or anything. I’m just curious, that’s all.

  275. 1. Build few warehouses in Asia and America continents for e-commerce businesses.
    2. Improve Google’s search engine algorithm and fight all link spammers to get better search engine results.
    3. Back to China and fight Baidu.
    4. Establish an office for Indonesia region.

  276. If I were the CEO of Google,I would put more stress to the mobile application and cloud computing.

  277. Adam J. Humphreys

    Man there’s a lot of good ideas here!

    I’d have to agree that one of the common things I’ve heard from most people in SEM is that Google’s interpersonal side of things is not adequate (especially for those spending large sums of money). A little bit of personal touch goes a really long way. AI is great but it’s a long way from replacing CSR’s in many situations where a person is required. I recall you mentioning once that the best $20 is to have someone review your site. This is the best $20 you never spent to engage your audience. Imagine the impact if Google did the same all the time? If there’s anything I’ve learned in business since I was 15 it’s to listen to people because they’ll tell you what you want and then you just have to give it to them. This is why Adsense has a high conversion rate and will continue to grow over time with enhanced AI.

    I agree with most that the idea of TV with accurate relevant advertising is one of the things most people want. Facebook has accomplished this to some extent with targeting users data but for Google it’s still a long way from that. If the data mining of relevant user interests was shared across the platforms for Ad Sense especially for Youtube (Google TV) most people would be a lot happier. I can’t tell you how irritating it is watching TV and having a commercial go “Are you over the age of 65?” I mean seriously we’re not talking rocket science with all the technology readily available.

    With TV shows being digitally broadcasted now and most new TV’s having an ethernet cable it would not be a stretch to offer television/movie streams on demand. Samsung TV’s already come bundled with Youtube apps so the emergence is already happening. We know that the differences between the desktop and the living room TV is narrowing extremely fast. What most people want is the ability to readily access tv shows and movies at their discretion. Most people do not want to have to go to the trouble of using tivo etc to record their shows. In this day and age where storage costs are so low the videos should be available whenever we want to watch them.

    The result of Google TV would be: measurable ROI for Ads, Shows like SGU (that can’t get stats from Direct Sattelite) would be able to find out how many viewers actually watched, users would get relevant ads instead of scooter/cialis/retirement commercials for 15 yr olds, and shows would be on demand allowing viewers to actually see what they want to when they want to without all the fuss. Nobody in this day and age wants to schedule our lives around scheduled broadcasts. Technology is far beyond that. Most companies would be more willing to invest because there’s measurable ROI, the ads would be targeted to engaged users, and as a result Google could expect large growth. While Youtube is making money now, imagine how much money it could make if everyone was watching for their favorite TV show or movie? I’ve talked about this a lot in the past. It would be awesome to see a company act on it.

  278. I highly impress answer of Eric Peterson. I think, eric thought very well.

    __Umesh Yadav

  279. I would probably work more on how to advertise keeping user location in mind on mobile. Let’s be clear Google need profits and mobile advertisement is future.

  280. I’d make image based search a priority. By that I mean not Google images, but that reverse search where you give google an image, and they tell you about it by doing a visual analysis, comparing it with other images on the Internet, and deducing what the object of the photo is.

    You’re basically asking Google “what am I looking at”

    Image uploaded directly to google, if the toolbar is installed image rightclicked on on a webpage, or picture taken with an android phone. I know you guys are kinda working on that, I would make it #1 priority.

    It could be used for identification (neat car, I’ll ask google what the year and model is), (neat building, I’ll ask google who the architect was..) all sorts of things.

  281. hire some graphic designers

  282. Google needs to design a modern traffic light controller to improve traffic flow.
    Currently we use a wire under the road to trigger a timer box sequence. This has been around since the 1950’s and we are still using this technology today.

    Design a above ground sensor system that detects speed, weight, number of cars and a whole host of other factors to determine the most efficient scenario possible to conserve fuel for all motorists. For example it can be programmed to allow a 40 truck right of way while stopping a motorcycle. How many times have you been sitting at the lights with no one coming waiting for it to change, or the light changes just as you get to the intersection.
    There is huge fuel saving potential here and this market is totally untapped. It needs a company as big a Google to pull it of, but could be a billion dollar industry retrofitting traffic light systems through out the world. Google has the technology and drive to make it happen. Just my 2 cents.

  283. Also,
    How about an app where you register your computer with Google, then if it gets stolen you can report it to Google. Next time that same computer logs and searches Google it can track it and email you or the police the details. Or incorporate GPS into a laptop combined with Google maps, so you can find a location while driving.

    Or design a handheld GPS device for the blind to replace the cane. It can scan the ground in front of them and emit a series of different sounds to alert them of objects. And also be programmed to remember certain locations. Example when they leave the house the tell the machine “Bakery” and will guide them to that position.

  284. (contd)

    – I would venture into space. Buy Iridium Communications and provide the service for free. Use Iridium’s experience to launch a new worldwide GPS system with better accuracy.. and also let it be completely free.

    – Use the iridium network for data streaming. For live streaming (like live youtube streams) this should be more efficient than using ground networks. An interesting technology would be a CDN in space which allows for instant streaming. From there it’s just a hop skip and jump away from a data center in space 🙂

  285. To expound further on my previous comment which I had to run before finishing…

    What I would most like to see (and indeed, would like to code it myself if I had the resources) is a google image identification search for plants. Where people could take a picture of a plant (whole plant, leaf, or flower) or upload one and have Google try to identify the plant. This would be really hard, and a computer might only be able to indentify the family or genus, but I think it’d be really neat. Then in the future someone could be in a park or a public garden or just hiking in a forest and see something they don’t know what it is, take a picture with android, and Google tells them.

    There are I know some plant identification iphone apps, but they are far from comprehensive and rely on multiple choice user input (sort of a drill down system).

    I have a website, wildcrafting.net, that is a google maps mashup and offers some plant identification tools (you can search by location and things like flower color) but I would kill for some sort of google search API that would allow me to do the above.

  286. … world wide free WLAN. No? Okay, then please give us a nice looking GMail interface. 😉

  287. I will make Google payment service like paypal to receive and send payments for Adwords and Adsense 🙂

  288. I would create an Multiple Listing Service (MLS) killer. MLS is a closed, regional, and expensive system riddled with politics and “hands in the cookie jar”. Google stands for exactly the opposite: open, national/global, and free.

    MLS has not evolved with the internet and now offers little to no value in a real estate transaction. Their lone advantage is their historical data on home sales and prices. The only reason they still thrive is because they have built a wall around searching for listings that sellers and brokers have to pay a lot to enter (with that cost generally passed on to the buyers). Google’s mission as a company has been to identify these “unfair” markets and disrupt them. The structure is already in place with Google Maps. My gut says they will do this eventually, but I’d like to see it happen sooner rather than later.

  289. I would like to create a massive online test that you could only do once. and measure the actual intelligence of the people that use the internet.
    Some thing that like an IQ test that doesnt require knowledge just common sense

  290. I would like for the Google Android team to grow some balls and stand up against the phone carriers. I want control over my Android devices, without having to resort to a custom cooked Rom. I want to be able to install and uninstall everything I want on the phone. No more crap-ware from carriers that I can not remove. Almost every single carrier abuses the openness of Android, in the sense that it uses the openness of the platform to restrict the users to use only their crappy 3rd party products. openness should not only count for carriers, but also for users, enforce a policy that enables users to take back control of their Android phone. Google is losing a lot of credibility with their current attitude towards carriers that restrict user freedom.

    My .02$

  291. I would create a device which combines Augmented Reality and Head-Up-Displays (special glasses or something you can add to your own glasses). Google in particular could add services like Search, Maps or Places to enrich the experience even more.

    You can imagine it to be like an AR browser right in front of your eyes.

  292. I am an affiliate marketer, but I still want to say this.

    The web is far too infiltrated with advertising. Sometimes it is just too frustrating when one needs to find medical information etc.

    I would provide an option such as ‘in private filtering’ to allow users to sign on to a ‘with out advertising filter’. At least make this option available. Just as users do not always elect to opt for ‘in private filtering’, everyone is not going to utilize this option either. Even television has provided this option by allowing you to record shows and come back and watch later without the 1/3 amount of advertising per hour. I can just say that what was once, an invaluable resource tool has become infiltrated with forks that lead you off the beaten path far too often. It is no longer ‘good enough’ to separate paid advertising in the google results tab as PPC is minimal. I feel as though the web is becoming an unreliable resoursce source, and I personally, am beginning to turn back to resouce books once again when I need specific information (such as holistic healing). It is just far too time consuming to attempt to find it on the web these days!!!!

    To compensate, there could be a ‘google search’ specifically for advertisers because, on the other hand on many occasions, I AM looking to purchase something or have heard about a specific product that I am curious about.

    But, by providing a resource tab or an affiliate tab as a separate secluder, it would allow the consumer to ‘have it his way’…and ultimately, who is willing to purchase something simply because that is where the page has led them?

  293. I would make the Google Chatback badge work with the Android Talk client…. JEEZ.

  294. A thought on a missing feature:
    -live camera search feature integrated into your google maps or google earth app. – Why do I still need to go to so many websites to see different live cameras? I can go to Google Earth and see pictures of a place, shouldn’t I be able to see a live camera if there is one there?

  295. Intelligent software, that can find bugs in itself and then patch itself. Essentially self-aware software. It does not need to be AI, but it has to be aware of itself, its capabilities, and vulnerabilities.

  296. Announce partnership with NASA, Russia, India and China to send humans to Mars within 5 years.

    I’m serious. Find out with NASA and http://marssociety.org how much it can be done for in 5 years. We need heavylift rockets, we had them in the 60ies and Shuttle is discontinued anyways.

    If cost is estimated at $25 Billion, Google pays $55 Billion, ask whichever other large tech companies with cash to join, other half can be paid by world governments.

    All IP that comes from it can be part ownes by the investors or released freely to the world. Whole event can be live and on demand streamed in up to quad HD on youtube.

    This is just one of my dozen huge ideas for Google.

  297. 1)Buy Twitter
    2)Get into travel industry

  298. 1. Create a open-framework for most widely used coding languages. (php, ruby etc)

    2. Add the ability to remove all results from specific domains to personalized searches.

    3. Create a openly accessible full-text university research database. (at least improve Google Scholar to a point where its actually useful)

    4. Create an unrestricted worldwide IPTv network for all TV shows.

  299. Ahah, the questions “What would you do if you were CEO of Google?” and “What would you do if you were CEO of Google for ONE DAY?” are very very VERY different! 😉

  300. If I were the CEO of Google I will hire all Apple and Adobe designers and Developers. Of course , they will be fighting all day 🙂

  301. Create Google’s own “FREE – Build Your Own Website” section and give the Everyman a chance to have a website.

    They plunk down $10 for the domain and then BAM, a wizard walks them through colours, templates, uploading a logo and a the easiest CMS in the world. It’ll offer AdWords and Adsense pluginations and Analytics, with Custom Report Builder wizard too.

    Make the “web design” industry drop deuce in their jockeys and teach ’em to fix up.

  302. Matt I got it. Free cell phone service powered by Google! – The customer buys the phone but the phone service would be via Google. Google could make money by perhaps having ads on the phones, liKe adwords. This would save an average family. Well over $1000 a year.

  303. I think Google could really benefit from having an education resource library for teachers and students to use that follows curriculum. It could be a hybrid between something similar to Wikipedia and you tube. I believe that schools are archaic and with technology will one day be a thing of the past. This could help rural students and those with disabilities realize there educational goals. Google could be the driving force that revolutionizes our education system.

  304. Make a chocolate bar that has random prizes, such as adwords credits. The chocolate bar can be named The Googler Bar

    Make a Coca Cola drink that has random prizes, such as adwords credits. The drink can be named Googa Gola

  305. I’d move from ‘Don’t be evil’ to ‘Spread happiness’ but google is too far down the public company route to do something like that. I think that’s why Facebook has kicked your arse recently… I’d research the crap out of innovation that correlates to well being, anything which doesn’t show a link scrap it.. At some point money and competition provide deminishing returns. Making a difference is what Google has a responsibility to do. You guys have more reach than just about anything else in the world, how are you using this to make the world a better place? What are the real human problems we can solve with technology? Which technologies can lead to meaning improvements in our quality of life? They are the questions I’d be asking the brilliant minds at google.. The CEO should be the person that brings the best out in people, not always the best person..

  306. Provide internet statistics data and summaries – useful and interesting ones. The most frequently used websites suggest a lot about what the internet is really being used for. There maybe ~280 million websites but the top 1 million of those makes very interesting viewing. Fragmenting those top 1m into simple categories, as I’m doing atm, helps discovery of really useful sites never seen before.. reason for passing through here for exampl. Most people’s browsing is very focused on familar sets and patterns of navigation. Help people to surf through to new sites similar to their real interests.

  307. Get rid of limitations in Google Places. As a webmaster on behalf of my customers I need to register their business. Forget any postcards confirmation, maybe they just work in US; confirmation by mobile, yes, but my (webmaster) mobile is then registered at customer’s business, what is it about? Make it that way, that webmasters can register as many businesses as they like. You just need to check the validity of business. How? Develop a reliable algorithm and before launching ask the community about their comments from different corners of the world; if it will work or not.
    Google Places should be for people and businesses, not only for Google.

    BTW, good blog, collecting ideas from the market, may add values to our business as well, through your solution that are for us 🙂

  308. Hi Matt

    I would like to see the development of a Global online Google School (e.g. can get their A levels ect), with special attention to Africa.
    I would like to see Google sponsoring schools, underpriviledged areas with computers and internet connections where those who don’t cope in the normal school setup, or have to work to support their families, still have a chance to still strive for their dreams at their own pace.

    I would see the it being a massive database (not Google Docs), containing all of the subjects at the different schooling levels where people can sign up and work at their own pace. Eventually writing the same exams everyone attending normal schooling would have to write. Probably having to right their exams at embassies or governmental institutions.

    The bottom line would be seeing Google more active in education at all levels.

  309. We are a very small company and we want to make the web a safer place where anonymity can be protected (if so desired) but that identity can be trusted when it needs to be, like when you make the decision to buy a product or service for example from someone’s website. We have made a good stab at this with our website passport for corporations. It builds in official, verified information from government sources, a lot of Google driven content such as maps (for location verification) and malware checking, community feedback on a site (the “crowd” always knows best) and advice on where to go to seek redress if things do wrong. All packaged up in a neat, easy-on-the-eye, dynamically refreshed in real-time, graphical format.
    The products out there at the moment such as Verisign’s Trust Seal are really poor and from my experience are totally reliant on the brand saying things are fine. In reality, I have found nothing to convince me that they have actually verified a whole lot. If anyone has similar ideas we’d love to hear from them.

  310. My pet project is developing high speed rail travel. I live in a suburb of NYC and work in Manhattan. A major problem in New York, and in the country as a whole, is affordable housing. If major metropolitan areas could be linked by viable high speed train service, people could live anywhere within 150 miles of a metropolitan area and still easily get to work in a metropolitan area.
    The original train system in the US was built using private funds. Why not have Google lead the way in investing in the US train infrastructures? It would stimulate job growth and further encourage the development of the United States as a whole.
    Developing great high speed train service would reinvigorate many areas where the high cost of living has stifled job growth. If people were able to work in large metropolitan areas and live affordably, growth in these areas would be stimulated. Furthermore, Green house gas emissions might be lessened, since the use of cars for commuting might be cut down as well.

  311. Hi Matt,

    As CEO of Google I would set targets for completion of some of the many projects you already have running to make then better than others and not set up new ones until that is the case. I would take search back to what search was in 1990 and get rid of all local search unless a user asked for it.

    Why? People are now aware of the technologies potential but require a fast, complete search on terms they are looking for. Saving their and your resources is something you should be thinking about, especially in an economic downturn. Do your customers actually want their bandwidth eaten up as they type words on to search (especially considering how most people type slowly with two fingers)? Or do they want what you were known for back then, good results for what they are looking for? Do they want a total portal experience like the other two major players or do they want a simple easy to use uncomplicated search?

    I know my customers prefer simple and fast. This way usability and accessibility is improved. The more complex and cluttered a user interface becomes, the more work people have to do to find what they need.

    Just my thoughts 🙂

  312. Create a blog comments form that fits on a typical netbook resolution screen so that the Name, E-mail and Website fields don’t scroll off the top of the page when I type my comments in.

    You have lost 2 of my COG ideas because it took half an hour to compose them and when I clicked submit, you threw my comments away when the comments form displayed a stupid text message say “enter your name and email”.

    Stupid, stupid, stupid (just in case someone is Googling for stupid things.)

  313. I’d like to see the equivalent of Google street view for passenger rail routes. Attach a trio of cameras (forward, perpendicular, and rear looking) to the left and right windows of passenger rail cars. Start with Amtrak, then do light rail, perhaps eventually even elevated and subway lines.

  314. Here are my suggestions:
    1- Emprove your customer service ( one of the users have already mentioned ) I repeat it again so you understand its importance.
    2- Increase your employees monthly salary in Europe especially in Google Ireland, so that they do their job right and not to copy and paste cliché replies from Google webmaster or google adwords when their customers have question. How do I know how much they get on monthly basis, is not important.
    These poor employees are doing their best for a little salary. I do not think it is fair and I understand why they are not doing their job, right.
    When we ask a question, we usually get a copy and pasted replies. Believe me we all read those FAQ first before emailing Google. Then we get a questionnaire about how was their job, I usually do not fill in questionnaire as I sense it is useless, so do many of my marketer friends in Europe.
    3- Users cannot reach Google’s employees via telephone. You have invested in many areas and I can see your ambition, you have improved your search function and even you are trying to reach the other planets, why don’t you improve some of the basic services that any small and big size businesses have already taken care of? You do not provide real phone services? You are an organization with big responsibility, remove that answering machine and start replying to people’s questions and need. How would you do it? Your HR should find a way to take care of it. I would hire a team to take care of customer service via phone as well. I am sure you have enough budgets to improve your customer service and increase your happy customers.
    I understand there are unhappy customers everywhere., but there are ways to improve it.
    4- Improve Google checkout. Many people/business owners around the world do not trust Google payment system and do not implement it on their websites. You are losing money in that area. Many businesses have fear from not getting their money back via Google checkout. Paypal have better solutions. So I would defiantly have a look at it. I am not affiliated with paypal. This is an example.
    These are some basic components that should be improved in the areas I mentioned.
    If an organization improve their leadership strategy and organizational work processes, they will defiantly see an increase in results.

    5- Contribute in unemployment problem at least in US. Create more work environments for talented students who are in need of part time jobs and unemployed experts . I will provide some strategies if you are interested to know.
    Please do not take these critics personally.
    I just try to help.

  315. I would like Google to trusted with my personal and private data and for Google to stop seeing itself as “above the law”.

    Clearly, Google is more interested in collecting everyone’s personal data (e.g. Streetviews) than it is abiding by local personal data and privacy laws. Google is being prosecuted in many countrie around the world because of this (Canada, UK, …).

  316. Awesome – If I worked at Google I’d have to be in the creative, dream it up team!

    — Idea 1
    How about an iron tight CMS website that’s not hackable? Lately I’ve been working with the MotoCMS and have installed a dozen or so this year as the product is still new. What I like about the setups is it’s been 11 months now and “knock on wood” none, not one of them has been hacked. Reason being is there’s no database, no MySQL injections 🙂

    Then it would also need plugins like Google Checkout kinda like how WordPress is flexible. Everything would need to be drag and drop without having to be a rocket scientist to edit the website. Also would want to be able to download and install on our own servers. Price should not exceed that of the $225 normally are for full software set.

    — Idea 2
    People make grocery list all the time. I’d like to be able to select “pot roast” or “chili” and when selected it would automatically give me the choice to select what ingredients are needed for that meal. So, we could check the fridge, spices to make sure we have everything 🙂

    — Idea 3
    Google Satellites, as in smaller offices to employ more people locally in more cities. Kinda like cloud hosting. Not everyone needs to be in the core offices and deal with such traffic in big cities. We need more people employed in the USA why not slice up Google to be like cell phone companies that have offices everywhere? It would create 1,000’s of jobs.

    — Idea 4
    Employ people from home? There’s gotta be a way to have more stay at home parents etc.. to make an income working for Google from their home.

    Just some things off the top of my head within a few moments. Imagine if I was to sell my company and do my part in changing the world.. cause, Google that’s exactly what you do.

    Best of luck to everyone,
    Snerdey 🙂

  317. Matt, what are the types of comments you filter out? Out of the ~300 comments, how many others (approx) have you filtered out and not posted? If a truly outstanding COG idea gets posted, do ever filter them out (as moderator) and not post them publicly?

  318. I would create Google Debt where people cold enter all of their debt (school loans, credit cards, mortgage, car loan, list all of their monthly expenses and their income to help them monitor their debt all in one place with tips and strategies for getting rid of that debt and helping them start saving for the future. Most people don’t have much savings, if any in case of emergency. Google could help people become fiscally stronger and improve their life by reducing their stress and helping them see that getting out of debt and saving money is possible.

  319. Tackle the electronic medical records problem. There are a bunch of companies our there right now that have good ideas and some are even doing a good job. Scoop up a few of them, use their best ideas & technology, put the Google brand, muscle and intelligence behind it and maybe we’ll have a standard source for storing and retrieving all medical records that everyone will use.

  320. I would like to work with you Matt to bring joy and brighten up the tons of cement that dulls our world. Together, lets get a program up to cover the concrete and have it running on Google to show how much we can cover and beautify. Cover the concrete! I am sure there are many councils and countries, corporations that would enjoy seeing their drab outer shell embellished to give communitys personality.

    Mix it up! Cement and mosaics can be worked into tree shapes or waves or free form abstract with incredible pushed in items. Teach the ancient form of mosaics with a contemporary twist and empower the people to decorate. Incredible 3-D mosaics made from reusable and recycled materials. Imagine a concrete bridge, a tall building, a wall, seats, any suitable concrete adorned with gob-smacking art. Have it filmed as it forms and crawls to beautify blankness.

    Computer parts, old phones, wine bottles, anything that can cope with the weather, cars parts, you name it we use it! I see a bridge dripping with wine bottles, but not tacky, but whacky….wine bottles and beer bottles, any glass or old objects…. cut into incredible greenery, I can show you how! Teach the kids mosaic art, it gets them off the street and into caring about the street, it’s about community, fun and putting things on the concrete instead of in the ground. It can be beautiful, weird, incredible, what takes shape comes from within.

    Matt, pick a city and let’s go for it! There are brilliant mosaic artists that can teach the world to sing in a new form. I would love to see a Google Mosaic Mecca – a wonderful place purpose built to bring out the best in people working together – educational and all recorded and put on Google live so it inspires others to crack up and discover their artistic side. It’s the balance that is needed for creativity at work and play.

    Time spent in front of the computer can be stimulating and awesome but time spent away from it, covering the dull concrete can change the visual world we live in. It makes you feel good to smash and crash and reassemble into art. It is therapy and fun. Google can provide online artworkshops to teach mosaics so everyone can be part of the Google Mosaic Makeover! Put the x-factor into Google. Google gives out and the world gives back.

    That coffee cup in front of you can be turned into blooming floral works of art that climb outside your building, perhaps creep in. Decorate a dunny in every building so even going to the loo is artistic! Mosaic lives happily with the environment and you! When we are all gone, the mosaic art may live on. We take a piece from now and it will connect with others in a new era. Google can collate the stories of each piece – Only Google could provide the power to put the pieces together. Imagine the evergrowing commentry of the online StoryBook.

    So, Matt, don’t just stand there, break something! Reconnect with your hands and your ‘art.

    We have the cement, we have the knowledge, the world is full of tesserae…..we need hands and funds to get the kids and the big kids into art – it may not be a run in the park, but it can get them into the park! This art form knows no bounds. People who are in desserts can mosaic waterfalls out of slate and blue wine bottles and mirror. People who are at the seaside can create the outback in abstract form.

    Put the coffee mug to your ear, what do you hear? The sea?…. no it’s the magical mosaic sound of all the tea towel fights and gossip….secrets and laughter that the mug absorbed over the years. As you nibble into amazing art, we break the china with respect, for all that has been shared over that mug and embed it forever – it’s enchanting. That favourite computer mouse can be put into the mosaic, that old mouse pad you can’t part with, can be part of something special. Stack the old parts, you will be surprised how good they will look combined with glass and more. It might sound tacky, but it’s not, when done well, it’s what we need to make people stop and stare and think and wonder …..

    That plate probably heard the daily banter at dinner time or the tears of the day. The old tiles could tell some lively tales of the people that walked on it over the years. If people put themselves into the mosaics they release and rejoice, remember and together it grows.

    So, my wish for Google would be for community art projects that are there for anyone who hates looking at continuous cement highway walls, buildings, carparks, anywhere that the cement rules in the most drab of ways. Quirky but dramatic and powerful. It takes energy, it takes dedication but it takes off – mosaic art is addictive and it’s so good for you. Take on the mosaic world with me Matt, add texture, beauty, weirdness and wonder – let Google lead an ‘art attack on cement which is a beauty in itself for it’s strength, but oh it needs some urgent attention in the landscape.

    Fund the art and the art will fund you right back. Unleash the creativity in you and it will pay you back in so many ways. Get out of the boardroom and jump on a trampoline and chuck a plate at the wall. Write something on it first and let it all out. It’s amazing how good it is to smash something in the name of art. Smash the barriers that hold people back from their emotions; free the artistic soul, everyone has one but it gets buried a little, burdened down in our busy lives…give people back the hands on joy of creating their ‘art out.

    Google’art.

  321. I would also create Google Health to help people learn what it takes to be healthy and if they are sick, things they can do to improve their health. The art of cooking is lost, people need to understand that cooking and eating real food is at the heart of health. I would have part of the website to teach people how to cook real food. I would let people download their own videos of cooking homestyle healthy food. I don’t mean all of the fancy things you see on the food channels but real food like our grandmothers and great grandmothers used to make. Have an herb and vitamin database where they can learn about these vitamins and herbs that we all see in the stores and how to implement them into our nutritional lives. How we can approach our own doctors and have them work with us to prevent disease instead of just giving us a pill when we get sick. Google can really make a difference with helping people realize that good health starts with prevention and how to do it.

  322. A Google Art Register. Show artworks, great and small, famous, infamous and emerging, worldwide.

    Detail location, artwork, feedback/commentary.

    Google’art! Lovers of Google can upload photos to Google’art and Google’art locates and collates the artwork forever. Artists have to be willing to pARTicipate and share.

    Hence, the Google’ARTGallery- the online artcentre. A feast for the eyes.

    Take us into the galleries, interview the artists, hold the Google Virtual Art Show – the Greatest Show on Earth.

  323. I would create Google Senior Advocate and have a website where adult children of seniors can help their parents from a distance. Many seniors are living in other parts of the country from their children and need help but there is no one there to assist them. So, an adult child could install a camera into their parents home and each morning the parent could look into the camera and say hello so they can be seen by their adult child. Many older seniors can’t use the computer. Yes, they can talk on the phone, but seeing them will tell more. You can see their skin color, the look on their face, if they look ok. In one place, the adult children could keep track of all their parents meds, dr appointments and Google would automatically generate a list of agencies and services in their parent’s area so they could easily call to set up outside help as needed (ie: ride to the dr, in home care, dr’s, therapy, etc). Google could hook up with maybe Angie’s list so the adult children could read reviews of companies in their parent’s area before using their services. These older adults want to stay home and not be put in a nursing facility. Google could help.

  324. Google has a vast amount of resources, taking this into consideration I would create a Healthcare find service or a ” wireless Healthcare service, take the middleman out of the process. I would be willing to pay for a monthly or as used service that allows me to search for the best price for a doctors visit within my travel radius or miles selected. Doctors could charge a flat rate for visit, I could view that flat rate choose the cheapest one and make the appointment while mobile. Alot of doctors will join compete with their prices, caust will drop due to less paperwork. If my Son and I need a room for the evening while traveling, I use google and find the cheapest price while viewing ratings of the lodging or hotel, Why not do the same for basic healthcare, I’m traveling , my son gets an ear invection, withing minutes I’m at a doctors office, he receives care, no hour of paper work. Have a health app that allows doctors to buy in just like google ads now you have health care at competetive low price local as well as mobil while traveling. App will be on phone and phone will know location through gps and find a doctor.

  325. If I were Google CEO for a day, I’d come up with a social networking site to compete with Facebook. Google has been trying to do this, but I think they can do more.

    My Facebook-killer:

    1)….(top secret)

    2)…. (top secret)

    3)….( top secret)

    4)….(top secret)

    4) A forum that does all what Facebook is doing

    Sorry about the ”top secrets”, I simply can’t publish them here. Candidly, Facebook is a major threat and I’d try to dilute and come up with a machinery…. All these I’d do if only…

  326. Big ideas are great, but sometimes I think Google has got too clever for it’s own good – or for my good 🙂
    You’re missing the point about PRIVACY and PERSONAL SECURITY.
    I own a small business, operating from home, and I DON”T want my company’s physical address on the internet for every potential housebreaker to find.
    Well, it is … and I did NOT put it there! The system, being way too clever, has tracked us down. I’ve tried deleting the listing to no avail, and no-one listens to my complaints!
    That, dear Google, is what you need to fix.

  327. I would create Google Memorial Gardens. Many people die in other parts of the country or world and you can never visit their loved ones grave to put flowers or say a prayer. I would have a place where people could get virtual cemetary plot, urn cabinet, or mausoleum then make their loved ones gravestone or plaque, add an image or video of their loved one and choose from a variety of flower arrangements to put on the grave. The flowers would eventually wilt and die and they would have to come back to add more flowers. There could be a section by the grave where other family members can leave sentiments.

  328. I would create Google Fun where people could go to play games. I would charge a nominal fee and donate all of the proceeds to a charity I would create called Google College. Google College would provide college scholarships to individuals who want to go to college but do not qualify for financial aid as their parents make too much money for them to qualify but not enough to actually pay for their child’s college. I want to help people that are hard working but just don’t make enough to pay all of the bills and also send their kids to college.

  329. Wow Todd Johnson read my mind~~~ Beyond 2011 Google should fly the flag for small business online representation and training.
    The keyword being representation …small business is the backbone of this country ..always will be….
    Do No Evil..

  330. I haven’t gone through all the suggestions. maybe a “dreamy” parent would have suggested this.

    Social Learning Site for KIDS</b. with 24 hour moderators, Just like a "hang-out" place after school. No "bad links" allowed including ads. Registration would be as if a parent is enrolling his/her child in a school to avoid "Villains" from taking advantage of it. Impossible? For Google I hope it's not.

    Just a Concern Parent

  331. May I suggest a huge archiving of Google’s current index. There are pages that are so out of date yet they still appear in the top ten search results. I would put in place a simple five year (or two or three) rule – if a page hasn’t been updated in the last five years – it get’s archived out of organic search. I would then add an option to search the ‘archives’ if users wanted to see older data. Simple solution to modernize search results – not that SEO experts would approve – but we searchers definitely would – and it would take probably three or four Googleytes to do it.

  332. I have been wondering when Google will enter the video game arena. I think today is the day Google looks to the future in the other arena’s as well. I have an idea that would be amazing for video game systems such as the Playstation 3, Xbox, GameCube, etc.

    First, allow me to explain how I discovered this idea. I was sitting here one day working from home on the computer while the kids sat in the living room playing “Grand Theft Auto”. I noticed how realistic the game appeared. I was also amazed that a team of developers sat around creating the cities the game theme was within. Then it occurred to me. Where is Google at?

    Image play a “Grand Theft Auto” or a “modern Warfare” but being able to choose the city you want to play within online using the powers invested to us by the tools of Google Maps, Streetview, Satellite, etc. The games could potential be more interactive, but besides the realistic graphics, I also realized a HUGE LOCAL ADVERTISING MARKET that is completely UNTOUCHED. In the game “Grand Theft Auto” you continuously drive past businesses. Now what if the businesses we drove past were actual businesses in our LOCAL TOWNS that have been included in some type of a Google Local Search. The gamer would automatically by default start the game out in his own town based on GEO cord info. Imagine the brand awareness that this may potentially generate. Its only a matter of time before the next BIG search engine gobbles up a HUGE chunk of the Google Market Share with other Ad REV streams such as online gaming console ad server.

  333. Rethink (drop) your flawed “link popularity” theory. You have created a “link to me and I’ll link to you” monster. Stop wasting webmasters time trying to post links to their sites in every directory, blog, forum available, in an effort to manipulate rankings.

    Do you really expect us to believe that major corporate websites with thousands and thousands of back links bestowed by Google, are getting them a’la natural.

  334. A few other people have mentioned education; I’d like to suggest a slightly different take on that. The internet already has an enormous amount of good material that you can read to find out about about almost anything that you might want. However, in order to learn effectively, you really need to be challenged. You need to attempt problems and be given feedback that helps you to resolve any confusions that you might have. I am not aware of many systems that address this in a remotely intelligent way. An ideal system would remember what questions you have attempted in the past, what types of errors you made, what feedback you were given and whether it helped, and so on. It would also have access to a large database recording attempts made by other students on the same questions and the path by which they were led to reach the correct answer. It seems to me that the algorithms that would be involved have a lot in common with the algorithms used by Google to provide good search results. Moreover, a Google-provided online learning system would have such a massive scale that you could really learn a lot about what works or doesn’t work by data mining. I would like to see Google put some effort into this, perhaps through the vehicle of the Khan Academy software project. That project already has a testing framework built in, but it seems to be a rather basic multiple choice system at the moment.

  335. I would love to have a feature added to be able to merge google accounts and to retrieve an old account I created in google which no longer exists and is not available now – that would be something I would do if I were ceo –
    Thanks,
    Mauietta

  336. Fantasy sports
    google merch store (clothing etc)

    And when you are in your google account, have the site set up in ‘widgets’, so someone could move the search bar over there, and the links over there, etc, like a more customizable home page.

  337. What’s really missing is a search engine for smartphone APPS through keywords (both Itunes & Cydia & others).

  338. If I were CEO of Google for a day, I would create an adwords support team that did not consist of vague automated responses when someone had a particular question about their website or ad in question.

  339. Hi Matt, trhankx for the chance to add….simply……I think it would be beneficial for Google to incorporate “Live SEO Chat” to help those who do not 100% understand Google’s ranking process and to assist them with it.

    See you on top! CEO, Todd Herman

  340. Stéphane Poirier

    Hi Matt,

    As CEO of Google i would create «GOOGLE DREAMS» wich would be a non-profit group or organization who would make DREAM COME TRUE FOR, sick kids and sick poor peoples and/or bring water to a village somewhere in Africa an many other things that would have to be discuss. We would make «their dreams come true» and it would be sponsored by compagnies members of «GOOGLE DREAMS» and each time a dream come true it would say, on GOOGLE DREAMS WEB SITE of course, this dream was made possible by «company name».

    Wich company would not want to be part of «GOOGLE DREAMS»

    And that way we would all be doing something BIG very BIG to change the world for a better place…

    Maybe not the idea you were looking for but Google is always trying to make a better place to live, on the WEB…….. So why not outside the WEB TO ???

    And i’m sure that Google could do this…

    Thanks Matt,

    Stephane
    -Montréal, Québec

  341. I want the ubiquitous Cloud.

    I was actually just thinking about this today when I wrote http://hubpages.com/hub/I-want-the-perfect-Cloud-maybe but I’ll sum it up here:

    Transparent device independence. If I’m on my phone or my ipad, I can, without planning it ahead of time, access any file or app I have anywhere else. If I’m on my computer, I can do the same thing for apps and files on my other devices. If I edited a script on my website, I should be able to access that too.

    If I go to a friends house and am using their computer, it should be able to pull up MY desktop and of course still access my iPad, website, etc.

    No prior decisions. No “I might need this so I’ll put it in Dropbox”. No “I want to see my desktop so I’ll turn on VNC”. No – ubiquitous, transparent, device independence.

    No big deal, right? Can I have it before January?

  342. if i was CEO of google i would stomp on facebooks parade and help out PHP by making a replacement to the Zend Engine that transforms php code to C like hiphop but transparently, also i would help the PHP-GTK project (gtk.php.net) and sort out PHP jobs within google for when i get “resigned” for being a crappy stand in for Eric…

    Regards,
    a php developer in a dream world where one is within 100 meters of food/drink at all times ~sigh~

  343. This question reminds me of a time when I worked at a Microsoft facility and was pre-warned that anything I came up with while at work would belong to Microsoft and I would forfeit ownership. You have more than enough staff to come up with new and profitable ways to earn. If not, this creative thinker/inventor/webmaster is available at the moment. 😉

    Here are just a few ideas without thinking about it much…

    1. Google Trader – A stock trading platform similar to Sharebuilder, Scottrade, ETrade, etc..
    2. Google Cure – I think if you guys got into the race for cures of diseases, this could help with branding and show people you really do care. Imagine the partnerships and publicity generated from jumping into the breast cancer fight.
    3. Google Forest – Buy up a huge amount of the rain forest and then re-sell it to individuals in smaller(affordable) pieces allowing everyone to actually own a piece of the rain forest and help preserve it at the same time!
    4. Google Gas! – This is where Google could really clean up… Basically, Google could get into the oil/gas business and buy up a huge amount when the price of gas is low and then as others start raising their prices… Google could keep a constant price for gasoline since it got it at a good price and in such a quantity that it can still earn a profit. Exxon Mobile who?

    If Google needs a good creative thinker, I’m your man! I thought about wireless internet back in the mid 90s(this was the dial-up days) as I hated long road trips without being to get on AOL! I had an idea about selling auto insurance online in the late 90s but of course had no clue how to get it going. The point being… I sometimes get the good ideas before they happen! Call me! 😉

  344. I think there isn’t almost any idea left now! 🙂
    Never the less, i think “cloud software” and mobile apps it’s the future all over of the world.

  345. Build a Page Man rank.

    And start to collect data for every visitor and his Social Behaviors and their Human activity.

    When you found those with High rank, just add them to your search engine results, so people may know that this recommendation came from people with trust.

    Furthermore, you can add this data to the Google analytics report for my website.

  346. Speed up the technology to create3D Virtual Mall (with your Google Adwords advertisement looks like a real banner adv. in the mall) …

  347. Building a spider to collect content is not really possible from a garage any more, so individuals who have search ideas cant easily get all website content to make a search engine. I therefore suggest that Google make a version of the Google database available to developers. This will allow another two guys in a garage to build the next big thing, and true inovators the power to inovate.

  348. Big idea: Music search.
    E.g. I remember the tune, but don’t remember it’s name; so I have no clue to find it. I could use a microphone to sing or whistle it, and voila! I see search results.

    Regards,
    Dmitry.

  349. I love Google for search, but some of the recent changes have been frustrating.

    I, too, would prefer not to see local results unless I ask for them. I like the idea of categories, although it used to be that you would get informational results with a ‘shopping’ section that you could click on if you were indeed shopping.

    I would love to see a natural SEO keyword tool… you could use the ‘previous interface’ from the AdWords kw tool and have it up next week. 😉 This could be a free or low-cost tool. It would allow the little guy to have an equal chance against the big players… which is what natural search results are all about. Big budgets can dominate the ad sections, but the SERPs should be an equal playing field. Giving us all access to real numbers would ensure this to be true.

  350. Help in speeding up the development of technology of Artificial Intelligence like natural language inputs and outputs (important to visually impaired and physically handicapped person). This can help solving the digital divide problem.

    And help reduce car accidents while people too concentrated on operating dashboard buttons by hand, etc

  351. Ed’s ‘Overhaul of the public facing culture’ seems to me to be tough to beat, and flavin should be informed that MIT or Harvard recently developed a real lie detector, which we seem not to be hearing much about. However, my idea would be for Google to choose the most popular of Hydrogen Peroxide therapy, Ozone therapy, Ketogenic therapy, Kagan water, Royal Raymond Rife’s discoveries, genetically modified food, fluoridation, and other issues/discoveries in the alternative preventive medicine arena. Since there is not much monetary profit to be made from compiling the truth about the efficacy or danger of any of the above but HUGE benefits for all mankind should proponent’s claims be correct, Google should select one (or all) and fund quality, unbiased research. Hello Google, the dead and dying are never going to generate the revenue of the grateful.

  352. Make a bigger push to get rid of spam in the search results. Especially the sites that won’t let you get off except by disconnecting from the internet. It’s dificult to report them because at that point you don’t remember what the site was.

    Beth

  353. What about an official Google e-charity, where individuals from all over the world can donate either time, accessories, services you name it… and distribute all these donations in the same way on better education and charity.

  354. Hello Mr. Matt,

    I have this idea since 2004.

    What is it?
    Dynamic Channel Transport System

    How it works?

    Lets imagine, You are walking towards your house’s car parking that has a door just like an elevator. You enters there and tells “Go to Office”. Then it takes you to the door of an elevator that is available at your office. And it deducts some $ from your bank account based on the distance of the travel.

    No Driving, No Traffic, No Signals, No waiting, No accidents, No Petroleum fuel, Go to EXACT destinations.

    In future, By implementing this system across the country. There would no requirement for any other transport systems. There will be just ONE.

    Lets imagine this for “Go to staples, Go to KFC, Go to Miami Beach, Go to John’s House, Go to Amsterdam”

    What is it exactly?

    A transport bay on land or in underground that connects every house, office, shop, street, city, villages, states & countries.

    That transport bay/path could be able to transport “Private Vehicles, Commercial Vehicles, Goods Transport Vehicles”
    Having transport terminals at every office, house & public spots.

    Vehicles for DCTS:
    Forget the traditional cars, bikes, trucks. Here after it will be containers. Anybody can buy a container for private or commercial use.

    Fuel for DCTS Containers:
    Surly NO Petro Products, It will be electro-magnetic waves. Just same as superfast bullet trains. But there wont be any traditional train tracks. It will be “Channel Base”. “Channel Base” and DCTS Containers would never touch together. Just imagine like., They are floating.

    How people can buy DCTS Containers?
    Car manufacturing companies have to start R&D to build vehicles that work with electro-magenetic controlled base.

    How can we install terminals at all house?
    Customers have to pay to Google for installing a terminal at their house/workplace.

    How to charge them?
    Based on Distance.

    R&D Requirements
    #1. Transport system that works based on Electro Magnetic waves.
    #2. An accurate algorithm that could allocate channels dynamically based on the number of containers using the transport bay.

    How to make money?
    #1. By charging per terminal basis
    #2. Charge customers based on trip by trip.
    #3. Customers can use their containers to be used as “Taxi” to serve other people who doesnt own one.
    #4. Inside the container, We can offer many advertising & shopping facilities. “Think, Direct shopping when they travel”.

    How is this possible?
    Big companies like Google have to join hands with government that has broad vision about future “Traffic” problems & “Petroleum” problems. A clear planning and R&D could make this happen within next 20 years.

    But, Once it is done., It will be the ONLY transport system that will cost money not human life due to accidents & terrorism.

    Note: I personally call this as “DCTS” and I have few ideas in mind (not on paper) about making the algorithm and electro-magnetic system for containers.

    This system is only possible by BIG companies with clear view of future and its transport problems in every country.

  355. Eliminate the TSA’s current abusive and time wasting method of screening passengers. Provide an instant data report on every pasenger. Such a report would probably clear 95% of passengers showing history of residences, employment, police records and other points that would establish a person is “average” and not a threat.

    Anyone failing the data background check would be subjected to a body pat-down, or scan, or some other method of verifying that they are safe to board a plane. Come on guys, surely you could come up with a plan that beats the government’s solution!

  356. I’d like to see you run your own Host system with advanced programs like easy included access to the Cloud, and easy to setup script and flash programs and up to date optimization. Smooth interface with Googles own version of Facebook Social Pages, and even interface with Facebook it’s self, for additional Ad revenues. Up to date tools including the latest Html 5 coedits and all advanced programing assist tools included. Easy Ad Sense updates in main control panels, and agreements worked out with companies like Godaddy to keep all domain names up to date. You have the finest programming minds in the industry, and the possibilities I can see are endless, and not limited to this one venture.

  357. In the history of civilization, the development of mathematics has been a fundamental principle by which many other technologies were advances. However, it is not the history of mathematics that I wish to present. In these changing times and merging of cultures, there are few languages, which are as universal as mathematics. Some tout the language of love as universal, others say dance, while yet others say it is music. The latter of these can be represented with mathematics.

    Our hope for the future lies in the education of all peoples. Merely participating in the global conversation and contributing to the spread of dialog does not create new learning and enhanced understanding. Effective communication of engineering, technology, and thought require us to translate between a myriad of languages, many times loosing the meaning behind it all because of a few key phrases. Mathematics is a language that does not need translating.

    Creating a method of mathematical exchange and learning would be, in my opinion, as great a contribution to world knowledge as Wikipedia was for the encyclopedia. The ability to share even the most fundamental of mathematical explanations would greatly enhance worldwide knowledge.

    Many limitations are in place today with editors and browsers, which hamper the sharing of even the simplest fractions. Often times, its pictures of equations that must be shared in order to communicate the concept. It is in the creation of these pictures that shows the flaw in effective sharing. Creating a picture of a mathematical equation can be a technically daunting task when using less than state of the art computers. It also requires a person to have understanding beyond that of mathematics and simple communication.

    With its focus on simplicity and browser integration Google is the best company for the task. Bringing the ability to share mathematical information easily would set the stage for yet another boom in collective knowledge. Being able to share the collective mathematical knowledge with 1/2 of the known world would have great historical significance.

    As Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth.”

  358. Hi Matt. How about you launch a new domain extension .goog and give it world wide appeal through the search engine. Allow it to be targetted in any country with more weight than .com or any ccTLD . That would defintely make the “Goog” a fair amount of money back from the spammers who have made money from you over the years with useless mini sites. 🙂

  359. I would come up with an international money transfer tool (which can be used to pay for online purchases, similar to paypal). it would be much safer and wide-spread than credit cards.

  360. Crank up the volume on Google Places by integrating an improved custom map app (lots of custom icons, google street views . a foursquared type of check-in with a comment/get a coupon service, offer word press blog like features in an easy to use CMS styled menu with custom display feature selections. which allow embedding of twitter and facebook page feeds as well as video intergration with YouTube content. All tied in with a “call this business” with Google Voice 🙂

    In short a kick ass all in one place, that is an easy to use and easy to get service for both consumers and small business that provides one stop shopping and really kewl quick content perspectives.

    Long list eh? I know many of these items are already there…but not in a really well utilized way. It would probably drive Google programmers to caffeine overload. Pun intended 😛

  361. An extensive database of price tracking history, bar code enabled as well as name search so that one day, everything sold online, new or old has a tracking history. ie. I want to know how much the matchbox car I never opened back in 1984 is worth.. I go to google’s awesome new database, and see that it sold for $1.39 new, and average sold price this year in good, unused condition is $14.00, that it sells for 8% more in east coast collectors shops than west, and can be seen that the price has been on the decline from a high of $29.00 two years ago. User’s could see that their purchase of a yellow mustang convertible will hold it’s value 3% better than an identically modeled white mustang convertible, etc.
    This information on a grand scale would not only be awesome it would help drive the “second hand goods” economy well into the future. I think this application is well within the realm of Google’s abilities, and perhaps only Google could pull it off.

  362. Google should have contests for Adsense publishers- run random giveaway/contest ads through Adsense, where anyone who signs up for a Google product is automatically entered to win. And the publisher of the ad they clicked on wins too!

  363. Well, I want to see the speed & efficiency with which Google search algorithm works, in the HUMAN GENETICS/GENOME analysis work.
    I am sure the engineers @ Google can write algorithms to analyse and study the relations between genes, alleles and associations between organisms even at a broader level.
    In fact I am ready to work on this, if given a chance.

  364. If I had the position as CEO of Google I would, like Mr.Hotels said, continue finishing up the ventures that have already been put in action, and find innovative ways of improving them. As for any new ideas or programs I would start a Residual Shaving Program on some, if not all of Google products and services. By shaving, I mean talking a very small percentage (0.01% for instance) of profit and putting it in a fund. A fund for world issues. I am sure Google has certain initiatives and funds set aside for charities, etc. Which is great, but with this type of program in existence, what it would do is set an example on a world level for corporations and businesses. At this point Google can start a program consisting of a group of companies that would be willing to join and follow in their footsteps by donating on a residual basis an extremely minor percentage of their company’s earnings. This could even be a sum as oppose to a percentage. Participation in the program will give companies a good look. Even though their is many charities and programs in place, I feel that Google has the worldwide power and reach to be able to establish a program such as this in a very effective and influential manner. Imagine if all established well profiting businesses donated a small portion of profits into a collective fund and how much impact that could have on the balance in this world.

  365. Hello mr. matt

    i have an idea in my mind from a long time. i think which can change the world and business itself.

    I think should have a chain of web engineering colleges across the globe where we can trained the professionals into web engineering and can develope best professionals across the globe who can think like us and can produce more good business

    we can start this business by starting online engneering colleges

    by web engineering colleges we can earn too much good money as well can have best professionals who will trained by us own and can be part of us and can be a good advisors of new business

  366. Launch a social aggregation service that can connect to all major social networks. Allow people to prioritize how their news feed appear by a) person, b) topic, c) content type. Create a database of things and attach this to the database of brands and target everyone by their prioritization data while offering them freebies and incentives about what they like and allow everyone to manage their online social life from a single space and finally set up a bridge between keyword and interest based advertising by implementing this to AdWords.

    I have a presentation and a business plan about. It actually has seen some investors but no one was bold enough to consider doing it. If you are interested in knowing more, please get in touch with me.

  367. Hello Matt, I know this is probably out there already, but can someone email me with a free tool that tells me on what organic page a certain url ranks on? I like to help friends with SEO, but like to have a starting point and sometimes they are just too hard to find. Can someone email me and tell me what free tool can find what page a url is on in the Google SERPS? And if there isn’t one, then that is what I’d do if I were Google CEO for a day. Please have someone send that tool to me if it exists. Thanks, Bonnie. email is, info@EngineEd.com Thanks,

  368. Make company accounts information for all companies free to everyone, I have made all company accounts information for UK companies free. If I can do a country, google can do the world.

  369. I would axe google docs and all kind of google lab products (ie everything except search and maps and gmail)and then create an app development platform cloud host it and let the crowd/open source developers integrate apps for the cloud and let them pay on usage basis. In addition i would call for a payment gateway like paypal so that developers can collect money from customers. Advertising products would be killed and instead i would gear the company towards making money by selling it’s core competencies as utitlity products.

  370. jeanpierre kalebic

    If I were CEO for a day I’d develop Google Timeline an innovative way of searching and collating information.

    I believe this is the big idea you’ve been looking for but as I’m not particularly technically minded I may have difficulty explaining it to you, but I’ll give it a go!

    So essentially Google Timeline would allow you to search the internet for a particular subject with results shown graphically on a timeline of your own creation. For instance I might be interested in seeing all the mass extinctions the earth has suffered in the past 1 billion years, I would set the size of my timeline and search results would be shown on it.
    In order to do this you would need to catalogue all dates mentioned on the internet, the more important dates in my search would be mentioned far more regularly than other dates and so would be reflected by a much larger number of entries, this would result in a crowd of entries around, for instance, 65 million years ago which would stand out significantly from the crowd.

    Now this is the cool bit! If you could then add more searches to the timeline, say major asteroid strikes over the same period you could instantly see if there is a correlation between the two timelines.

    What do you think?

  371. Start taking customer service serious. Find a way to actually communicate with your customers and users instead of hiding behind email and forums that rarely satisfy a request for information. Additionally, the recent issue where Google lost numerous business reviews on Places is totally unacceptable. Something must me done to recover these and restore the much needed component of reputation management that these businesses have come to rely on via Google Places. Thanks.

  372. Hi,

    I’d take my website design and back it up with a massive marketing campaign.

    The basically allows users & business to manage all there social media & email account in one place, this work in such a way that there won’t any need to log into Facebook or another social or email site outs ode of this innovative website.

    The key benefits I/user will or google would have benifited from:

    Feautres
    Add multiple social media and email accounts 12 plus
    Log into all your accounts using one username & password
    Upload your videos and pictures to one or all your accounts with a single click
    Send a status update to all your accounts simultaneously
    Sell your items on your profile page – linked to your eBay account or amazon account
    integrated status post of items included
    Chat facility 
    Customise your homepage option

    Plus a has a socialmedia side similar to Facebook….just better.

    A global propersition that would propel any google CEO and google to the top of the specific social media market…and set the bar high for any current opposition.

    Kind regards,

    F. Adams

    UK Innovation

  373. Hey

    First of all make it so that My mytouch doesn’t have to force quit all the time. Make the keyboard not so useless and Utilize Pranav Mistry six sense project.

    Lola

  374. I would create a global ID number (pretty much like the social security no. in the US) for every one.

    it could be an eleven digit number assigned to every person on earth. this can be used in all government and private registrations and is unique.
    imagine other uses for this…..

  375. Add to google maps the ways of ways getting from a to b, so would tell you if you should walk, taxi, train, bike or bus (and mixtures of) to get from a to b in the fastest time (and cost).

    In london, you can now hire bikes, you can walk the wrong way down 1 way streets, a bus may provide a better route. A taxi rank may not be near etc

  376. Hello all,as a Google CEO i would take care and try to create “The Google Foundation” a charity that would house orfans and make them into the best beeings ever,with the proper education and probably a job when they grow up.But above all this would be the right action into social responsability,and with the right propotion this could be huge to the world and to Google.With great results for all on the long term.I am at the moment taking care of an orfan,and one can only imagine what this children can hold on to,as a way of finding a reason to just exist,never mind a reason to survive.And who better to take care of this than my own company,Google?Yes i know…we all should,but maybe we are just a litle to busy trying to find the next big Google product,so i think that my company,Google, should have this responsability.What do you think Matt?Think BIG…

  377. Cool page of yours.

    An idea: extension of this page’s concept to a permanent “Idea bank”.
    http://www.project10tothe100.com is over and was limited to a certain scope.

    Corporate decision makers protect themselves, would they belong to the third, or fourth circle. They “install” filters, moderators. Most of the time one cannot contact them. In other words, Google is both so near and so far.

    We often have creative ideas that could be of any help, beyond the specific job openings. Imagine people who have good ideas and would like to work with Google. Even if they knew where to submit them to your company, which was not obvious until today, they are not sure at all that a decision taker will get an access to their suggestions, because of those filters.

    Why not opening a direct channel between decision makers at your company and web masters, marketers, through an “Idea bank”, an international think tank, a dedicated mailing list, and other tools?

  378. I would expand or bring back the click to call ads not just on the mobile devices search but for desktops as well.

  379. Matt, this is simple. I wish I was CEO of Google. There’s a few theories (truths) I have learned over time working the web hand coding HTML CSS PHP MySQL JavaScript AS3 and doing all the graphic design work on a high level myself + working with the clients personally on all levels from small to public companies. IMW is my business btw…

    Here they are:
    Never do a complete redesign (sometimes Google follows this…)
    The Only thing Constant is Change
    If something is broken, don’t fix it.

    Now if you don’t know… the winner of search for the normal people will be the person who figures out the best way to display the results on the hardware we use. Google originally won this battle with plain text results because that was the birth of search. Now we are getting in to a new era where plain text results are only good for small devices and bandwidth efficient solutions, the people want more. Google knows this and decided to implement fast browsing, included videos in the search results at one point, etc… this isn’t exactly the change that is needed to win though. Please check out dippity.com to see what the next level of search is. It has nothing to do with social networking and it has nothing to do with XML/RSS syndication and accessibility. It has everything to do with the future. I can’t give away the answer, I’m going broke out here and I need recognition to survive my friend.

    I will tell you that you are doing an amazing job with Google Voice setting the platform for VOIP and digital telephony (you have to considering you are trying to be the leaders in Video Chat, it only makes sense you master the underlying platform Video will sit on) However, there is much more Google should be doing that they aren’t and I’m surprised considering this is a public company.

    Sometimes I think all the insiders in Google are shorting it because of the recent moves you have made, but we’ll see. Careful not to spread yourself too thin, I think you need me as CEO to be honest, someone who understands the underlying technologies, what the people want, the future of the technology that powers the web (touch screen will be in every house soon) Partner with Elo.. That is if the internet is even around 10 years from now.

    Hire me Hire me and check out IMW i come from the same town Zuckerburg comes from and he hasn’t put any money in to our area or brought any jobs, I am the opposite of him, I need to put where I come from on the map! Help me out.

    IMW Larry

  380. uhh if something ISNT BROKEN DONT FIX IT I meant, sorry aboout that. Google images service for example doesn’t need all the bells and whistles. The Google Image label game rocks though, the best game ever considering the underlying objective is accurate results. Who thought of that one? They should be CEO, I will make them my right hand man.

  381. Recommission the WWF and American Gladiators, and Start the first Annual Google VR Sports Games.

  382. Be the gateway to free internet. Anyone who has got a Google internet stick will have free unlimited internet. Internet should be free for anyone and you guys can do just that! Maybe a one of fee to get the stick and then enjoy the internet forever!

  383. Recommission the WWF and American Gladiators, and Start the first Annual Google VR Sports Games.

  384. I would like to see Google take into account lazy loading of images when calculating page speed.

  385. Implement privacy domains and a privacydomain: search operator.

    I would like the ability to have any page that matches my registered person information (e.g. based on email address, name and street address, name and cell phone number) opt out (be forcible excluded) from Google search results.

    I would also like to be able to specific privacydomain:personal in my search results and see only results from pages that match my privacydomain information as well as the other search terms.

  386. http://www.google.com/brain/ – a comprehensive three-dimensional map of the human brain and central nervous system. Analogous to Google Earth or Google Mars, “Google Brain” or whatever would provide a way for people to navigate through the physical structures that underpin human existence. People could learn what goes where, what we currently think this thing or that does, how various systems interact, etc.
    The model would have to evolve continuously in response to new discoveries. It should also be able to clearly distinguish between established knowledge, speculation, and areas of mystery.
    Reference information and links would suggest paths of investigation to the curious, or those who want to learn more about conditions or afflictions.

  387. People like to support underdogs, but search has become a backlink game played best by those with the most market share. Add a “Little Guy” search button that uses all of your other factors – trust, speed, relevance – but ditches using the quagmire of backlink junk the big boys have created (because you’ve assigned it so much value), so that we can support the honest, non-internet-polluting little guy now and then.

    The vast majority of backlinks are artificial, tainting your results – and it’s making search very boring, predictable even.

    Heck, I typed in a search for a common household product today and hit the “I feel lucky” button and it took me to a major department store’s page… if that’s G’s version of fun or interesting, you guys need to get out more.

  388. Sell advertising on street view, so when you look at say a hotel on street view, a competitors hotel can buy a poster is rendered on the wall of the hotel been viewed offering a competitors hotel.

    The technology to render images exists, great revenue oppertunity and has wow factor. We can all see that sat navs willbe using street view in the future, in effect you own the virtual real estate, start selling it.

  389. Build a website that shows the true cost of peoples eating habits on the environment and their health. So far this has not been done well as the ‘carbon footprint’ calculators do not take into account the true effects of animal raising, which has disastrous effects on all aspects of our planet. Also the cost to the countries health care system of meat eating, the increase in your own disease rates etc. It’s well know, more meat and dairy = higher chance of bowel, heart disease, cancer etc.

    A website with graphical pictures, animations, maps, whatever, to show people really how changing their diet to one of less meat and processed foods can increase the wellbeing of countless humans and animals. This would not only be extremely informative and interesting, but also very useful to helping to alleviate many of todays problems.

    A lot of maths and variables would need to be worked out, but of course it is possible.

  390. I think the CEO has to have the “big picture” view of the future. As CEO I would have three objectives:

    1) Develop products that enhance market penetration.
    2) Serve clients in a better way than previously possible, and
    3) Leverage potential for collateral penetration

    I like a couple of the entries above. My main focus, however, would be on revolutionizing education. The teaching profession is classically resistant to change and they continue to teach students by way of the 1850’s model. That has to change if we are to make quantum leaps in knowledge innovation. I am not just talking about K-12 education either. I am talking about adult education as well. “Paper degrees” are so old school and so inefficient.

    As CEO of Google, I would initiate a number initiatives that ultimately tie into the bigger picture – that of delivering quality, on-demand education to those who want it. I would therefore:

    1) Create a global wireless network (as Brian suggested above) that is priced so that it compares to local DLS rates. It would be accessible by the client whether he was in Boston, Spokane, Vancouver, London, Madrid, or Botswana.

    2) I would create a platform like Adobe is trying to do with “Adobe Connect”, but it would be priced so as to INCLUDE not EXCLUDE educational users.

    3) I would develop online tools (like Picassa is to pictures) that allow rich media content delivery to all clients, and seamless delivery through the “Connect” gateway. (Almost an expansion of Google Docs)

    4) I would create a universal payment gateway that interfaces well with “Google University”, and that will give the participating Universities access to their share of the pie. (Expansion/modification of Google Checkout?)

    5) I would forge strategic partnerships with key Universities and colleges everywhere to provide programs that range from vocational to degree status.

    6) I would encourage “open source” problem solving in the fields of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. [Society is structured upon the premise that a person will begin to get sick in their 40’s. There is no money in dead people or healthy people. Big pharma trains doctors and doctors prescribe drugs. None of that cures illnesses. Aids and cancer will never be cured under this model. Only through open source medical modeling with there be progress.] Through open source work into aid and cancer, we will find the keys and put an end to suffering.

    A simple search online will tell you how many people are looking for education. The market is massive. By offering online content that is up to date, relevant, time efficient, and cost sensitive – Google will crush the market.

    How about a Master’s Degree Law from GoogU? Content delivered by out network in partnership with Harvard Law School… all while maintaining my job at the factory!

    🙂

  391. I would launch a program to take engineers to the next step of leadership. Google already does a fantastic job of providing opportunities for prospective engineers to hone their talent through programs like the Summer of Code or providing Google Code for collaboration.

    What I haven’t seen are similar serious initiatives to train those who have the talent for engineering but need help honing their managerial skills in a real-world context. Maybe that seems not lofty enough for what you’re asking for, but I would beg to differ.

    An initiative like this would put Google in front of the entire next wave of software engineers. You give them the tools to hone their craft, then how to take their raw talent to a level that’s even more applicable in the business world. Bust the public myth that software engineers can’t relate to “real people.” Give them the tools to put their vision into effect and make great things happen.

    Out of those who really excel during their time in training, you can have your pick of who to offer a position to and thus boost your managerial team. But it wouldn’t have to be just for future Google employees. The name recognition anyone would have saying they went through your managerial training would be a big boost, making this a tempting offer for those looking at developing their resume in the tech sector.

    This, I would argue, is the most important venture you can take on for the long-term future of Google and the tech industry. After it’s in place, all the other great recommendations on this blog become not a question of if, but when.

    As for concerns of all your hard work going to boost Facebook’s team, I honestly wouldn’t worry about it. Out of the quantity of people who would jump at a well-marketed chance to build their resume, the payoff of those joining Google would still be worth it. I believe it would encourage loyalty as well, since the members of the program could feel that they owe their experience to Google.

  392. An eBay/PayPal without the exorbitant fees.

  393. IDEA IS: Wide spread corporate involvement in organizing, paying for, and doing Historic Preservation, particularly in rural communities.
    This preservation would be tied to economic development, cultural tourism, heritage education, and technical / craft innovation.
    Global resources brought to the local level, to help local crafts people get hard work accomplished in their communities.
    Strong rural communities form the basis of healthy global culture.

    WHY NOW?
    1. no other money readily available for funding of preservation
    2. communities need the morale boost and economic development
    3. cultural heritage education strengthens communities and individuals

    WHY GOOGLE?
    1. many essential resources already in place
    2. strong teams of creative people that care
    3. global presence

    WHY SAVE THE PAST?
    1. historical context connects us to our future
    2. each region and community, worldwide, has a unique story to tell
    3. pride in ancestors and culture locally can be connected via global networks to form pride in our Earth and our humanity
    4. aging demographic is recognizing the value of historic wisdom
    5. younger generations yearning for context in an increasingly mercurial modern culture

  394. Okay so big (but not too big) an idea – well I have 2, medium big ideas. I have been floating these concepts around for the last 9 months, and also got a business proposal/pitch for them both. IMHO focus on the consumers is key in providing essential services. With this in mind one of the biggest gaps online is universal sizing in clothing – knowing what size you are in a given brand when you have never bought that brand before.

    Idea 1 .. In short, a universal sizing system for clothing.
    One of the biggest issues women face in choosing clothing is selecting the appropriate size of clothing in any given brand or country. Sizes of clothing vary so greatly from brand to brand and country to country that they sizing is not universal. This hampers and limits the online market place for selection of the correct clothing size and also makes women feel bad or good about themselves dependant on the size. Often clothing manufacturers will purposely make the size on a label smaller to make women feel better in buying their clothes. Idea 1 is to develop a database of clothing sizes for the above criteria (country, brand, size). This system would tie into a software based lookup solution to hook into the database and allow fast lookups, or cross referencing in sizes. i.e. if I am a size 8 in Prada, then what size am I in JC Penny.

    Idea 2 ..
    Once you have this kind of software lookup system then idea 2 could eventuate – this idea addresses the womens issues of image and size. Essentially this is a 3D (or 2D) virtual changing room. You can browse through a range of clothings on the screen while the webcam then shows what you actually look like in the clothes on the screen. The system overlays clothes, recommends clothing in other brands, that would fit your body shape and size perfectly. Imagine a system that can scan your body shape and then calculate what the perfect piece of clothing is for you. With some nifty size and perspective knowledge and idea 1 implemented, it would then remove all need to know your exact clothing size – this might then help women with body image issues, and free up buying more clothing and products online.

    Commercially ..
    Both of these pieces of software could then be licensed to online retail shops – allowing customers to know they are the right fit in a given piece of clothing, regardless of brand or even knowing their size. Potentially even regardless of the website the user is even shopping on.

    Google MySize? .. 😉

  395. Hi Matt
    I have two suggestions to help Google improve. The first being in the arena of Adwords. To improve user experience consider placing a popularity rating below the display URL in the form of a shaded bar (could be based on a variation of CTR) – I believe searchers would click more on “popular” ads, and could in turn give the small business owners a better chance of competing.

    My second suggestion would be to invest in the Protium Project which has developed the world’s first multilingual programming language. Please note I have absolutely no stake in the Protium Project, I just think it has mind-blowing possibilities for the future. Allowing people to learn to program completely in their native tongue without ever having to learn a foreign language could potentially open the doors to so many more talented programmers who struggle trying to grasp a command of English

  396. one of the greatest improvements in our world could be removing the language barriers. my suggestion is for google to create and promote worldwide standards for communication and measurement. that means creating a new, easy to learn, highly efficient global language for communication. additionally, push the US and any countries using other measurement systems, to adopt the metric system.

  397. CEO of Google Idea: Create billions of dollars of micro-loans to individuals around the world who need it the most at no cost to google or funders.

    What? A kiva.org and Google adsense partnership to provide billions of dollars of help for individuals when they need help the most to improve their quality of life while retaining their unique culture.

    Why? Instead of donating money to bureaucracies the way the top heavy UN normally does, why not use kiva.org to micro-fund individuals who need small loans to allow them to create a new trade or skill to sustain themselves and their families?

    How? Google adsense could do this through a partnership with kiva.org who already administers micro-loans on a worldwide basis. Adsense advertisers that opt-in to the program would fund kiva.org with their ad earnings, and when loans are paid back within 1 or 2 months, google pays the advertisers 100% of their normal earnings. In exchange for waiting an extra 1-2 months for their monthly check, google could give advertisers a special highlighted notation (the same way google checkout advertisers are highlighted). Perhaps the adsense advertisers that opt-in to the program could also have their ads displayed the same way some charity ads are shown on some adsense websites.

    Cost/Benefits
    This is a win for google at no cost to them, and all administration is done by kiva.org. Perhaps google adsense could create a new kiva tab (if a user does opt-in) in adsense, that would show the monthly adsense earnings, free additional impressions, and photos and stats of the individuals and their project that the advertiser personally funded and made a difference with.

    This is a win for adsense advertisers at no cost to them (in exchange for waiting 1-2 months, their ads are highlighted as donors and perhaps get free bonus ad views as charity ads).

    This is a win for the individual that needs a kiva.org micro-loan that will improve the quality of life and community. The micro-loan can create business and educational opportunities for sustaining families. Perhaps there could be a focus on micro-loans for water purification systems to improve health, for projects that would recycle plastic waste into products, for small photovoltaic systems for powering a light bulb in a tent and for providing materials for building shelters.

    I am 100% confident that google programmers can create a slick interface between adsense and kiva.org that will make it both seamless, fun and a source of inspiration to the user. Wouldn’t it be great to see the real time status of the beneficiary and to see how the loan is benefiting them, along with their photo and project, and see the payback status of the loan and to have the ability to skype the person responsible for funding the beneficiary?

  398. Ok … I know a lot of people are still writing garbage here even though its obvious that the idea doing this “brainstorming” is constructive and has a legitimate reason.

    One thing i have found particularly annoying with Google is its help guide. There are things that are NOT covered and you end up going around in circles with their links. They really need to set aside a bigger or better team to define things better, provide more samples and someone SHOULD be available live online to help those instances where things just aren’t working the way they should. For example, I have a client setup with google apps – but I am the administrative account with my personal gmail account. I went to set them up on google places and found that the previous owner had already setup a location with a previous address. It was impossible for me to “take over” the previous listing since I didn’t have their previous login, so I had to create a second entry and submitted a ticket. It was eventually taken care of but it would have been easier if there was a way to take over a listing when you are already verified as the business owner. Also – how could I setup the business with their own gmail account and then switch everything to be handle through that instead of my personal? maybe I’m blind but I couldn’t see anywhere to do this!

    Another MAJOR peeve is email signatures!!! c’mon Google! what does it really take to have html email signatures??? and allow us to have more than one! we have up to 5 other POP’s we can pull from on your free version but we can’t have different signatures for each?

    There are other ideas but these two are the top of my list.

  399. Google Intra – Small to medium businesses collect lots of applications both locally and remotely (web-based). It’s one thing to collect them together in a browser using tabs, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a fully configurable, full-screen interface that would be the ‘portal’ through which people could take their entire business with them. It would be unchained to any specific OS platform or device – a browser would be needed only. For example, seamless integration of the local-user desktop apps with a ‘plug-in’ that would combine the online and local apps to allow use from anywhere. True portable desktop functionality.

  400. This is a straightforward concept, but could be very entertaining and have a lot of spin-offs.

    Make available to people taking part in motorsport the ability to feed their lap data to Google via a Google Earth plug-in or similar. “Google Sports” would present precise telemetry data (waypoints essentially) on the satellite images a la Google Earth. The uses for this could be far-reaching – both technically and from an entertainment viewpoint.

    i) Competing teams could provide visibility of data for remote analysis quickly and simply to a restricted or public audience.
    ii) Sports fans could compare or overlay competitors performance across seasons as the database grows. The concept of ‘ghost’ competitors could be very entertaining!
    iii) Overlays in Google Earth could allow fly-by’s of specific competitions with a ‘ghost’ competitor in view.

    Although it could be applied to any sport that involves lap or course timings (e.g. Running, Cycling, Flying, Driving, Sailing), my specific interest would be with the Motorsport element.

    Just imagine in 10 years time being able to compare Vettel’s lines around Spa with the youngest newcomers. Maybe it could also be possible to upload historic data to see just how far the technology and drivers have come over the years.

  401. If I were CEO I would work on improving the “small stuff” … investigate the customer support area of Google, which is very poor.

    Google, for all its greatness, is being seen as unreachable, a kind of Big Brother, and the customer support area is crucial to maintain goodwill and increased revenue.

    Google should work on improving the navigation flow of Analytics. Fine if you are familiar with the programme but it is not very user friendly for newbie’s with questions.

  402. Everyone who just gave out their ideas to a multi-billion dollar corporation without getting paid first just trolled themselves pretty hard. This is the information age people. Ideas are a valuable commodity these days. Don’t just go handing them out for free to huge corporations. They have money to give you for them.

    The company you just gave free ideas to, Google, has at least $1.65 billion to give you for a great idea. Haven’t any of you ever heard of YouTube? Maybe you can give some lame ideas for free, but I wouldn’t give anything too good. You could be kicking yourself later when you see a new Google product in Labs with the infamous Beta tag on it that was your idea that you posted as a comment to this blog post.

    I know it’s not always about money, but in the case of Google, it has to be and this post was a great way to save a ton of it. Smart move Mr. Cutts. If I were Google CEO for a day, I would give you a raise for writing this post and saving us a ton of money. Then we can talk about how the spam team will combat the Chinese SEO comment spammers that ruin our search results for many trendy product queries with forgeries.

  403. Matt, thanks for the platform and keep up your great work.

    Driverless Electric Trucking with Robotic Battery Swap (DETRBS)
    As CEO of Google, I propose that Google develop and market prototypes to demonstrate the viability and economics of a driverless electric truck combining three key already proven technologies. DETRBS combines driverless technology and robotic swapping of short range electric battery packs to reduce trucking cost, save billions of barrels of oil, reduce pollution, revolutionize the trucking market, and make an enormous profit for Google stockholders.
    Google has demonstrated brilliant new technology for driverless cars. Unfortunately Google’s lead in driverless technology will likely be another twenty years before market return. Without a pressing economic need existing regulations and irrational public fears will not allow driverless cars in the near term. The DETRBS concept combines Google’s driverless technology with two simpler ideas, electric trucks and robotic battery swaps to turn a twenty year out market into an application for tomorrow.
    Operating trucks at a reduced “safe” speed on limited routes and special times may provide an opportunity for driverless market entry. In order to gain public market entry these driverless trucks must also be also “clean” and “sustainable” and must create a new market for jobs in the US.
    Economics of the truck transport market
    The market for 2 million trucks, averaging 108k miles / year for a staggering 2 trillion miles with a revenue stream of well over $3 trillion dollars / year. Internet deliveries depend on trucks. The US economy runs on trucks. And oil is running out.
    The current major cost elements per mile for large diesel trucks are the following:
    Diesel truck model –
    Driver ~$.42, fuel $.48, maintenance $.3, lease $.3, and miscellaneous $.5 for a total cost of nearly $2.00 per mile driven.
    Driverless Electric Trucking with Robotic Battery Swap (DETRBS) model
    Driver ~$0, fuel (electric)$.11, maintenance $.15, lease $.5, and miscellaneous $.5 for a total cost of only $1.26 per mile driven.
    Eliminating the driver and converting from diesel to electric minimize the two largest cost.
    Switching to electric motors and moving to lower speeds made possible by eliminating per hour drive costs, minimizes maintenance costs. Lease costs will be higher because of battery costs but can be minimized by automated robotic swapping of shorter range (60 mile batteries). Google’s driverless technology makes this possible, Google’s vision and leadership could make this a reality.

  404. I would create Google Learn. A website where people can add their videos teaching how to do something. It can be anything from changing a tire to changing a lock to making homemade bread. So, lets say you need to give your cat liquid medicine (which is not an easy task if you don’t know how), you could go to Google Learn and watch a video that someone posted on how to do it. If you go to You Tube to look for something, there is so much stuff to look through. At Google Learn you could find how to do things much easier.

  405. Google already does an excellent job of search indexing and mapping, so I’d be sure to not lose focus on the reason Google exists.

    As for other products – there are some great ideas here already, As CEO – A Google Operating System would be my main focus. Virtual environment for it to run under windows. Versions for – children/education – personal/developer and business use. Version options for OS to not save (live version?), save locally or to cloud.

  406. I would create a way to send smells over the internet. Let’s say you are at college and your mom is cooking your favorite spaghetti dinner. You could click on spaghetti and meatballs and the smell of it cooking would be emitted from your computer. You could have a program that would emit whatever smell you want from a small attachment to your usb port. You could save smells too. Let’s say you are going away but want to take your significant other’s smell with you. You could copy and save their smell from them when they are with you and have it to smell later when you miss them.

  407. Google Maps – Collaborating could be awesome! But it ain’t…yet

    Ok, Google Maps does let people create maps, share them, and invite others who can invite others to add/edit the map. Only problem? Folks can ruin the map at the drop of a hat by changing map name, deleting or editing multiple markers, etc.

    To really capitalize on map collaboration, Google needs to allow the original map owner/admin to create user groups (admins, moderators, editors, etc.) and have ability to assign custom permissions to each group. Much like blog software user settings. Forget about inviting other people with emails. Put a request to participate link on any collaborative/shared map. Let folks search for locations, add locations, and use custom markers as specified by map admin. Put a prominent link (flag, report error, or request update) in the info bubble on markers. Person clicks it, fills out basic form, assigned map moderator receives email notification and can respond accordingly. If user requested to update marker, admin could allow this and authorized link to edit marker (expires in 24 hours) is automatically sent back to user via email. Then make the maps embeddable. I could go on and on here with ideas on how to really create a useful map collaboration tool in house. There is obviously a need for better map collaboration based on the number of sites doing this type of thing. Check out Zeemaps.com. They have the right idea, but stick a Google Ad into every map unless you pay per month for removal. But, you guys already have the revenue coming in from Adsense/Adwords, so you wouldn’t need to crap up the maps with extra ads.

  408. Hey all,

    A good addition to a great product would be the ability to export time-lapse video from Streetview. It could be simple to use whereby a user simply picks a start point and a finish point on the map (similar to routing). Google could then process the Streetview imagery in that selection into a video and offer the user a choice to upload to their Youtube account or to save as a file to their hard-drive.

    While I had an idea of doing this myself, many others have created excellent time-lapse Streetview videos themselves (example here). It would be a great addition to Streetview.

    Thanks for the oppurtunity,

    Conor J,
    Ireland

  409. I would rebuild Dmoz – so people can really browse the web, rather than just search it. Reduce the number of multiple categories and create a structure that it the same for every country.

  410. Um actually I’ve only noticed the bit about “Big Ideas only” now… so let’s scrap my earlier idea.

    If I were the CEO of Google I would commission a new project to research and invent steam-powered jet packs for the masses, which will be available for rent in public places too (like bicycles). These jet packs need not travel very far or very high, but just enough to get to the next jet pack rental point.

  411. Sorry, I forgot – I’d also love to implement one email address for everyone – like a passport number. No work emails or gmail/yahoo/hotmail, just one email address for life. And you have to register for it with your government. That would be the end of spam (and possibly privacy!).

  412. How about a “Google Book?” People can discuss things they have tried in Google Labs or the many features of Google they do use, creative ways to use them, or like this blog, new features for developers to try.

  413. Google Simple
    Put another way, ensure all Google Products/Instructions pass the ‘Stupid Test’.

    Since Google’s Customer Service is, at best, delinquent, it is essential all Google Prouducts/Instructions be simple, so that they pass “The Stupid Test”.

    Most Google Instructions are written in Google Jargon; great for Google Employees, however, Google Management forgets many who use Google are not so tech savvy. For example, now Webmaster Tools Instructions are written, more or less, in reduced jargon; go back two years and compare.

    Ensure all Google Instructions are written so that anyone, whether tech savvy or not can understand. Start writing “how to’s” in color code, to show what to insert, and where.

    Use focus groups to determine if the instructions are understandable; most are not. We subscribe to many Google products, and if we have a question, there is no one at Google to provide discreet support.

    The lack of a Fully Operational 24/7 Service Department is a serious flaw. Google has so many great products, but if you were to look at the reasons who more don’t use Custom Search; Google App’s; Google Code; etc., it is not because they don’t want to, it is because Google does not make using any of these Google Products Easy, nor Google Simple.

  414. I would start with perfecting small things, especially those that can monetize someones social network. Something like ad.ly is a great idea it has just been poorly implemented. Adding a similar feature to Adsense would be wonderful. On a grander scale I would look to push microfinancing around the world. Get more people in less advantaged countries onto the internet, developing new potential users and customers.

  415. If I were Google CEO, I’d tell three teams to work on

    ONE) Google search interface to Prevent human doctor errors – avoid incompatible medicine prescriptions.

    The task for the team is to figure out how to use existing index and interfaces to design a lifesaver search interface (eg, If I were regularly medicated to heal stomach ulcers with med1, can I now take med 2 for my caugh and med3 for sore throat…. )

    Of course, global equivalencies should be available. (AAS is the same as Aspirina in Spain or Aspirin in USA…. or xxx in South Africa (of course show it is about C9H8O4…)
    Attention on usability, ment as a tool to be used as ‘third opinion’

    TWO) Call for 2011 Proyect 10^100

    THREE) Since I personaly like that idea of a self driven flying car, I want a full feasibility report asap – shall everyone have one before I retire?

  416. I would like to see Google in the web hosting space ten fold. Awesome servers that are lightning fast for the ever-growing websites being built on the web would be pretty cool – no limits on bandwidth or space – just lightning fast website being delivered.

  417. Lots of good ideas being thrown around here, Matt. I hope that some of them really get the attention that Google can afford to give them.

    I think Jacs (November 21, 2010 at 6:59 am) made a very valid comment about Google missing the boat on Privacy and Personal Security. If I didn’t manage to accomplish anything else during my time as CEO, I’d be satisfied if I could realign Google with its users and their concerns. I think that alone could help sustain the company as a leader for some time to come.

    If I had a couple of hours left over, I think I’d put together a team to work up an Outreach Program. Give them a 50 million dollar budget, and marching orders to partner up with outsiders on any project that could be justified in terms of improving quality of life, and that
    could project a break-even point within five years. For profitable projects, give ’em a piece of the action!

    Vague, I know, and “quality of life” would need some definitive limits identified. But I suspect you get my drift.

    If I could accomplish both, I’d retire a happy camper!

  418. Hey Matt,

    I don’t know if it counts as a Big Idea, but one thing I’d like to see is more transparency as to what happens when a user hits error pages within Google, be they 404, 500, 403, or whatever.

    Here’s an example:

    http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/report?hl=en&tid=2013b2ad349ee71e&url=%2Fsupport%2Fforum%2Fp%2FWebmasters%2Fthread%3Ftid%3D2013b2ad349ee71e%26hl%3Den%26hltp%3D1

    I don’t know if there’s info in the query string that will allow you to track the report in question, but I just tried to file an illegal content report and received the following:

    Google Error

    Service Error
    Our service encountered an unknown error. Please try again later.

    The title tag says “500 Service Error”.

    Now, as much as no one wants to see the message “an unknown error”, at least that’s pretty honest. You don’t know what happened. As bad as it looks, at least it’s good disclosure. But what I don’t know is if you got the information I posted, or if it got sent to a support team, or if there’s an ETA for when the error might be resolved, or what I need to do if anything other than “try again later”.

    The same sort of thing occurs with the 404 pages that occur within Google (some of which can actually be found via various techie-search queries.)

  419. Hey Guys,

    I luv google and everything you guys do, and I am surprised google has not taken over the world yet, I said 10 years ago google would… people are starting to believe me now 🙂

    Anywho, I have a tidal generator, a solar motor (not the inefficient panels) and something that pulls water out of the air, I call it an air well. Prototypes are built, I am not talking pie in the sky.

    I think the whole idea of energy needs to be changed, the technology needs to be openly available to be used by any manufacturer, like Android and Microsoft. Currently the technology is controlled like it was apple software… BOOO

    If it was open to the manufacturers you would have companies going to war to make the coolest looking (high end) or cheapest (low end) energy devices. and PEOPLE would benefit by the lowered price and better quality and the world would be a little (or alot) cleaner as a by product… No more guilt tripping people into expensive energy alternatives.

    You guys got the bucks AND the bright ideas, I’m sure you could make alternative sourcing of energy fun and cool and profitable!

  420. One more quick thing, an idea for your blog!! let us rate the other ideas… even a thumbs up or thumbs down would be cool.

    Some of these ideas should get the person who wrote it beat with a phone book for being a moron, some of them are funny (Which brings up a missing sharing feature), and some them are what you are looking for.

  421. Stop pussy-footing around with black-hat SEO (top-down approach) and ban the lot for at least 1 Year.

  422. I believe that net neutrality is one of the most important issues facing the people of the United States. I know that Google has played around with this idea before, but if I were CEO, I would look hard at providing a fast, economical internet service for the masses. Eventually, ISP’s are going to start charging for bandwidth. When this happens, it will likely change how people spend their time on the internet, and it could cause an overall reduction in the amount of time people spend searching the net.

    If Google can offer a competitively priced service that doesn’t have a monthly bandwidth cap, or has a cap so high that most people will never reach it, then it would help ensure the internet remains a free, open place.

  423. If I were the Google CEO, I would make a site that will function like paypal so that it can be used to purchase online.

    You can also use this to pay your publishers.

    Like Paypal I will make it connected to credit card and banks.

  424. The world runs on electric power, without it the atom, my computer nor Google would exist. I have spent the last 35 years researching why everything in the universe works electrically with amazing revelations, only to find no one is willing fund the results of that research.
    All I have ever asked for is a few million to prove up the technology that has taken a lifetime to discover. What I have found is that if its not already written in the science books nobody has any time to listen.
    Its not the earth that moves through the universe in the same direction as other planets and stars, but the individual electric atoms that make up the earth.
    Large companies like Google can make a difference in our world if they really tried. The biggest discoveries come from free uncorrupted minds, individuals who think outside the square. Take a look at the website, see for yourself.

  425. Dear Mat
    First and fore most, I want to draw your attention to what Seanlind has to say, which is why would any one just want to walk in here and give an idea to you…Sorry if that sounds ‘kind of mean’ but honestly, in these days and times, don’t you think that an idea is worth a lot (agreed there is this huge component of execution to it).

    Second, I feel, just like MySpace lost the steam to FB, soon FB will also be gone . People will share photos and ‘what I had for dinner y’day’ for so long and no further. The next phase of social neworking will be meaningful networking, YES it is happening, (like our very own site), but not to the extent required. Now, let us say, Google starts focused social networking sites, GoogleArtists, GoogleEngineers, GoogleDocs, GoogleYouth (doc= doctors!), etc etc… (either a separate or standalone,,) and builds specific capabilities into to to serve the specific needs (tools, applications, intelligent context specific search, etc), this could be a good aggregation point/ networking thing

    Finally, coming to the idea part, I had submitted an idea as a part of the Project10tothe100.com, made it to the last 16, but not the last four (too bad I guess!). Technologies will come and technologies will go …but ‘money’ goes on forever, so game changing play in that space is going to be a multi trillion dollar thing…so can Google help build something in that area…I feel the answer is YES…Google’s reach+ Money+ (3G participation…soon to be)+ a uniquely developed product for Banking, = MULTI TRILLION IDEA
    I am game for sharing the whole thing (which is patent pending) provided off course, I will get comp……( have bills to pay and mortgages to clear…so I agree in principle that a man needs only so much and ‘the greatest joy comes from doing the greatest good to many…the punch line of Projec10tothe100…but like I said…need that $ to go over the hump)
    Regards
    Mouli

  426. 1) salary raise for Matt Cutts for coming up with new CEO idea!
    Other priorities to be looked after would be fixing the Facebook deal, and narrow down Google’s business stream to focus more on the top few. Social impact of Google is something to be explored in my to-do list.

  427. I’d put up some brick and mortar gathering places for geeks. Starbucks meets the Apple store meets Dave & Busters, with a geek flair. A place to connect offline or online, but in person. It’s a simple concept, however, the more we delve into our computers, the internet and devices, the greater the desire to occasionally rebel and unplug. But wouldn’t it be great to unplug and remain in an online environment that isn’t actually (online).

  428. A “real” video search engine that goes beyond author meta details, tags, user comment, and supportive text outside the media. Being able to search video through video and not just KWs, and void of human referencing.

    I have an idea of how to develop the engine – its possible just needs the right team. Maybe Google?

  429. This is more for the android mobile market but what the heck….

    I would create a real-time app that displays information on objects when people point their mobile phone camera at it. The database would be built mostly from user contributions(like wiki) and would show various information such as dimensions, material used, background information, points of interest etc.

    For example if I were to take my phone and using this app I’d point at a McDonald’s coffee cup, The app would give me information such as how many Ounces, the cost of the cup, the Mc Donald’s menu, the nearest Mc Donald’s etc. The best part is global users can contribute information on things that interest them, people from all over the world can help build this database and it would have great revenue potential (once its established) as advertisements can be tied to specific objects,locations, the user’s current needs.

    I know there is a prototype of something similar involving a miniature projector like device in India, but it hasn’t be done on the existing mobile market.

    (excuse the grammar, I haven’t slept to much recently) 🙂

  430. The State of Hawaii is planning on spending billions of dollars on a fixed rail system that will only benefit a small portion of the island’s population and will provide only a few miles of track. Instead of implementing a fixed rail system, I recommend that the state purchase enhanced GPS systems that will transmit the exact locations and ETA’s of each city bus at each bus stop using a product similar to goops technologies:
    goopstechnologies.com

    The locations and ETA’s of each bus could be accessed by smart phones or texted to a regular cell phone or the buses’ locations could be displayed in real time on maps.google.com. This technology would save people time wondering about the arrival of the bus, weather and traffic conditions, etc. This added convenience should encourage more use of the city buses and would benefit almost all people on the island instead of just a small portion of the population.

    Instead of spending billions on mass transit, I would recommend purchasing 100 new electric/solar power buses equipped with value-added google transit technology.

  431. Hi Matt,

    I’d suggest making an effort to open-source things in a way that’s very independent of Google’s infrastructure.

    Obviously it’s in Google’s interest for websites to have all the tools they need, which Google does incredibly well (AppEngine, YouTube, Maps, Analytics, Docs etc).

    We’ve reached a point where most companies are overly dependant on Google’s infrastructure though. If Google were to suffer a major issue, it would effectively pull the plug on a huge amount of other sites. I’d like to see some more of these “core” services (or libraries they rely on) open-sourced.

    I’m not saying that Google is likely to suffer such an issue, but if it did then it certainly wouldn’t be focusing on releasing that code at the time, as there’d be more important things to do.

    Obviously Google does open-source a lot of engineer level things (kernel patches, Chromium[OS], Sawzill, protocol buffers, etc) – but that doesn’t funnel back up to consumers / most web developers.

  432. On a much smaller scale, I would love to see Gmail stop restricting the number of emails we can view at one time.

    Why did 100 become the default? That’s as bad as Hotmail. Why should I have to scroll through page after page after page to view my emails on Gmail? Is there some particular reason why there’s a limit of 100 per page?

    Other email programs, such as Windows Live Mail and Oultlook allow viewing of all emails on one page. I don’t think Gmail will ever be truly useful until it follows suit.

  433. Computers are doubling in power every year and that means in 20 years they’ll be over a million times faster and more powerful than they are today, so prepare for when computers take over the world!

    You might want to invest in creating some computers with serious cooling technology or a computer / freezer as that looks like the main challenge as computers get more powerful. And your suggestion of self-driving cars sounds like a good one too!

    On the gmail front, separate Spam into 2 sections – Spam and Ultra Spam. Ultra Spam can be spam that you’re 100% sure is spam so users can choose to just delete it automatically without wading through it (I had over 10,000 spam emails today and last checked 2 days ago).

    You could also do with a filter option that says ‘Google thinks it’s Spam’ so that users can say e.g. if it’s in the spam folder and contains ‘x’ just delete it.

    Developing Google translate further would also be great – really helps to diminish international barriers.

  434. Google BattleBots. A test pilot program for citizen remote control of medium sized multi-purpose robots. Like “Toys” (Robin Williams 1992) only, death match robot wars.

    Or Google remote controlled smash up derbies.

  435. Hi! 🙂

    Think about next generation of internet. New problems new solutions. Example: solutions for inteligent houses.

  436. I think it should be now a Career Portal, I know career portal is very common thing but it should be in google style with pay attention to detail , not just like yahoo hot jobs, but also with clarifications like if a person is not at the same place then , is employer going to take him there or not e.t.c. if yes then what he can afford.
    There should be rating of employer. Some recommendations like linked in but with google style. That help people to find really better career. You can start with a small version and can then expand it so on . And also give really cool free APIs , I will like to use it on my career portal site. And don’t think that there is already linkedin. Linkedin is professional network. While it will be social career portal where people will also help others to find a good job. You might like to write algorithms to find a very much suitable job or career for people that should be really fit. if you are interested then please tell

  437. Some of us have been discussing the fact that we must be quite near the tipping point in Global Consciousness in which the majority currently see our home, the Planet Earth, Gaia as “alive” and that instant wherein the majority, quickly swelling to EVERYBODY, sees the “new reality” that our Home, the planet Earth, is dying and is no more the pristine source of life itself. My personal garden is very nice, I can sell organic veggie seedlings at the local “farmer’s market” but Gaia is now “running a temperature” and my little gardening effort alone will not change that.

    Perhaps by first crafting one simple message to draw attention to what is happening, & making it go viral through social networking media, environmental groups etc, & repeating it regularly every two months or so (like a major marketing campaign would do) in slightly changed form including Multimedia presentations etc. then an overt global change in consciousness could be suddenly induced as was the case with the effect produced by Atlas 5. Google could help swing the balance do you not think?

    http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments=1&v=tu57B1v0SzI&email=comment_reply_received

    http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=133690616685098&id=100000545893008

  438. How about going back to search basics?

    For example instead of guessing what a person is searching for let them specify what it is

    If I searched for golf I’d like a set of links to clarify whether I was looking for information on Golf the sport or the VW Golf.

    Also an option to list niche directories about the subject would be great too, they could go in the list of blogs discussions etc . ( I really miss having a list of human researched list of websites on a particular subject showing up in the results like they used to)

  439. Honestly? I’d like a “Google Classic” option. Just the standard 10 result SERP, with no localised or personalised results.

    I love Google because you provide the cleanest and most relevant results around. Recent changes have muddied the waters.

  440. Reduce search rankings of review sites that are nothing more than affiliate link farms. For example – try searching for “web hosting review.” None are objective or give good advice – all just point you to the affiliate scheme du jour. Search adds no value to the purchasing process in this case, which is a shame.

  441. 10. Get PHP working on Google App Engine.

  442. Link my Cell phone provider to Gmail so that all my text messages appear in Gmail enabling me to reply to them on screen instead of having to fumble around with my phone when I am at my desk.

  443. #1 – I/O Improvement – fully integrating Voice into other stuff, especially on Android – eg speech-to-text for email/SMS/Google Talk etc etc

    #2 – Spatial Data Democracy – couple Google Maps with multiple data sets – transit time data, property/land data, weather/climate data, rent/rates – there are many sets that ‘the little guy’ can’t afford, but when combined with maps help make environmentally/economically sound decisions easier and help planners:
    – show me cycling routes, local schools, public transport travel times and house prices/rents and help me choose which neighbourhood is best for me and my young kids (see http://www.tom-carden.co.uk/2008/01/24/mysociety-maps/ for UK example)
    – show me Google Places that meet criteria x/y/z within a radius of a miles and/or b travel-time so I can reduce my food miles/CO2 emissions/journey time (bearing in mind price of goods/services is rarely the only real cost)

    #3 – Alert Search – introduce a ‘keep an eye out’ option on Maps search queries. Instead of opting in or out of web history, if you conduct a specific search (e.g. organic deli near Manassas, VA) and no suitable result is returned – have an agent (like Google Alerts) send a message if this search DOES return a result that matches your criteria in future (e.g., a new deli opens up nearby) – this would obviously tie in well with ‘Near me now’ results to push info at appropriate times.

    #4 – Better Meta – take Google Goggles, couple it with the thinking behind OpenCalais – with a few onscreen taps on a selection of suggested tags / related images (combined with the ethos of reCAPTCHA), and an Android phone user can help truly refine Google’s understanding of the physical realm – visual data that can be integrated in many other Google apps – Places, StreetView, Maps etc. At the very least it will help choose which wines might be worth drinking!

  444. i would ban anything right wing from search results. that would improve the world significantly! even for a day.

  445. Google should develop an affordable voice-to-text mobile device for people like me who has grown up in a normal environment (using a hearing aid) but have become practically completely deaf beyond the help of hearing aids. That device should translate spoken voice messages into text on its screen so that the holder can understand what is being said to him. It should be able to handle different languages, including phonetic languages like Malayalam (of Kerala, India) as well as English in US and other accents.

  446. Two things:

    Fix Google Wave and Google Docs.

    While Google Wave is awesome and it’s sad that it’s going away… the main problem is that its model is broken. I quickly addressed why in my post.

    As for Google Docs, there are hundreds (thousands?) of people who agree – the new version of Docs needs styles, a GOOD table of contents (i.e. with page numbers). At minimum there needs to be a “create new > old style doc” and “create new > new style doc”.

    I presume it wouldn’t take a whole lot of time to accomplish both of these – but that’s what I’d focus on if I were CEO for a day. Two technologies that are amazing, but (at least to me) seem like their potential was under or overestimated.

    I would also like to see more transparent feedback between the populous and engineers. Right now you can (sort of) make suggestions in a variety of places, but there’s no real feedback that I can find (i.e. yes we’re working on this, or no, you’re the only person who’s asked about this so we won’t be doing it yet). The Google suggestion database was kinda problematic because there was no place to flag suggestions as duplicates…

    Being full of such incredibly smart people, I can’t believe that no one at Google has thought about these things… but it’s always possible!

  447. How about creating some kind of global surplus and demand tracking tool. We constantly hear about surplus mountains of resources and food etc in certain parts of the world and scarcity of the very same in other parts of the world. If we could create some kind of online DB of said mismatch we could create a marketplace for it. Goods could either be trader freely or for a massive discount in all sorts of ways.

    I guess we would also need some kind of haulage capacity register as well to get free transport secured, basically filling the gaps that occur when empty lorries and containers travel back where they came from.

  448. Google have to launch a New Social Networking site.. The Orkut site is a not user friendly. In face book I was found very good features. Google will think about this.

  449. Working primarily with small businesses on traffic acquisition, engagement and conversion, I find that many of these businesses are not fully realizing their potential, and as the CEO of Google, I would want to help make small business owners better equipped to succeed with Google tools.

    I am often surprised when working with a new customer that they don’t know things like Life Time Value of a customer, let alone by channel of acquisition. And although Google Analytics has all of the tools and metrics they would need, not only is using an API to pass data back into GA a challenge for many, they don’t even understand all of the metrics there. Bounce rates to landing page? A/B testing? Conversion rates in AdWords and transactions in GA not matching? UTM?

    I would really work to make Google’s tools not just more intuitive and integrated, but also more educational withing the interface of the tools.

    The help sections of Google are hard to navigate. So if you wanted to know whether you should rotate ads evenly or best performing, it might be hard to determine why you would do one or the other. It seems intuitive that you would want best performing, but what if you are testing 2 ad concepts, and how long should you test them? And many don’t even understand why you would A/B test.

    But that could all be right there in little ? much better. To really help small business succeed.

  450. Matt,

    How about developing a more sophisticated software system for traffic lights? I can’t imagine the lost work time and productivity from these inefficient pieces of technology that have been around for ages.

  451. When i first saw this question i thought of how it would impact me and my business. Then when I started look at things in a broader way I really couldn’t think of a whole bunch that I would change. I do wish it was easier for the little guys to compete with the big guys online.

  452. Allow the user to further define their personalized rules for search via the “advanced search” function.

  453. I’d like to see a Google Weather/Climate api, that integrates with google maps and other services. You can select a date on google maps and it will show you the likelihood of what the weather will be like then, or predict coastal erosion, or maybe integrate with adwords so if you are selling winter clothing, it will only show up in the areas that are likely to have lower temperatures, or perhaps if you are planning a route on google maps, it will vary the route or time factor if it knows that there is a likelihood of localised weather conditions. You can then licence this service to third parties or government departments. It takes massive amounts of computing power to predict the weather and climate conditions, which I’m sure Google can harness if it puts its mind to it, and it will give the eggheads something interesting to work on. This is unlikely to be ever taken up though due to the significant investment costs.

    I think the route Google needs to go down is to concentrate on the mobile market and monitorise on that. The android OS is already gaining marketshare at the cost of the iPhone – mainly because the devices are getting better and the aps market is maturing to offer more useful content. At some point, the mobile devices will rival and even surpass the nintendo dsi in power, and I see it quite likely that 3D gaming phones will start appearing on the market in the next year or two. Possibly using a hosted gaming service that streams the display to the andoid based phone. Cloud servers could run all the processor intensive 3d graphics while the display is streamed to the phone and the feedback from the controls pinged back to the server. Google has already posted a patent along those lines which uses human interaction to control youtube video playback (kind of like the old Dragon’s Lair game of the 80’s).

    Indeed, one company, OnLive has already published plans to selling devices that use streaming games but they do not yet offer the device as a smartphone, and you’ll need a wifi broadband connection to play anything like the kind of speed you would need for Assassins Creed. Last year they launched a streaming gaming service for thin clients which should run quite happily on a low powered Chome OS based laptop. If google could take the initiative and start offering this as a service, then the potential for revenue could be quite significant.

  454. Google should create a line of inexpensive netbooks with just the basic requirements for connecting to the internet. They could be offered to customers for free and used as thin-client terminals that are set to use Google Docs, Chrome, and whatever other tools are available. The customer would need to agree to see ads in their docs, on the web, etc, as part of the offer to receive a free laptop. Perhaps even work on pulling more detailed user data to better deliver ads. You could even possibly sell ad space on the device case. It’s a loose idea but I’d love to get the opportunity to work through it with some people from Google.

  455. I think it would be in Googles interest to start a program helping small businesses get set-up with everything Google has to offer. Not on-line – real people/consultants that are available anywhere to come in to a business and help go though a checklist of setting up and implementing everything relevant Google has to offer – for a fee. I could see it almost like a franchised “Google Guru”. They are trained and up to date on everything that Google has to offer small businesses. I think people would gladly pay to get the help and services. It’s amazing to me how many small businesses aren’t even set up on Google Local and how easy it would be to sit down and help get a business set-up – real people helping real people. Not only would it be a new revenue center it would improve sales and further solidify the Google Brand in communities all over the world. GoogleGuruMobiles driving around everywhere helping people and businesses strengthen their communities and marketing efforts. Could also be Google Stores (like UPS Stores) where services, training and products are sold (face to face).

  456. I would love to see google invest in small business around the country. Politicians and people talk about small business and how they are the fabric of our country but I think very few people understand the plight of many small business. In my business you don’t know how many small business owners either don’t have the budget or understand the necessity for web presence, SEO or just even how technology if used properly could make their operations more efficient. Everyone in business does not have the perfect credit score and some times there are great business that can’t grow because of the financing. Banks are not the answer for most small business. Most of the time the decision to finance or not to is not even made on a local level (and so there is no real understanding) Google could in many ways become a parter to many viable and different types of business in some capacity (this would also expand google’s) community involvement aspect. I would love to share more on how this could be done.

    Second, it would be great to see google become more involved in working towards decreasing the gap of computer literacy/access in minority communities. There are still many households that do not have access and understand. There is little opportunity for seniors who want to understand. Although we assume most people are dialing in there are still some generations missing from the equation. A program to assist seniors would be awsome.

  457. Man, I’m falling asleep reading most of these. If I were the Google, I would come up with some combination of hardware and software to record every moment of a person’s life and index that life using voice recognition, image recognition, facial recognition, music recognition (like an “always listening” Shazam), and other types of recognition heretofore undiscovered. I’d enhance that data with some obvious stuff like location tagging and throw in an incognito mode for those activities that we’d all rather leave unrecorded. The front-end would be nothing more than a Google search box and perhaps a Google Finance-esque timeline to drill into specific details, moments, etc. Wouldn’t it be nice to relive a day in high school, your first kiss, your first day of work, etc? Or even just remember what your wife told you to pick up from the store this morning..

  458. Create scalable crowd-sourced budgeting for democracies.

    A lot of what government does boils down to debate over how much money to raise via taxes, and what to spend it on. If you could put that task in the hands of the governed, you’d remove a huge amount of friction and inefficiency from the government. The New York Times gets it : http://nyti.ms/9TNV0X They allowed readers to choose a way to fix the federal budget deficit… but then reviewed the inputs editorially.

    Create an interactive system that any taxpayer could use to submit a ‘vote’ on how to spend an equal share of the tax pie. The system would enforce a balanced budget, so everyone could see instantly when spending exceeds the limit, and discuss shifts to create a composite solution.

    Such a system would be useful on a small-town level (e.g. buy a new firetruck or high-school?) and scale up to the federal level (e.g. “how much to defense vs foreign aid?”)
    I’ve wanted to create such a system for years, but it would take involvement of a big, credible actor to engage government and get some test cases going.

  459. One Internet! A family net! Have people pay for one Internet for their cell phones, home and cars. First throughout the US and later the world. This would allow Internet service providers to offer better services for increased pricing options. People would pay for this because they could optionally eliminate their cellular bill, do video conferencing and have a connected car where they could share their library of multimedia stored at home, monitor their home security, energy usage, stay connected with their family members realtime. Of course one could argue that its available now at a cost many cannot afford. Having every cell phone in the household pay for what amounts to is low speed Internet access and then to pay for it again at home is slowing the drive to true high speed access.

  460. I would invest in the development of mind reading intelligence to predict what searchers are looking for just by the impulse of a thought.

  461. Hola Matt
    Saludos desde España
    ¿Y porque no añadir algun tipo de “charity adsense” (o algo similar)?
    Publico vuestros ads en mi pagina….no me molestaría dar un 5% de ganancias por
    una buena causa.
    Pues..añadir en google “charity search” con todas las paginas que publican los anuncios de cuales 5% de ganancias van ayudar a mejorar este mundo.
    Google no pierde nada….solo tenéis que redireccionar estos 5% de ganancias a otra dirección….
    Me apunto el primero…..

  462. crowd-sourced civil service exam for elected officials

    How is it that postal workers must pass a civil service exam, but we have no objective info on whether a candidate for President knows even basic math or current events, etc? There’s no ‘quality control’ over those who would represent us.

    Ancient china had such an exam for centuries, until the exam content became antiquated and irrelevant. Today, the big obstacle is: ‘who controls the exam questions?’ … “how are they kept current?”

    With technology like google Moderator, we have an answer: “the voters do!”

    Create a system like Moderator which allows anyone to pose Questions in multiple-choice answer format, and vote on them. There would be many categories, ranging from science to history to popular culture. Let users discuss and allocate a limited number of votes to the questions which they’d most like to know their representatives could answer.

    Work out the kinks and fairness issues (authentication etc) – you’ll find that nonsense questions get quickly outvoted with broad participation – people are sincere.
    Then cull the top N questions to form the ‘voters’ exam’, and challenge candidates to take it. Once a few candidates publish their scores, there will be lots of pressure on every candidate to do so.

    I actually built a website like this for the 2004 elections, but it never got critical mass. Support from a big player would make this happen.

  463. A google on-line micro-loan organizer where people can loan small amounts of money to worthwhile (and completely vetted) causes that are divided into several general categories, ie. environmental, developmental aid, eductaion etc.
    People would be able to donate directly from their bank, or from their on-line revenue generating streams. Small amounts from $1 to $25 would quickly add up and become a large fund to be dispersed wisely.

  464. Instant BlackHat detector !!

  465. Hi Matt,
    If i were Google’s CEo , i’d launch the next big thing with a fraction of r&d ;
    i’d work hard on MyGoo, my Google personnal assistant.

    MyGoo , my unique personnal assistant is capable of interacting for me, automatically or not , on my online and offline Life.

    MyGoo schedules, plans, reminds, answers..as i order him by voice or text.
    MyGoo answers by text or by voice for short answers.
    MyGoos is able to discuss with me to refine search or command i gave him ( or her 😉

    MyGoo, life assistant would allow ( as other things ) in one place :

    -me to search, play, buy, learn from the Web based information library.
    -me with my house : launch auto shopping for my fridge, set lights , temperature, tv recording…
    -me with my friends and relatives : to schedule meetings, parties, events…

    it is just a to ALL connected environment.

    Keep the good work and thanks for what your people achieve everyday, just make our lives smoother and simpler…in fact we might live more things in the same amount of time.

    For critics, Google is just a mean imho , wrong behaviours come from bad users…

  466. I would create a ticket selling site (Google Ticket) to rival the only one current choice, this would have a huge market for events worldwide and remove some of the extortionate fees being charged currently. This would give mass appeal by reducing costs , produce a lot of exposure in a popular market, generate large revenues and work along side products like Google checkout. It would let smaller venues and bands etc use the same technology by incorporating Google ticket on to their web site potentially transferable to many other ticket based businesses and events like soccer or American football, not quite changing the world but practical and achievable.

  467. I would like to tighten up the anti-spam policy.

  468. Buy out Facebook and shut them down, before they do the same to Google 🙂

  469. I would build a bare bones, completely open, object orientated operating system with absolutely no legacy baggage or assumptions (such as the presence of any specific input output interfaces). Not even a file system.

    Such as system would have no processes running by default or required, other than the core kernel. It would therefore run really quickly. The kernel would have to provide a very basic virtual machine which would be mapped to the hardware via a hardware interface layer. A very basic repository for classes would be required, but classes should only be addable via a user/admin managed installer with no facility for modifying executable files from within the classes themselves. (A compiled class would have to be installed before it could be run.)

    Classes would only be loaded when an instance is created. Classes would implement public interfaces which can be implemented by other classes to make them hot-swappable. And classes can implemented new interfaces to provide new features. A Class manager should be provided so the user can see what classes are in use.

    That is all. Everything else can be built or expanded by third parties. My work there would be done.

    We could then have one ultra fast, minimum overhead, total extensible operating system running on every conceivable device over a thousand times faster than any existing operating system and with discoverable interfaces for each class. About time.

  470. Thank you for this wonderful and informative blog Matt – It’s been an invaluable resource over the years to help keep the more technically minded members of the internet community appraised of what’s going on with Google –

    Regarding your question, I’d like to see Google begin to make strategic partnerships with certain leading web service providers to expand the functionality of current offerings in ways that would be MASSIVELY valuable to us as internet marketers… For example, working with a company like ClickPath to expand the functionality of Google analytics to enable true realtime tracking of call responses for ORGANIC search engine results… (Or to begin to provide this service in-house… I imagine you wouldn’t actually need ClickPath or anyone else to implement this, Google could do the entire thing themselves) Whatever the case, This kind of thing has been possible with PPC for a long time, but I strongly believe it would literally change the face of internet marketing if it were possible with organic search results… If I actually knew which terms that I rank for organically are actually producing calls and conversions, I could target my internet marketing efforts much more specifically and effectively than ever before possible on the internet… It would save me money and increase the quality of my traffic. Furthermore, it follows logically that not only would this information enhance the effectiveness of organic internet marketing efforts, but it theoretically would also enhance the quality of Google’s index in general… Because if individual internet marketers are targeting their content and links more specifically to take advantage of this opportunity, there would be fewer irrelevant and/or low quality results for ancillary terms that aren’t being specifically targeted…

    Anyhoo – thanks for giving us the time and opportunity to add our two cents 🙂
    (and on the off chance you’d like to discuss these ideas more specifically, I’m actually right down the road from you in SJ, by all means, shoot me an email 🙂

  471. I would like to see Google use the same search standards across the globe. I wouldn’t let China get away with censoring its peoples searches. Free uncensored web, all across the globe.

  472. I would work out a strategy for organizing not only the information but also the knowledge, the wisdom, and the prediction ability of the world. Step by step and systematically.

  473. If I were CEO for a day I would hire a team to review all of these ideas as there seems to be too many for any one person to review in a short period of time.

  474. Would someone please establish an online university which is free to attend? Education is the key and too many people don’t have it because of the expense. Wiki-University is on the right track, but they don’t seem to have the resources to pull it off.

  475. GShops will be a great addition, an ecommerce platform that allow people to use for their online stores instead of going through all the hassle of available CMS and custom stores.

  476. GooglePlex for Facebook. A SimCity or Farmville emulator where people play in teams within the GooglePlex to strategize and build successful Google Product. Shares for Points, and lots of link backs to GoogleApps.

  477. I’d just like form Google to be more fair – by this I mean that there is too much sites who are now running autoblogging, spamming and destroying quality of the results. Start form there. Next up it would be great for Google to have an on-line library (low price 30 days per book), stuff like that. I’m obviously very geeky right now. I’ll go think about it a bit more, great blog post!

  478. I would use all of the search data to find emerging markets and help nonprofits fund their operations.

  479. Hello Matt,

    nice question, I would first enjoy my time at the google office and then think about world domination 🙂

    Imagine a bank to bank payment system that works a simple as just press the pay button on a cart, in any country, and then all you have to do is login to your secure google account to verify the transaction. Instant worldwide bank to bank transfer. No need for creditcards or paypal accounts anymore.

  480. “Google School” = free knowledge sharing

    Create a user-friendly app that aggregates free online classes. Think Khan Academy level of simplicity. Visuals. Users can select subject, sub-category and the language for delivery. People can submit comments/questions. Teachers/professors will definitely want to participate via instructional design and content. They can commit to approving it as well.

    Google can expand into new Google-centric subject areas as well centered around Search and Social Media as well – taught by Googlers…

  481. If I were CEO of Google I would immediately split 20% of Google up into smaller, geographically distributed companies.

    Google is too large for its own good. It is less innovative and moves slower as a result. The only way to solve the problem is to create a number of skunkworks working groups that are detached from the mothership; use the split-up as a forcing function.

    And I would locate one of those facilities in Duluth, Minnesota.

    (This is the same thing I would do if I was CEO of Microsoft. It may be too late for them, but Google still has time to save itself.)

  482. this is a great way to get some good ideas I guess Matt. If anyone comes up with a great one and Google uses it – will we get credit? lol

    I think google is doing pretty good without my ideas, plus reading some of the others on here kind of makes me think mine are a little lame!

  483. Low level ones:
    * Launch G-Drive for once.
    * Get Apps to be more like fengoffice, a suite I just love to use but supported by a very little team to take it to the next level. Explore the hiearchical workspaces concept. And group-email, and tasks, and “everything is an object” and as such “is subject for being commented, shared, linked” etc.

    For the really good ones I’ll have to sit down…. but I would definetely explore ww wifi, get cars connected to the net exploring geolocation and how we could improve security, safety and information rich driving. Imagine a panel overimposed, augmented reality cars so to speak.

    … then I would explore sending internet over powerlines…

    … longer life batteries. The technology is already invented to achieve an order of magnitude increase, seems we just need scale..

    …and the worldwide sustainable power grid, that project devised a few months ago…

    Hope it helps..

  484. I would work with governments to make a database of convicted criminals in every country, and put that database online available to anyone. It would be hugely successful. Everybody would look at it to find out if their neighbors have committed any crime.

  485. Ability to preform a search query from a Google service and receive the first result sent back to the requesting platform: Gmail, Chat, Blogger all of the Google properties…..possibly opening up as an API, for integration into other platforms as well.

  486. As a CEO of Google I would think where the strength of Google is now as I perceive it. It is a connector between consumers and business. With that in mind I would focus on these areas:
    1) Education for everyone. From 1st class math and up and then more specialized topics that are relevant both for consumers and businesses: budget, computers, economy, financial skills, what to look for when buying something that you are not familiar with. Maybe team up with University of the people to create more types of free higher education and help them get accredited.

    2) Fund opensource projects that is focused towards small to medium businesses. The startup cost is high when you need new computers and software to get started. Maybe do some research in existing software (accounting, project management, collaboration tools that can be used both internally and connect to from a smartphone) and see what is needed to bring them to a top level.

    I know you guys have been involved in number 2 before, but I would like you to put more emphasis on what will gain both consumers and business.

    Good luck,
    Finn

  487. FACEBOOK STYLE ADVERTS

    Allow advertisers to include an image to Google adverts, in much the same way as Facebook does. I hardly notice Google adverts, but it is hard not to notice Facebook adverts. If an eye catching image leads to more clicks, it would be good for both the advertiser and Google.

    PAGE AGE AND DOMAIN YEAR RANGE OPERATORS

    Such operators would allow people to search specifically for old webpages that haven’t changed in many years, or websites that began within the specified range of years.

    LOW WEB TRAFFIC OPERATOR

    A low web traffic operator would be helpful for when searching for information that is both very rare and can only be described using very common keywords.

    SEARCH BY SITE (AS OPPOSED TO PAGES) SEARCH ENGINE

    This would allow users to make searches based on sites overall, rather than individual pages.

    EXPAND THE GOOGLE PUBLIC DATA SEARCH ENGINE

  488. Nonprofit petroleum company

    1: Convince feds to allow creation of a nonprofit 301C corp to handle oil exploration and refining: mission is to provide energy at a reasonable cost – in the public interest.

    2: buy a smaller, oil company which has the requisite business already in place.

    3: restructure said oil company as a nonprofit.

    Voila. You’ve just created an entity which operates in the public interest to provide energy without the greed motive, and no for-profit company can compete with the nonprofit’s prices. The nonprofit will quickly dominate its industry and be able to take over competitors, or prices overall will have to fall to the nonprofit levels for competitors to stay in business.

  489. Great ideas are usually based on simple ones: “Somebody’s trash is someone else’s treasure” where the idea of G-cycle comes to mind…where people can search, locate, donate their still functional stuff by geographical approximaty. I know that some of this is already done by classifieds websites but If this done by google i’m sure it will be more efficient and recylcle millions of garbage and save the planet.

  490. Smash the cell phone and Internet providers in one fatal swoop! Phones can make calls over the Internet. Provide free Internet and calling in major areas and watch Verizon, AT&T, and the rest quiver at your knees. Once you have Internet coverage across the U.S. you’ll take over 2 entire industries. You could use the Costco model and charge for the Internet once your competitors failed. People will pay $50/mo all day long for Internet if it’s fast.

    Make sure the Internet on Kauai is free since I gave you the idea.

    The first idea is free, if you like, I’ve go more. Go Google!

  491. A device that can detect cancerous tumors/cells.

  492. Hi Matt,
    Here is a “Can’t see the forest for the trees” concept that has been screaming at me for years. I was going to try building it into Facebook but the truth is Google has all the parts to make this a reality so I am spilling the beans in hopes that it might catch your interest.

    OK, so let’s examine a few facts:

    -The human voice is the fundamental “full spectrum” communication vehicle for the human race from the vibrations in the womb (“mother” tongue) until we die or are deaf.
    -Phones/Voice is the universal common technological denominator on the planet. Even folks without phones can get to one and use it.
    -Cultural, family, business and pretty much every other type of human experience has a unique STORY about it based on the story tellers perspective.
    -There is no such thing as true Voice Mail. What’s that about? How come I can’t send someone a voice message like an email?
    -With any topic of human interest, everyone wants to know the STORY. What’s the deal? Who is the person telling the STORY? Is it a sales story? Or a personal story about something important to you or the other person? Is it a news story? All the written text in the world is a subset of the ideas and emotion of the authors STORY.
    -“Hearing it from the horses mouth” is a big deal! People can say what they want about a subject but when you hear the STORY directly from the “source” with their own voice, it has huge impact.
    -Between phones and MP3players/iPods and borrowing access to these devices, you pretty much have access to most of the human races ear drums if they want what you have to offer.

    So……………………………

    What if you crossed Google search, Google voice and YouTube?

    Create something that lets folks have accounts where they can record audio messages or STORIES that can be made public or private and even sent to other people’s phones or email. Like Google voice, you would have something to log in to but you also could access your account with your phone or any phone. You can tag stories to make them searchable like YouTube videos.
    Think of the possibilities:
    Every human has a story about everything. Celebs, business folks, married & dating couples, kids, grand parents, sales people, artists, anything that needs an “explanation” which is a lot these days, training and the rest of humanity’s conversations that I missed.

    No one is organizing humanity’s voice conversations in a searchable and usable manner. Sure there is podcasting but this is putting the worlds common techno denominator, the phone, as a primary UI (with a web account too) and making these voice conversations accessible/searchable like YouTube videos but audio only. Even the lowest tech and skimpy bandwidth “digital desserts” can do voice. You could preserve cultures from around the world with their language and STORIES which is all that “history”, His-Story really is. We only use books because there has never been the techno infrastructure that there is today. Can you imagine if we could listen to the great humans of all time “Telling their STORY” uncensored.

    This is a whole explosion of allowing people access to information in the most digestible format we humans have. You want revolution in this industry and on the planet? Creating this from the parts that are already “on the Google shelf” will do it. I got storyquick.com in anticipation but have not been able to put it together so I place my idea in more powerful hands that are already on the wheel of a machine shaping the human information experience.

    It could be bigger than Facebook. Talking certainly is!

    Thanks so much for your time.
    Clay Villanueva,
    Pres. Wavz Research Inc. 😉

  493. Google should try to make adsense program more transparent and try to expand it further because now millions of people use it as their only bread and butter…..make adsense as easy to use as hell and improve it 100 times more.

  494. If I were CEO of Google I would remove the option ” + Show more results from…” from search results.

    Apart from my personal reason of “experiencing its negative influence on “Search Engine Marketing my websites” I am saying this for making things easier for users.

    This has not made search simple for users “as I have got comments from non technical people I know”.

  495. Apology’s if this has been posted already~ There are many awesome posts here already.

    First~ I’ve noticed that the search results for technical information is aged, I keep getting results for 2007, 8 9 etc. When I need recent results. Example just today: Robots.txt WP I get posts from 2006 Okay Try Robots.txt WP 3.0 SEO Bad Results! I’ve found this a lot with Tech and things that should be dated. However, I am happy about the changes when I’m searching for other items like Astrology.

    Next~ Non-Profit and Artsy sites, or total Coolness that have Bad Code, Bad SEO etc. I know you guys have tons of manual reviewers maybe you could give those sites a free Code Clean up? And an SEO Boost? Some sites and people are more focused on the work than writing for googlebot

    What do you stand for? Personally, I think most of our problems in the world today are because we sell out in one way or another. For a price you can “legally” dump pollution in the Ocean, Sell an inferior or even harmful product just because someone will buy it. Stand for something awesome that will create positive change and don’t sell out. How’s that for a BIG Idea?

    Best Luck!

    Lorrie Jean

  496. Originally Google won market share when Altavista, Yahoo and other search engines moved to a ‘portal’ based home page design (something Yahoo.com has retained) this killed the simplicity of search and provided way too much information at first glance… googles streamlined home page helped attract these customers resulting in Google becoming the #1 search engine.

    Over recent years Google has sought to integrate more and more information into their default listings resulting in a jumble of information where dustractions abound. Sure the business model demands adsense appears on more and more Google asstes however i personally believe this approach is a mistake.

    I harken back to the times when the search results were clear and consise, devoid of clutter and varying visual devices.

    I’d recommend moving images, videos, shopping, news and social elements into their own elective sections, leaving the default Google search once again to be focused on delivering clear information.

    Google must have stats on the number of customers using Adblockplus and other devices to clean up the presentation – i dont mind sponsored listings and generally use them when comparing prices, however i am glad that for my default view, i dont have news, images, videos, shopping etc results jumbled in.

    It will be interesting to see how facebook progresses into search and i am confident that they will seek to present clear information with a minimum of distractions except their advertising framework.

    Its a business/sales maxim – give people too much choice and you’re making a rod for your own back… this i think Google have forgotten.

  497. I would like to see Google investing into medical research to cure all the major illnesses and cancers but for the computers and the internet i would like to see Google create their own operating system to rival Microsoft. Some cool features like a sidebar showing RSS feeds from twitter etc

  498. I think Google doesn’t need big ideas now! You have to work hard and improve the old projects like Google checkout, Groups, wave, buzz, …
    Only with Google checkout you can make a huge money !
    Cheers.

  499. How about a Google Health Site? From having a child who was sick recently, it’s scary to see the amount of wrong information on the web regarding symptoms, etc to the point where its probably better not to search for such information at all. This would be especially good in the UK with the upcoming closure of NHS direct, but it would have to be spot on from the start for people to trust the info.

  500. I think that creating software to analyze costs and revenues of the states in real time would be a good idea. But i believe Google have to stay on computer-related ideas

  501. Name myself as lifetime CEO and I would relaunch Google Wave FOR REAL

    or maybe, transfer a billion and go hide where no search engine can find me 🙂

  502. Is there going to be a proper mechanism for submitting ideas in a confidential environment? I’ve got a belter but it’s not ready to be shared with the world yet. But with Mr Matt Cutts, yes.

  503. To make consumers love my company even more, I’d announce a new anti-spam anti-hacking strategy – and people would cheer! Defense is nice, but when the perps keep coming, a defensive posture is not a solution, but rather a mechanism for tolerance, and that tolerance lets bad actors make money while growing in their sophistication. So I’d announce that G has decided to go on the offense after evil sucky pond scum. Not only coordinating with local and global law enforcement, but by offering ISPs a free each-customer-enabled pipe kill switch that blocks email, sites, scripts while collecting data to further enforcement. In exchange, the ISPs fork over typo domain traffic to G, so the offense systems can be funded.

    The hoards of innocent, good people on the internet sorely need to see the bad guys getting bashed – playing defense only is lame, boring and very uninspiring.

  504. Here’s an idea that fits the Thankgiving theme (US), provides an Internet driven Social Need and would also create good PR. And really good PR can be ‘priceless’:

    Using Google’s resources to enhance the distribution and reach of ‘Amber Alerts’.

    To the best of my current knowledge Amber Alerts can be received via text messages to cell phones, through customized tool bars and through a couple social networking sites where particular users have set up independent accounts (FB/MySpace?). However, with Google’s resources and specialized local/national and global applications (Google Maps, Geo Targeted SERP’s, Gnews, Gmail, Google Toolbar etc.) Amber Alerts could be expanded new ways and reach new markets.

    The details of which I put to paper over a year ago. However, in the hands of a Google team of foreward thinking software/hardware engineers the possibilities would expand exponentially. And I’m sure there’s also a tax write off involved, not that it would even be needed.

    Scott

  505. A little more elaboration on Google and Amber Alerts as I thought I would have an opportunity to edit.

    Simply put- While a user is doing a Google search a scrolling message could appear at the bottom of the SERP, much like a Twitter/RSS feed in RED, that’s geo targeted by zip, city, region, state etc.

    The user would have the option to opt out, but I doubt many people would do so. That alone would significantly expand the reach Amber Alerts because we all know that more people are on the Internet at any given time than watching local tv, listening to local radio, or even driving in their cars (Hwy Amber Alerts). This geo targeted search result idea could also extend to severe weather and national emergencies for any country.

    Best wishes for prosperity and health,

    Scott

  506. Hello Matt,

    I would focus on building better quality software with less defects and more reliability. Google is like a University when it come to software quality and defects. Some Divisions of Google e.g. Google Places remind me of a bunch of students building quick crappy and unreliable products that are not well thought out. Too many inexperienced kids that need more and better management.

    For a detailed example I would not allow things like below to happen:

    .
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    Google Calendar is temporarily unavailable. Please try back later. In the meanwhile, you might find useful information on our Help Group and Help Center. We apologize for any inconvenience.

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    Google Agenda est momentanément indisponible. Veuillez réessayer ultérieurement. En attendant, vous trouverez des informations utiles dans notre Centre d’aide et notre Forum d’aide (en anglais uniquement). Nous vous prions de nous excuser des désagréments occasionnés.

    Der Google Kalender-Service ist vorübergehend nicht verfügbar. Versuchen Sie es später erneut. In der Zwischenzeit erhalten Sie nützliche Informationen in der Google Kalender-Hilfe und der

  507. Create the polar opposite of Google’s interface. Instead of simple, white, empty space as a background… make it a 3D environment.

    For example, this demo was built at the TechCrunch Hack Day in 24 hours: http://igooglehd.com/
    Coverage of the event: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/weblife/best-of-techcrunch-disrupt-hack-day-demos/1743

    When you click the search box, the candle lights on fire and “HD” pops up next to the Google logo. Move your mouse over the HD logo to see it fly off the screen. Start typing a query, and the background comes “alive”. The entire thing takes place inside the center of a huge 3D box. You’ll see more if you have a bigger screen. And this is just one theme, the guys who built it only had 24 hours.

    Stop being so simple, Google. It’s good sometimes, but not all the time. I bet you can get people to stay on your web properties much longer if you introduced these newer style, more immersive design concepts.

    Cheers

  508. This is an easy one…I would do one better than Richard Branson and Shoot for MArs.

    But the real question is what good does Google do in the world aside from the web stuff?

    Does Google feed the needy, help cure disease, build houses for the poor? If they do I have never heard of these acts of kindness.

    To me it seems Google is a power hungry Greed machine. I’m just saying what I really feel. If I were incredibly wealth I would try to make a difference in the World…some how!

  509. (Sad. My post from yesterday did not “stick”…take II)

    If I were CEO of Google, I would focus on the education sector. With technological platforms becoming more vital to teaching (e.g. the method of information delivery), I would develop an application that aggregates free online classes (like Khan Academy or MIT’s free classes) so they can be searched, accessed and shared more easily. Think “Google School”. The key here is free content with the trick being ensured accuracy. It may be challenging to attract teachers (and namely those familiar with online instructional design) to volunteer – but who knows…

  510. Hire the smartest guys on Earth and develop super human artificial intelligence.

  511. Create a proper ‘digital locker’ platform and use the power of pull based technologies for intelligent shopping agents. Why should I search, when, based on my history, the info in my digital locker and signals from my social sphere, a search engine / website (i.e Google) should be able to deliver me the right result at exactly the right time that I need it / I am looking for it. Google currently organises the world’s public information – what about organising the world’s private information (at a personal level, person by person)??? The web is such a noisy place and such a time-eater – I would like much of my activity on the web to be automated so I can enjoy the things that matter most (including family / physical / real world connections).

  512. For Google’s Benefit
    ==============
    Install Google OnTheGo (small work stations) through out USA in public places, so that if someone does not have a data plan, or the mobile battery is low, or for whatever reason they have a problem accessing Google from their mobile phones while on the road, people could go to Google OnTheGo computers(small work stations) which should be installed in most public locations – and be able to Google anything for free and be able to browse web with limitation of 10 minutes per person or some similar rule so as to avoid misuse. This will make people more Google dependent which is what Google wants after all.

    For Public Benefits
    ==============
    Obviously public would also make use of it in their needs.
    However the most specific public benefit I would recommend is implementing this system (Google OnTheGo) specifically in Under Developed countries where people cannot afford even basic things so as a way for a good cause ! I would definitely do this one if I was CEO of Google as its for a good global cause.

  513. I would have google develop a bigger presence in the analog world to demonstrate the importance of learning and I would create a massive Google library or real print books and donate them to needy schools and school children in the USA. I would call it “Google Real Reads” and it would be a huge public relations success, it would enhance google’s reputation, and it would help children who are under-privileged.

  514. Face recognition that goes beyond tagging Picasa images. I would like to be able to login to my Gmail or have my Android phone snap a photo of me as one more (maybe the only?) step in logging in.

  515. Matt, As a followup to my prior post several days ago about ridding the world of SPAM…

    Once our all out anti-SPAM battle was under way, I’d buy this brilliant little company and put a 100 engineers on their IDE. The world desperately needs a well funded company with no stake in the OS wars to equip us with equality set of platform agnostic development tools that will unite the web, desktop and mobile environments. I can think of no better placed or benefitted company than Google to lead the way.

  516. … the company link in my last post was stripped out (what was I thinking?) The company I’d acquire is REAL Software.

  517. Create a phone where the sim card is your fingerprint, that way I can borrow someone else’s phone when my battery has ran out just by scanning my fingerprint. (maybe their fingerprint first to get permission) i.e. my sim card data is on the google cloud.

  518. I’ve got an idea for a search product that Google should have but doesn’t. From a basic search (using google!) it doesn’t seem like anyone else has made this product either. If I suggested something on here, and you ended up creating it, would I personally see any benefit? …… satisfaction doesn’t pay the bills….
    you have my email. If anyone actually reads this message and is interested get in touch!

  519. If I were the CEO, I would create a special task force to read through ALL the help forums, and address issues with at least a “we don’t have an answer yet, but we’re aware of the issue” for posts that are over a week old and have NOT been responded to.

  520. One thing which truly annoys me is that, when I’m doing a web search on some piece of news, the first 10 or 20 or 30 links are to pages quoting each other – but _none_ of it references the original source. It’s just a lot of circular junk. Information is getting lost on the web – or, to be more precise, it’s getting drowned out by noise.

    Also, if you could categorize your searches – something like Grokker used to do – it’d be awesome.

  521. For under $9 billion, Google could bring free–both no-cost and uncensorable–satellite broadband to every square millimeter of the planet. If this guy is right:
    http://www.cringely.com/2009/10/what-goes-around-teledesic-2-0/

  522. Provide a mechanism and service to provide inventory control within the household. Maybe starting with a focus on groceries. As new groceries brought into the house the could be scanned/tagged/photographed, same would need to be done once product used but then the data would be available to simple to create a web page showing inventory, generate shopping list, showing buy/usage patterns etc etc.
    Note with devices like Kinect scanning existing barcodes may well become much easier and quicker than it is today.

  523. of course only with Google checkout you can make a huge money !

  524. Technology to grow food in regions where food won’t grow. Transform deserts into livable regions.

  525. How about something to help resolve the problem of malware, trojans, viruses, spam and so on. You may now be thinking, but there are lots of virus checkers etc out there already (with various price tags and detection rates), and that’s why I mean something that’s more pro-active; if there’s one thing we know, it’s that there’s still millions of PCs on botnets, and billions of junk messages flying around the Internet on a daily basis, so there must be plenty of room for improvement! Even for the technically savvy, PC security is currently somewhat of a minefield, so I’m not sure how your average user knows what to do when their anti-virus or firewall application, assuming they even have one, asks them what to do about a potential issue – It must be like hitting the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button every time! 🙂

  526. Hydrogen dude, it’s gonna be the future and you know those greedy oil barons will try and take it over as soon as their liquid gold runs dry; solar cells, mass produced, multi layer, can become cheap; high output long life batteries. Let’s reduce our dependence.

  527. Google Should do a Textbook Database.

    The School Textbook industry is a scam.

    Students often can’t afford their own textbooks.

  528. I second pretty much everything Michael King said – dead on.

  529. wow, so many ideas. so many CEO’s… I suggest a social webs interface that brings me,my friends and the people I do business with all together.
    -What if, after logging into my google account, I can click “like” on a link or website.
    -What if, when logged in, search results were affected by how a site was rated by my community of accepted friends?
    -What if my iGOOGLE page was a social center? And a business center? And a place for me to organize and use business tools like the amazing postini etc?

    I suppose the list could go on and on, I think over all google is headed in the right direction.

  530. Matt,
    How about a program to input all data from shipping companies and recording all movements done by them. This could be then fed into a super computer to figure out an algorithm for the most efficient way to transport goods worldwide. This can also be used for airlines,trains or city buses to calculate efficiency taking into account real time conditions like weather,jet streams and local conditions. Or the new Chevy volt uses a backup motor after the battery runs down, so program into the GPS where you want to go then it calculates when is the best time while driving (ex: up a hill) to run the gas engine or not at all if you are nearly home. It will knows the topography as it can be downloaded from street view. Or a database for truckers to easily access that they can plot a route across the US and find loads so they are not traveling empty. Currently there is a miss mash of private website that don’t work very well.
    We just need to make more efficient use of the technology that is currently being used.

  531. I would like to see health care done better, who even knows what kind of care the government is offering? I do not have a handbook! Also we need to cut down on illegal drugs, and human trafficking! I can add lot’s more. But this would keep a person busy for a while 🙂

  532. Although it may sound bit odds. But If I were a Google CEO, I would throw found and put a team that can work solved the global power shortage and global warming issue.

  533. Why don’t you do some act of charity? Feed a child with a click? How about “One press of the Google search button equals to 0.01$ for charity, for just one week!? Of course when you want to donate 0.01$, you must have a valid reg in gmail or else in Google World.

    More users = More clicks = More money = More happy kids – how does it sound ? 🙂

  534. Two ideas on here I’ve read I really like:

    Categorising search results – into “Shopping”, “Reference” et cetera

    Google making far more noise on (defending and protecting!) net neutrality – the talk about abandoning it is getting louder (especialliy in the UK) and it’s very worrying!

  535. I would like to see the keywords tag made use of again, but not by simply reactivating it. Why doesn’t Google have it’s own database of keywords, what they relate to and other keywords they relate to. To ensure that the tag wasn’t abused, could it be possible to run a check against the on page content, the matching of the keywords tag to the the on page content would give a picture of how accurate the keywords were, the more accurate, the more influence they have in regards to seo. That is if I were CEO and if it were a good idea….

  536. Universal product search/catalog which contains all relevant information of every product ever manufactured in semantic form. Someone suggested ONE Buying Platform this is kind a related.

    This would allow all kind of new services. For example Google inventory would be cool, you could easily keep list of everything you own. On top of that we could add reversed Ebay and build tribes for information sharing based on consumption behavior for example.

  537. Suugestion as CEO.

    Develop an application, that works as payment instrument instead of current credit cards, from PC or mobile phone, simply anytime, anywhere. It could be paid restaurant bill, hypermarket, purchase from any e-commerce site, parking, adwords and everything where you need a cash, or coins (which you normally don’t have). Electronic instrument in form of unique code, with all security features, instead of piece of plastic with magnetic strip.

    Credit cards are on the market since ages, but new revolutionary payment instrument, would bring more flexibility in payment process.

    In Google case, to make agreements with banks and mobile network operators, should be piece of cake, due to the high reputation. Banks could easily accept such a instrument as they are suffering from new ideas in their business environment. However there would be strong opposition from current credit card companies…

    Technical details I leave for your engineers 🙂

  538. As CEO Matt,
    How about designing a blog tool for the over 60’s which will be the most dynamic, flexible and a ‘simply-referenced by using something along the lines of Twitter’s @ solution’ to connect or plug in to other blogs and existence (website, industry and research), easily and effortlessly in a truly user friendly way, a first tool of it’s kind for tomorrows world!

    The idea came to me several years ago when a friend and colleague who is a retired police officer of 30 years; a world expert in model trains and a man who is top of his hobby as a train enthusiast and who is well travelled and meticulous in character… shared with me his frustration and concern that all of his knowledge will be lost when he dies.

    With Google LifeStory (the first of it’s kind) you’ll truly catch the imagination, life history, life journey’s and the changing nature of business, pleasure and reality of the world’s people for future generations and civilisations to learn from, relate to and add to in the most organic sence of a 4G environment.
    By working with or buying a company such as a world leader in family tree’s, you’ll be able to offer something quite amazing for us all.

    Video, images, memories, routes, countries, societies, industries, civilizations, seas, oceans and much more will come in to play.

    Google is by far the best placed company to make this a reality and to keep the memories of us all alive for 100’s if not 1000’s of years to come..

  539. I wish if something could be done about the Google Adsense program. Some people may misuse our site and keep clicking google ads without our knowledge. It could be our smart friends who would like to finish their anger on us or people who wish to destroy our reputation online. I hope there would be a system to track genuine and non-genuine clicks. It is actually a great concern, because after all the trouble to build our business online and one day the google adsense account is deactivated.

    I’m a writer and I noticed on one of the sites, that another writer mentioned that her google adsense account was deactivated without she ever clicking it. She is a very popular and well paid writer by the writing site itself and I’m sure she would never click those google ads displayed on the pages of her postings.

    I wish I knew the technical side how to do it, if I am the CEO of Google. But I have no clue. So I pass it on to you…. 🙂

  540. When I search for information Google shows me the results they think are most relevant to me. But sometimes I don’t want to see what’s relevant to me, but what’s relevant for someone else. For example when I’m looking for a birthday present for my wife or when I’m trying to find out what’s attractive for potential buyers of my products.

    What I would like to have is the ability to look at information from different perspectives. To be able to select or define special layers that allows me to see what’s relevant for a certain type of person or group of persons.

    Wouldn’t that be great, if you could look at information through the eyes of someone else? Google could facilitate people to understand each other better!

  541. Google AI Intelligence Bots. Or Google Chatter Boxes.

    Social Media Bots designed to interface with the public to promote good PR and answer any questions which may have already been answered inside your knowledge bases.

    Unofficial Mascots.

  542. This is very much an ordinary idea but I’d propose to bring Google to people’s home & office. Can someone please make a Google Keyboard? A little extended beside the Numpad, make keys for Google products. But this keyboard should have a customized software through which we can input individual user profiles for auto-login (with on/off feature) to Google’s network of services 😀

  543. I’d incorporate plan 9 from bell labs with a chrome OS. Use google technologies to transform it into a layman-usable OS from a primarily research OS. Be able to use (with user permission) vastly distributed idle resources. Using the savings, provide additional services that can also be geographically specific.

  544. I’d like to see Google develop an interface to track air traffic for the Federal Aviation Commission. We’d probably have a lot less mistakes – I can’t imagine what kind of software they are using now.

  545. If I were Google CEO, I would invest in 3 areas: 1) increase education and awareness of SMBs on the benefits search marketing, both paid and organic, relative to other forms of advertising (print/radio/TV/outdoor/sponsorships) – there appears to be a lot SMB oppy with relatively low penetration. 2) I would also invest in a strong public relations campaigns addressing privacy concerns related to user tracking (Google Analytics, other) to help influence public opinion on the benefits of targeted advertising to the consumer/user experience, while reinforcing the message that their are safegaurds in place to protect user information; lobby to head off business impacting legislation related to new industry privacy/data regulation. 3) Increased support of RDF to enrich the search results to catch up to Yahoo in this emerging and potentially disruptive technology. Ah ……….. one can dream and that is easy to do from the “Cheap Seats!”

  546. It is clear that the internet is the future of business and mass communication.

    With this I would like to see Google delve into on-line education. I am someone who initially struggled to start-up an on-line website/business and all I can say is that there are so many so called experts selling you education which is snake-oil, out of date or limited in scope.

    If I were Google CEO I would launch a sweeping educational programme to aid people in getting themselves on-line, whether it be in website creation both personally and business, application creation and so on.

    We have all heard on Microsoft and Cisco etc… with their certifications and educational programmes but I propose that Google launch their own on-line degrees.

    Kind regards,

    Craig

  547. I like Peter Weicker’s suggestion of a ‘Google brain’ site, but it would be better to have a complete ‘Google body’ instead. Google should buy up Visible Body (http://www.visiblebody.com) or a similar company and make their data freely available, and set up a web interface with a framework like Google Earth so that doctors and scientists can add annotations, extra images and so on. This could be linked in to Google Health in various ways.

  548. Work with WiTricity to promote wireless electricity and reduce battery usage around the world and make everyone happier by eliminating power cords.

  549. As Google CEO I would take the “Open Kinect Project” and create a employee time clock that scans when employees “clock in” and “clock out” for hourly employees, just by walking in and out of a door, lobby, or corridor. This could help cut labor cost across the world and help bring the economy one step closer to where it needs to be. As labor expenses are usually the largest cost any company incurs. It can also increase company and employee productivity within the workforce.

  550. Improve on what google does great. Google is great at algorithms. The more complicated the better. Web search and gmail spam filtering for two examples. What else can you apply your greatest ability? If not a specific field, why not invest more in trying to go the ‘next step’. What I’d like to see in 10 years is a websearch that was like have a conversation with another person, a confidant.

    ######
    client: What’s the best movie to see this weekend

    google: Well Steve (based on what you asked last year at this time), you probably want something to take Little Steve to see, if so, check out this clip. If you and Mrs Steve are going out (based on your recent searches into ‘how to tell if the are cheating’) maybe this movie will respark the fire.

    client: I was thinking of just my buddies

    google: ok, then checkout this theater… it’s near that bar you went to last year.

    client: great

    google: dont forget to pick up some flowers here on the way home… and save this link on your phone for a cab service,… just in case
    ######

    Well, ok – a bit of a stretch. But, it would be nice… or maybe not (depending on what you’re up to)

    Toby

  551. I would set up a youtube website that school’s can access.
    It’s an amazing resource but we are all blocked from using it in school because of potential bad content.

    I really wanted to show my class a video called ‘People are awesome’ to show them the potential that they could achieve with practice, etc.. but I can’t figure out how to get around my local authority grid for learning and would not want to mess up my school’s system :S

    It would be amazing if youtube could set up a linked website that has approved video’s and school profiles, obviously with safety and child protection things in place. It could be a gold mine for education advertising too.

    Any thoughts about getting behind a project like this?

  552. Google Sun – offer alternative energy to supply our increasing demands for more clean energy

  553. C´mon. Google never pays for an idea. Google pays millions for running companies.
    Is my statement wrong?

  554. Interfacing and Integrating biology & technology. Despite what everyone fears, I want to access all of what Google knows directly in my brain. That would be speedy…forget this “search executed in .28 seconds” that’s not really correct. I also had to think about it, get it from my brain to my fingers to the keyboard to the computer to the browser to google.

  555. I would try to change how countries think about their language. If all people in this world would speak the same language (english I guess). They would be much more tolerant to one another. But maybe I’m thinking to far ahead, this takes generations.
    And sorry for my crappy english… I’m Dutch.

    Or put my site behind doodle for one day. That’s fun too.

  556. Okay, here’s one for Google-the-company:

    Make it a policy to seek out and try to hire anyone who earns over six figures strictly from google organic search. They understand enough about how things work that you want them as your friends, not your foes.

  557. Renewable Solar Electric plus Internet Everywhere Wi-Fi – A Synergistic Solution

    Solar photo-voltaic large volume wholesale prices have fallen from over $5 a peak watt to around $2 a peak watt in less than a decade. While solar array wholesale prices have fallen the retail cost to homeowners including installation, permit approvals, and complexity remains high. Only around 2% of US electricity is from renewables and the US DOE projects that this will only grow to 4% by 2020. Google could change this dramatically.
    Google would team with low-cost solar array manufacturers to develop a standard, easy to install 4 kilowatt (peak) grid-tie solar array kit for the home market. Google would then eliminate the up front barrier cost with a zero money down lease to selected homeowners (starting in Hawaii, California, or Arizona?). Each solar kit would include a networked secure Wi-FI router. With even a 5 to 10% market penetration of households, Google would achieve critical mass and “own” a standardized, robust, and reliable Wi-Fi grid. High speed Internet everywhere, supporting Wi-Fi enabled cell phones, cable TV over Wi-Fi, as well as standard high speed Internet. But unlike their cell phone, Internet, cable competition, Google’s Wi-Fi grid has zero sunk cost for purchased FCC auction bandwidth, cell tower build out, and last mile fiber costs. The resulting Google All-In-One Solar plus Wi-Fi grid provides electric plus communications services at a fraction of the cost of of the competition. Google Universal Utility all on one low monthly bill.

  558. I think Google should have separate results, or separate directories for business vs frivolity… by frivolity, I mean the endless stream of meaningless blogs and tweets and facebook entries that show up when users are searching for business services.

    Seems like this would be self evident for serving search results, but I guess there must be a reason why this hasn’t been implemented.

    Thanks!

  559. What I would like to do: Google U. Sounds like a university I would like to attend.

    What I would probably do: Request an overhaul of all google products so that they communicate much better within the google bubble but can
    1. work just as well as an individual module
    2. be replaced with a third party service (module).
    sorta like lego’s

    What I would actually do: Create a contract for myself in which I am given full privilidge to use the google facilities whenever I feel urge to do so.

  560. some people already mentioned free internet, some even mentioned mesh networks. I would take Project Serval and use it to allow android phones to connect directly or via a few hops for free calls within a campus for example. once that works, I would equip android phones with a wireless technology akin to Wimax or WiFi on steroids, that would allow adhoc connections over longer distances , say 1~2 km and effectively make calling/wireless internet free in metro areas. spectrum? It should be able to use whatever frequence is free at the given moment. Once it is used by millions of devices, no FCC can police it.

  561. If I was CEO I would continue my domination of the online world and expand my reach even further consolidating my near monopoly position.

    If I was a CEO that didn’t require me to think about the bottom line at any (legal) cost I would be out of work, but let’s fantasize and say I did exist and I did work for Google. Then really the best thing for the world would be to break google up.

    Google is the modern day equivalent of Standard Oil.

  562. i agree 100% with this idea: Make government more transparent

    because in slovenia for example, if you want to find out something about a law, you have to hire a lawyer. you can’t get the info nowhere else. there is nothing on the internet, not in some book.

  563. Hi,

    Here’s some further (and final) elaboration on the idea I submitted but wasn’t posted that would be able to accomplished using a small team, wouldn’t involve large sums of money, would make the world and Internet a better place, as well as improving the Google product while creating positive public relations.

    Can involve a variety of different Google features (Gmail, Google Toolbar, Gmaps, etc) but main service would focus on Google SERP’s. Here’s an example of three Social based search results. I believe the option of receiving Social/Service based search results that occur in ‘Real Time’ is going to be one of the next big innovations:

    Amber alerts (missing/abducted children/teens): Data by interfacing with Amber Alert central
    National weather alerts (tornados, severe weather): Data avail via National Weather Center
    Local/National emergencies: (Toxic spills/crises’): Data avail- Emergency Broadcast Svcs.

    The above are examples of neutral Social/Service based search results. Neutral in the sense Google isn’t creating the alerts, they already exist. Which makes for a good starting parameter. They could appear as an RSS/Twitter type feed along bottom of geo-targeted Search Result or off to the side as a separate category that flags the users attention when an event has occured in their service area.

    This would open the door to the inclusion of a real time Social based SERP’s (Not the real time event SERP’s) that would allow Google users to get information only available currently through local television/radio. Would be a public relations boom for Google, potential tax write off and eventually extend into other areas of need based on strict/relevant criteria.

    Have a great Thanksgiving!

    Scott Moyer (spelled Moir)

  564. To be honest: I’d buy Yahoo, Bing and make a competitive product in order to stay ahead with Facebook. Then I’d rely more on quality websites with many pages indexed and interlinking structures than backlinks that are 90% of the time either Spam or simply bought…

  565. I would try to compete with facebook with new ideas

  566. 1) Build a new Data Center in Africa.
    2) Start-up planner : a service that could match Indexed Google Data from different services (Finance, Stats, Trends…) to assist New Startups Development. ICT4D 😉
    3) Reenable human support in Google services (Adsense, GMaps…). Third-party user’s mistakes (like on Map Maker) become uncontrolled when propagated through millions of websites using Gmaps Api 😉

  567. I would worry much more about existing projects – especially about the main one – your search engine. … still G has got too many niche websites that rank among top 1-5 places with only one reason – make money from adsense or similar projects :/

    but about new projects – Google marketplace – classifieds system with widgets that other classified ad websites would be able to post those ads in their sites (maybe much smaller ones)..

    … yeah 🙂 and would change Orkut on something else… sounds horrible and it is open to spelling mistakes as well.

    good luck, Helmuts

  568. Carlos Maria Aiello

    I would try to integrate all the tools that Google has. Try to exploit the full potential of google (I’m talking about users), trying to create a new and better social network (and i’m not talking about orkut), I think that Google buzz was a good first approach to that, but much remains to be done, I would to put together all the pieces of the puzzle.
    Good luck!

  569. Fix California budget issues.

    Or, fix the MERS mortgage database system.

  570. If i would be the CEO of Google then i would try to power Google Bot with artificial intelligence like science fiction movies so that it can learn how millions of users are behaving in any perticular situations.

    Google is a storehouse of enoromous amount of data. For instance, if i take my example then i can say that i uses gmail and google search on daily basis in every 15 minutes. So i can assume that Goolge has the information regading my contacts, my friends, which person is my best friend, how i behave in any adverse case like how i reply back when someone sends me any adverse mail, so and so.

    So the main thing is if google can have this artificial intelligence then one day it can help me out or suggest me in many stages of my life.

  571. Hi Matt,

    I spend two hours every day in the car blocked in traffic. Why not thinking about agreements with car makers to have a fantastic google experience in the car ?

    May be, while I am in the cue, google could read my GPS position and can explain me the story of the monument I have in front, and display images on the windscreen.

    Possible applications are endless……

    Please remind also that it is not safe to use various mobile devices in the car (phones are not allowed), all commands should be on the steering wheel.

    P.s. I would love to have “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on the steering wheel of my car.

    Ciao,
    Diego

  572. Like CEO of Google i’ll:
    1. Stop To Accidentally Collecting Personal Data (Facebook etc)
    2. Google shouldn’t stop collecting Wi-Fi date (mobile phones)
    3. Inovate more on SmartPhones integrated scripts – fast reply etc

  573. I have an idea that I am working on, that could change the way that users use the internet.

    It could also be real competition for Google, and its not just a search engine.

    There is a major problem with the Internet that not one of the engines address this pretty major flaw.

    It will also put a lot of people out of work.

  574. Sebastiaan Postma

    Buy Ireland.

  575. I think I would divert some funds to extending human life (there is a theme here)

    Perhaps investing a bit of cash in the SENS Foundation
    Maybe some cryogenics facilities?
    A way of downloading my brain and storing it in Google docs.

    Any/all of the above.

  576. Fabio Castañeda

    If I were Google CEO I would have a team working on:

    ►Collective Decision Making Systems

  577. Hi Matt,

    Thanks for giving this opportunity. Google Inc. is known for Revolutionizing Information access, Quality, Technology, Ethics & many more positive things.

    Coming directly to the point “As a CEO of Google” I will try revolutionizing World Education.

    Connecting World’s Universities & Making their Educational Content accessible world over.

    Why – It’s the best way to make world more Safe, Happy & Peaceful place to live. Educational content from top Universities of the world will be accessible not only to developed nations but to third world & developing nations too. It will increase quality of education & create more responsible Civilians.

    How – Internet is penetrating world very rapidly. We can use my Youtube.com (personal favorite), Google Blogs & Google Books etc… to organize content & make it accessible.
    e.g A Youtube Channel which will share live or recorded lectures, Seminars, Presentations, Guest speeches from Universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Kelloggs. With Blog & Books we can share Researches, Case studies & more.

    Commercial Viability – This project will require considerable amount of initial investment from Universities & Govt. Project can be made commercially viable using Advertising, paid subscriptions & Donations.

    Google Benefits – Google can take it as a part of fulfilling Social Responsibility. Also this may be a new revenue generation stream for Google. It will enhance the Google Brand Value & will be more close to the Heart of Intellectual Students who are lacking Quality Education.

    This is all about my idea. I Hope you all liked it…. 🙂

    Thanks,
    Santosh Sonawale

  578. Google Anti-censorship :
    -Enable hidden proxy-based navigation in the future Chromium OS or attach it to Google Chrome.
    – It would be cool if Google can reenble Ip based accssibility for youtube, webcache…

    By this way, Google will recover #1 popularity in China, North Korea, Tunisia… and will be able to collect real Stats that could be altered by third-party proxies !

  579. You know what would actually be a good idea? Making sure domain squatters don’t make money from adsense, it’s not that hard to do – look at adsense sites, see if they are empty but for the ads and some stock photos, and ban the person who operates that site.

    You are welcome,

    Ivan

  580. So today I was giving Picaso a real hard time trying to get it to do face recognition on around 12,000 photos of my identical triplets. While waiting I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if Picaso looked at backgrounds and landscapes and provided suggested Geotag matches?

  581. Flip the Adverts to the left hand side of the screen, allow for premium video ads and professional graphic ads, public service announcements, no betting for spots, minimum price placement, and move the controls (sort by date, translate, ect) to the right hand side.

  582. I mentioned this briefly to you on the twitter but I’d really love to see a way for users to upload their own lists of blacklisted sites such that all subsequent searches would not include results from these sites. My use case for this is getting rid of all content farms in my search results.

    You could either upload and maintain your own list or you could co-opt another list that someone else maintained and made publicly available.

    This allows Google to lessen the content farm problem without having to take an editorial stance on it.

  583. 1. how to help africa and pour countries, they need something more than idea.
    2. a phone that works in extreme conditions like earthquake, natural disasters. because who needs android when you don’t have signal bars.
    3. improve a new way to live and be kind with the world, start with a small ville called Google, with green energy, food, transport, etc.

    🙂

  584. If i were CEO of Google:

    Build a so called “desktop integration”. the basic idea is similar to what dropbox app.
    Adding “when did the page crawled”, “webpage publish date” and “previous crawl”-thingy to Google Search so people could know whether a page is out of date or not.
    build desktop app for google docs.
    “Google University”. Organizing academic content so people who can not attend “normal university” are still able to learn.

  585. I would stop the Google Job-Interview process.

    Ive never tried to get a Job at Google because i know a few people who are very very good in theire job but they got lost in Googles Interview Process and i dont want to know if iam stupid.

    I think that Google miss very good and highly engaged persons just by asking them stupid questions.

    Thats what i would change..

  586. Smarter structure/flexibility for google accounts. Right now it can be clunky if you have clients / customers who do not let you add them to an MCC.

    A friggin Status bar option on Chrome browser. This one is a no brainer and would take less than a day to program. It is nice to know when your browser is actually doing something. Sometimes I wonder if I clicked a link or not since I have no real indicator if I move my mouse.

    Beyond that I would continue to chip away at all existing businesses and business models (:

  587. If I was CEO of Google I would focus more energy on products instead of doing this ADHD method Google currently has which is creating something and working on it for awhile and then running to something else and ignoring good ideas.

    I would also focus on developing better forms of customer service the Help Forums just don’t satisfy customers in fact people constantly do not get help and move on….. Google Adsense is a good example…. If you have a problem you get a canned response…. if your account gets disabled you get a canned response if you appeal….. this is not a good way of doing business…. people will just eventually go to better paying ad networks that offer personalized responses and that actually will look into issues.

  588. Further invest in AI extensions to search. Initially a AI chat/Search hybrid could be used to refine searches (e.g. a query for “apple” would not just return pages about the word, but a conversation with the chatbot for refinements along with the information. “Here are some results but did you mean the fruit or computers?”) and that level can be done with A.L.I.C.E.-level algos pretty well. Eventually the holy grail is real AI, where the crawlers don’t just index text but the AI understands it. AI that has read the whole web would be neat, and a step towards getting answers, and not results out of search.

  589. I am a strong believer that one of the best ways to help the world is to start a business.

    Google should give back to the world economy by donating 10% of the 20% Google time to help upcoming entrepreneurs through an internally viewed Venture Slam competition open for public pitches.

    This could lead to a possible brain drain but if Google was entitled to a fair percentage of the business which would be owned by the innovator and the partnering Googlers this would serve as an open PR exercise that the world would appreciate.  

  590. Stop hiding behind an answering machine and give real support, not just to major clients but also to small enterprises. Green energy data centers would have a huge impact on co2 emissions. Fix android so people won’t loose calls when syncing data.
    Improve on search results, it is good but certainly not great. I’d like to see some authority ranking in there. Based on expertise and not popularity.
    Change first page bid’s in AdWords, feels like a money grabbing ploy.
    And last but not least. I’d focus on becoming the dominant media agency in the world so All advertising would have to go through Google. You’re halfway already .:)

  591. Solar glass windows for the domestic home. Use the sun to provide power to the modern homes and office.
    insert thin solar strips into glas like when you have a car with the defroster strips in the front and rear only solar strips connected to the power supply.
    I would love to be involved in this it would be global.

  592. If I were the CEO of Google, site#1 on earth!, I would lead the world zeitgeist towards the adoption of renewable, clean energy and to rescue our deteriorating planet. For the sake of humanity and our children.

    As a profitable project, I suggest the investment on brain signal analyzers and reactors. Which analyze the human brain signals and convert them into orders; moves certain machinery or equipment.

  593. Location recognition within Picasa based upon image backgrounds and scenery.

  594. Hasitha Prabhath

    Broadband internet (at least 256 kbps) for each & every inch of earth’s surface. It may be a satellite system (like GPS) with small (USB dongle) receiver. Price: 1$ per 1GB (up+downstream) or below. 🙂

  595. 1. Expand the way search works by allowing the world to easily specify rules, like location, website, search term, etc.. Search is simple but you can still keep it simple and smarter. Let poeple know what others are searching for in a location or where people are from searching a term? seems google assume people are only searching for websites. Google doesn’t have to get into social networking, just expand how search works first. Allow for search of location or a search term making the search result either a time based history or live feed,

    2. google travel should be based on location and price more then content and number of links to a site.

    3. Let google webmasters tool show what page a site shows up for any search term

    Keep up the great work Matt, this was a very smart way of generating ideas 🙂

  596. Print out the internet and put it in a very strong box in a cave.

    I worry that there’ll be a magnetic storm one night, we’ll wake up and the Internet will be gone forever.

    I’d suggest you don’t print out ALL of the Internet, some of it might be unsuitable. You’re allowed to use your discretion.

  597. The more I think about it, the more I am certain the world needs a hard copy of the internet.

    A new mission statement for Google it is then: ‘…to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, as well as printing it out and keeping it somewhere safe. Just in case.’

  598. I’d fix issues like this – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html

    Seriously, this is just despicable!

  599. To improve Google: I think you guys are doing everything humanly possible to make your main product “search” as useful as possible. The only problem I see, is you guys are not getting the social aspect of the web right. The problem, you are too departmentalized. Google Maps, Video, Web Search, Earth. It is not a clean single platform. Every time I click on one of those areas, it seems like I’m almost on a different web site, if I was an uneducated user.

    Remember school, the English Teachers don’t talk to the Social Studies Teachers. So, in Social Studies class, you have kids that know everything about World War I, but spell every 5th word wrong. In English class, they are spelling every word correct, but they don’t understand the content they read. You guys need to get out of that habit. The level integration has definitely picked up. But does it make you want to create a google account?

    That’s where Facebook got it right, everything is ubiquitous to a good extent and they make you feel a part of it with a little picture of yourself next to the content you are reading.

    I think a little more personalization and ubiquitous interface between all products will go a long way for the mass population and towards future success.

    To improve the world realistically: I would give your Adsense and Adwords publishers/purchasers an option to donate 0.0001 cent per click to the charity of their choice. You guys monitor the total spent. They can get a tax right off and do some good at the same time. Google creates a foundation that rates charities with the help of their publishers experiences. Like Zagat’s For charities.

  600. The Google Universe should develop a new ‘social cloud database protocol’ for open source web developers to break free from closed anti-socials. 

    A Google powered social backend would make a lot of ad sense…

  601. Difficult question to answer but my idea would to be to fund a wider understanding of our Oceans and the life that lives within them.

    As far as products go not sure it has to be simple and something a lot of people would find useful…. no cannot think of anything sorry.

  602. First as someone mention above ” I’ll buy Facebook and shut it down” agree 100%.
    Really has anyone figure out how many millions of productive hours and eventually $$$$$ are lost daily, world wide!!! from millions of people stuck in there.
    How many millions of kids are spending their time in Farmville or addict them selves in poker or mafia wars!!! instead of doing their homework or do something creative??
    How many millions of employees spending most of their time in facebook instead doing their paid jobs especially those in the public sector that is more loose then the private.
    Lets face it Facebook is a pest in our society and not only a thread for Google.

    Now about Google improvement, I have mention in the adsense forum an amazing tool.
    Make a search box for hotels, flights, holiday deals, cruises, all kind of services that can be delivered eventually by Google and give it to the publishers as a code for implementation in their relevant travel pages. After all why should some very well known dot coms dominate the world tourism and not Google it self ????
    Alternatively if Google does not want to enter that sector, the search results can go to the higher bidder of a certain service (hotel, flight, cruise etc). With this way you can have more revenues for both Google and its publishers

  603. I would like a reverse auction service where I could post my buying list and have suppliers bid on my business, a reverse ebay so to speak. It could be anything from a mundane grocery list to my Christmas shopping list.

  604. In line with what I have above.. I would like a life maintainence app that allows me to put in a list of objects that overtime will need service. My furnace, my car, my kids, my health, painting my house, vacations.. etc.. as the time approaches I can see the projected amount I will need to have in reserves and service providers could start bidding from my business.

    ie. Hi I am speedy oil, I notice that your car is soon due for an oil change, we are having a 50% off special next week..

    Hi.. You house is scheduled for painting this season, could we be of service? We could paint your house for $xxxx.

    Connecting the consumer with the supplier.

    It follows one of the the threads about Google Concierge. I would love to work with google on these ideas.. So I would definitely hire myself if I were CEO for a day!

  605. I do not know what I would do as CEO of Google, but I’m sure Google would find something for me to do :P.

  606. I would not try and create something that would go against net neutrality. Having large companies take over would destroy SOOO many jobs around the world. I myself work from home helping others find what they are looking for and providing services for people around the world that make their lives easier. If there were rules on the internet saying that I had to pay more, I would ultimately lose everything, just like many many others.

    I have been doing research into a lot this and don’t know so much about it, but honestly from what I have seen so far, I believe that google as a whole should just help building their own search engine even better and better and making those whom relate moreso to certain terms rank better 🙂

    Thanks!

    Sincerely,
    Justin Lewis

  607. Google global webcam weather.

    Google gets mass produced a lot (as in targetting millions of units) of out door environment sensors with bluetooth comms, solar powered and maybe including a webcam.

    Target a $5/unit cost, sell for $10/unit and donate the difference somewhere.

    The devices then connect when the connecting machine is turned on and google gets global weather data. You can then run a global weather forecast. You do have processing power.

  608. Buy SUSE from Novell / Attachmate. Also buy Novells patents, if possible. There is risk that one of the major Linux distros “falls in the wrong hands” that don’t grok open source the way Google does. This might end in SUSEs demise. Although Google possibly does not use SUSE now (I don’t know, but assume this to be the case), you are known to be a major Linux user, and loss of SUSE might indirectly impart the future of Linux.

  609. I want to expand on my free internet access suggestion.

    Access should be free so you can surf the net and check your email but it should be speed capped – to provide those basic services.

    Then you pay for higher connection speeds – after all, ISP’s have to pay to deliver these services

  610. I think of things in terms of enterprise computing. Here is my short list.

    1. On the legal front, we need an industry wide push to extend the forth amendment to data entrusted to third parties (Google).
    2. On the security front, the Cloud leaders need to publish a security standard that we can use to judge cloud providers.
    3. On the technical front, for those of use with multiple Google accounts, we need better support with chrome extensions and Android.
    4. My personal pet peeve is the contacts app. I want to share lists of contacts with other people. My changes to that list should seamlessly update. TODO lists too.
    5. I read a Google engineers white paper on multiple “persona” when using social media. He’s onto something.
    6. Keep up the good work.

  611. It would be nice to take Google one step further by bringing it into the real world… ok it is available online and on mobile devise, but still whenever I’m in a situation like for example a ‘real store’ and need to decide which product is best… I just wished I could Google it and get real answers right there. Expert answers on any item there, live, where I am at that moment. I’d like to Google my personal information, let us say I have just landed in an airport and need to go to find a special book or something. I just want to be able to walk to an “expert google machine” and ask my question. Ok there is facebook, ok there is general google, but I want my local expert quality answers right there. Just like a cache machine there should be a google machine right there to give me what I need. Everywhere, in stations, in stores, in libraries, hospitals,… Google should be everywhere, available any-time and should give results I can use instantly!

  612. Picking up on a current theme – I would set-up back up mirrors for WikiLeaks, then add a “whistle blower” setting to google Chrome (SSL/PGP/VPN’s/4096-bit keys etc) so that users could leak documents in relative safety. I hope that would fit in with google’s “do no evil” mantra!

  613. In case it drops off the News Picks over at Groklaw, I will quote PJ regarding what you should do;

    [PJ: Well, you could fund a citizen courtroom witness project, so that when courts refuse to provide transcripts of hearings, like the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in the upcoming SCO v. Novell appeal, the project could afford to send transcribers to make a record in cases that truly matter to the public. If you want to spend more, you could fund on a larger scale, so that volunteers who prove themselves over time could be hired and make it their job to cover court hearings and trials, so that the community doesn’t have to hope someone’s schedule allows them to take a day off. Look at what Groklaw has done with volunteers. Imagine if it or another entity could cover cases all over the world with trained reporters to not only attend hearings but pick up paper filings that are too large to be digitally filed. If folks knew all that goes on, I’m pretty sure they’d insist on some improvements. And it’s history. What better way to tell the story of a generation than in the litigation that shapes its life and possibilities?]

  614. A way to eliminate all sites from a search that are selling a product when I just want to find documenation of a product.

  615. I want Google to enter the on-line auction business to compete with ebay. Google is the only company I’d trust to do this, and has the resources – technologically and monetarily. ebay is essentially a monopoly and it’s polices and rules have changed over the year, and not in a good way. Google auctions would give sellers and buyers a second, better. place to go to sell and buy.

  616. I am in Arnhem (middle of Netherlands) and I wish to travel to Rome. In maps route information it should show :

    – walking/biking directions, (in case I want to make a pilgrimage)
    – car/motorcycle driving directions
    – public transport options (bus, train, ferry, subway, etc.)
    – plane options (incl different airports / flying routes available (I live between 5 airports and it is currently painstaking to find the proper routes and deals))
    – possible other types of transport

    Then I can make an informed travel decision

  617. A couple of off the wall ideas that I think would be great but would take a huge capital investment would be to get rid of vhs, dvd, blue ray, etc. Offer a service where you can purchase and watch movies with any web enabled device. Instead of having to re-buy your favorite movie in the newest format, just have an account online and be able to watch it anywhere. Integrate in with Google TV. Only issue is the digital rights.

    Why stop at just movies? What about games? Create games that are playable from the same account, just have to buy controllers for them. How about all those old nintendo, super nintendo games you loved to play? Well if you removed the console and were able to play the games whenever you wanted, wouldn’t that be better? Be able to play your games anywhere you want, never worry about a scratched disk or lost game again.

    Even more impractical but cooler would be if someone made a device that would enable someone to control their dreams. You could pre-program what you want to dream about and live your dreams, now that would be fun.

  618. The big issue I’d like Google to tackle is managing one’s identity on the Web. Of course Google already has a hand in this with many of their products, but with Google’s gravitas they could be in better position than most to propose a standard way of doing it, parallel to the way websites are authenticated by certificate issuers.

    On a secondary note I’d ask the webspam team to tackle the pollution of Usenet newsgroups, often by very repetitive offenders who commonly use their Google Groups login for the dirty deeds.

    TIA, Chip

  619. Google medical records

    Improve voice recognition technology – a good start so far transcribing my voicemails – but still too many errors. This has some serious potential, but the current version is quite buggy. (Imagine coming home – ‘lights on, tv channel 5, email dad “we arrived home safely”, set temperature 69 degrees’)

    thumbs up for self-driving cards 😀 … hope I can experience that in my lifetime still.

  620. Take a break! Think about what works well and what does not, about responsibility and your next steps for the future.

    just my 2 cent

  621. Google maps in google earth and vice versa (e.g. a map tiles layer in earth, use the maps routing features, etc.).
    For KML, arrays of structures instead of structures of arrays, i.e. for a 1 second sample of geocoded data, have the bits for each layer inside a placemark so I can turn a global layer on. I get things like RPM and fuel consumption on my motorcycle and would like to write them out in 1 second blocks, but turn on or turn off each in the entire doc. Google maps can’t even find my favorites in the directions box for maps (it used to do so).

    Location is the next thing, so they need to revisit, revamp, and refactor their two premiere products, earth and maps, to work a lot better for developers, data source suppliers, and users.

  622. Programmers often use the “diff” tool to determine differences between two versions of code, and to create patches. What if we had a legal diff for law? When a bill is proposed, rather than having to pour through thousands of pages of boring avoidance of clear English, we can have a diff util show us graphically what a bill will do to existing law, and show what sections are to be modified.

    This will allow normal citizens to understand better what the law will do, special interest groups to watch for changes to certain areas of law, and this will highlight bills that have pork in them, and what the pork is. This will aid in more transparency of the law making process.

    And this could be used for any bill, law, etc, making law into a CVS repository, so you can review older versions of the law and ‘watch’ changes.

  623. I am from Pakistan being a Pakistani i would like to do work in the field of IT in my country. Ill hire new people and will trained them because lot of people in Pakistan are educated but they don’t have jobs and don’t know the way to utilize their skills.
    Thanks

  624. Create a committee of wise men/women that serve as sounding board for political debate.
    People with outstanding humanitarian trackrecords, people who have done “good” for others, have contributed exceptionally to the benefit of many people.

    Experts in fields such as:

    a) Spirituality
    b) Science
    c) Arts
    d) Education
    e) Economy
    f) Creativity & Communication
    g) …

    Holding together this 30-50-100 people and taping into their wisdom would impact to the media (if that was sponsored by Google), and that would make politicians re-think many things.

  625. I would try to expand on Adsense and Adwords relations so that we could reach more advertisers and publishers without making them mad. The one thing that Yahoo! and Bing (or shall I say Yahoo/Bing since the merger) have on Google is customer relations. They actually have numbers that you can call to get help. I think that is one of the main things that Google lacks. Hence, my first day as CEO would be spent on the start of a developmental project to see this happen.

  626. I realize Goog411 is a ‘legacy’ service, and Google tries not to be tied down by legacy services, and I also realize Goog411 was provided free. However, I think Goog411 should be placed under the GoogleVoice team and restarted, but for something like $1.00/yr or for unlimited calls for your GoogleVoice account so the the operating costs can be covered. Also, add a feature to allow you to select your business you are looking for information on, and then get directions based on your spoken location (Ex: “Main St and 3rd St in New York City, NY”) and store and retrieve limited contacts to your account, and be able to have the information texted to your phone.

  627. Take the cash pile Google owns and start running a bank / investment house with additional money from all the businesses that run on Google and all the consumers who use the service. Of course the system should propose intelligent choices for investment. So if I hit “I am lucky” Google will do what it calculates is a) the best for me and b) the best for the planet. This is mainly a mathematical problem and this is what Google can perform very well.

    There should be an option to spend some percentage of the additional wealth to organizations or projects or even states that have a positive impact.

    This could change the world in the long run.

    But most governments would hate it.

  628. I have two words for you Matt: edible napkins.

  629. If I could be CEO of Google for just one day: I would sell bottled linkjuice on ebay! At the same time I would you Matt get to blog a post that this might work in some coincidental circumstances – depending on how much link juice one webmaster consumes a day. Something like the algorithm is super secret and we are not telling exactly how we connect the webmaster to the bottles of link juice, bla bla… So I just want to give all webmasters and SEOs a hint: consuming to much link juice might cause the algorithm to think that it might not be natural and therefore could cause a panalty. Remember: “Drink for yourself and not for the googlebot!!”

  630. I would try and solve world hunger. Perhaps employ a combination of Google Maps with census data for impoverished areas of the world. Then set out in a philanthropically trek in Google Bot Buses, Boats, and Planes that is partially funded by Google advertisers of the food, clothing, and basic living supplies that we would give away.

  631. 1) Would improve google health. By improving i mean advertise, to make people notice that it exists. This is a good google product but most peoople simply dont know it exists. It would be great for doctors to access a patient file that just got in a hospital for the first time with the click of a mouse. But for this to happen, like today most people use google for searching, most people would have to get a profile online in google health. It could be integrated with gmail or orkut for example.

    2) Another important thing, would be to improve webmaster tools communication system. Right now, all webmsters get most of the time is an automated response from webmaster tools. I have a site http://www.cirurgia-plastica.com that is waiting reconsideration from google, and alli get is an automated response. It would be great to receive a personal email from google staff, about problems with the site and ways to fix them.

    3) Integrate gps systems with google chat or google maps. We could find people in real time using google chat ( of course just the people that agree with that)

  632. On google maps today just looking things and thought this would be cool.

    Please make it possible to move the distance bar around on the map and be able to rotate it, make it longer or shorter and adjusting the distance. Distance read out can me in metric, feet, miles…ect. Have the settings in the tool bar for this. This way I can take a measurement. This will help a lot to see how far across a lake is or wide a mountain is. Schools may make good use of this.

    Thanks,

    Chad

  633. please change me to be thanks

  634. Bring back ability to see more than 10 search results at a time!

    Bid Idea: create Paypal competitor, but with better service, better features and at 1/10th the price, sort of a Google Checkout on steroids. This will clear the path for micro-payments, as well as mobile-phone payments!

  635. I second the idea: ability to purchase high res Google Maps photos !

  636. Obtain more accurate information about when each web page indexed has been modified than now seems to be collected, and enhance the selection possibilities based on date over what is currently offered in the advanced search, including specifying specific date ranges, specific age ranges, and the possibility to sort the results by date.

  637. I don’t know whether this is possible or not but If I would be CEO of Google, I wish to make the GOOGLE Translate more accurate. It is good to find out the meaning of single words there but Google Translate is unable to Translate the whole sentence exactly.

  638. I want Google to launch an ATM Machine which can be connected to computer. And after login in your bank account you can withdraw money from your account directly from Computer attached ATM.. without going to ATM Machines

  639. Priorities for the CEO of Google

    – Create some form of architecture that embraces all the IT/Cloud products in the Google portfolio. Make sure that all Google products are brought in line with this architecture.
    – Promote better integration between Google products. They should not be allowed to become islands or silos of information. Making most products accessible using a Google Account (including Google Apps) was a start.
    – Introduce proper product timelines or life cycles. Don’t allow useful, well liked products to be culled on a whim, or because of a short-term crisis. The axing of Google Notebook and Hello Picasa are classic examples of this knee-jerk policy.
    – Don’t develop (or worse still, buy) products, then allow them to simply wither on the vine. Orkut is probably a good example of this, as is Google Groups.
    – Provide a better support model for all free Google products. Forums and peer support will always have to form the foundation, but the way support is delivered needs to be consistent across all Google products, and there needs to be more oversight and input from Google employees, as well as a way for problems to be escalated. Don’t leave us to fend for ourselves!
    – Likewise, provide a consistent mechanism for product feedback and feature suggestions.
    – Don’t become another Novell!

  640. Create college study abroad opportunities at all Google office locations.

  641. I would develop something to engage young kids, or under privileged kids, early on, with enterprise online. Try to open their eyes to the opportunity that is out here online. Help them realise that there are two things we all have, and that is time and choice, and that its how we choose to use are time that is vital. Economies can be bought together online, making the world a smaller place and putting everyone on a level playing field. Perhaps create a free Online Google University.

  642. I would build an OS for a GPS unit, that would have Google maps, that everyone would Could purchase with an integrated Mobile phone Speaker System, that you could speak to and make it faster to get around in traffic.

    I would revolutionize the world of GPS / Mobile Phones !
    making it possible to ad apps Ect Ect……

    New CEO of Google Dennis H
    New Innovated Ideas to take Google into the Future as the leader

    Dennis H
    Director of Network Security Sales & Marketing
    Oklahoma City, OK

  643. OK,
    1. Give back to the people who really matter, the searchers. (not the stockholders)
    2. Consolidate some services, and make it easy to start an online business.
    3. Improve Google Check out! Give, and I mean give a real shopping cart solution
    4. Advertise your products on TV, advertise Adwords, make local business see what they are missing out on. This could help the economy! I as a Adwords manager would get sought after, or selling services would be easier, businesses would do more business.
    5. Importing and Exporting, put a package/solution together that makes it to find products around the world.
    6. Shipping Co-op: Create Google ground, a non profit shipping solution. not a super rural, but massive centers in large cities.
    7. The small mom and pop pharmacies are all done now, lets supply the world with drugs, sounds funny to say, but people need affordable meds and need to know that they are not counterfeit.
    There are so many things Google could do with their money, with the right people in place to make sure the core idea is in place and that nobody is getting hurt.
    I would love a chance to run with some ideas, and really develop them.
    Mike Kern – Lowell MA

  644. I think it would be nice to get more support from Google for search engine marketers. For instance if you site goes down in the google index page rankings then who can you turn to for help. it is increasingly frustrating trying to market your site and build links etc when google penalises it but does not offer any help.

  645. OpenGoogle… an initiative to be the first company on the planet to publish every detail about their internal operations. From how much heat is given off from the heat sinks, to how much electricity it costs to run it, to how much an average employee earns, what they pay in taxes, right down to how many hours are spent on each project, how people are allocated as resources. The monies which are spent on donations. Searchable by Google Location, and as detailed as being broken down to each individual person.

    OpenGoogle

  646. I’d take a rain check and step back from making specific choices out of a seemingly endless list of options, all with their own merits. Instead I would develop a quantitative approach to evaluate decisions and optimise the decision-making process, thereby giving me the best chance of making the best decisions over time.

    A bit like the eigen vectors in the search algo, I’d set up vectors for the corporate decisions. One vector might be the fit with corporate values, another might be financial return, another popular vote etc. to rank the options – “DecisionRank” scores out of 10?

  647. Take Google Voice to the next level by not requiring call forwarding. Instead allow direct VOIP in and out via Android handsets running the GV app.

    Obviously the biggest hurdle here is that the handset must be connected to a network (with bandwidth enough for VOIP).

    So the actual “Big Idea” here is to roll out Google Wifi/3G/4G/etc. to …. everywhere.

    This could be accomplished by partnering with existing cell providers … or just starting from scratch and doing it even better.

    Google ISP .. always on, always fast, always everywhere.

  648. I’ve always wanted a money bin. lol I used to read the Uncle Scrooge comics when I was a kid. 🙂

    Seriously though? I would work in education but also alternative energy for side projects.

    I would work on privacy issues with Google as well. Unfortunately, some of the stuff lately is creepy and has me looking for alternatives.

  649. I would launch a site builder for the webmasters. It will help them in seo and make them a site according to Google guidelines. It will be better than other seo site makers and it will be free to the world.

  650. I would create something called “Google educate”. You could learn how to do courses for free all online and have online tutors all posting on a forum where if you need help you go to that place to ask for it, if you are stuck on a particular aspect of that course.

    Would help improve further education in a lot of countries, plus I would be very interested in using that course.

  651. I would get the Google Car to use a gadget similar to the Kinect (with a vastly imporved range) – and get it working together with the 360 cam on the Google car so that Google Street view would take on a whole new 3d look….

    Then once the world has been plotted in 3d, I would make each shops door an ‘entrance point’ to thier website, and each house door an entrance to his / her FB or twitter or similar.

    This means that as a consumer / internet user, you could go to google places, view street view and ‘walk’ past shops in 3d, looking in the window and then ‘enter’ a shop that looks appealing… Then every little cafe / bar etc. could be a mini social media meeting spot and the public libary would be the place to learn – the only problem would be google’s office in germany – I don’t think the Kinect could map a blur … lol 😉

    I know it sounds impossible, but a t least its safer than flying cars 🙂

  652. If I were the CEO of Google…. Obviously i would retire and spend the money. I would go around the world and help people set up businesses and fix up towns to thrive in this economic climate.
    If not at least take a year out and see how people live with out the internet.

  653. I would continue the path of simplicity by not only making the web more user-friendly but by also listening to the web users as they stumble with simple tasks…

    I would also continue to focus on Web Security…

  654. Google Music – a cloud based music app where you own the music and can play it anywhere and put it on any device that you own that’s connected to the net.

  655. Thanks Matt… it was my real time dream to have a loads of money or technology to setup an internet revolution program, which will washout many social communities and business communities.

    If I’m the CEO of Google: I will start a new product called “Do I Do” in which, people will subscribe just like they do in linkedin, facebook etc., the uniqueness in my product is, its also a search engine of business/services/interests etc., Anyone who uses search engine to find a business / services/ information (experts will help in real time-those who fill “expertise” column in the survey form will be displayed in the results) can search for the same in this community.. just by a click with their keyword.. only those results will be displayed, who are in reach of the user within their friends->friends->friends groups/friends list..!

    Joining form will be unique for this, which helps in the overall idea, look will be outstanding, userfriendly.. and what not.. this will be a revolution!! As I said, the survey form plays all the game!!

    Second Idea of mine is to launch “Goolex” which is a right competition for “FedEx”… the market approach is absolutely different than FedEx etc., you cant believe how big this can become.. Google flights, google choppers, google cabs… etc etc.,

    Matt, could you please recommend me as google CEO for at least a month? lol

  656. Really Like Roch’s idea of Google creating a banking servies with similarities to paypay but with some inhancements and free to use to the public. Bet that service would be used quite often.

  657. Matt,
    How about Google live music? A website where musicians can meet and arrange online jam sessions. Google could work with Skype using their program linking musicians together around the world.
    Example: You have a bass player in California, Keyboard in New York, vocals in England and drums in Poland. They can practice online and record songs.
    I am sure there are thousands of people around the world that do not have anyone to practice with who would love do do this. You can charge a monthly subscription or have Google adds on it also. This could also be used to teach music online.
    Kind of like a Facebook for music lovers!
    Let me know if you want more details, I have had this idea for a couple of years.
    Thanks Craig

  658. If data liberation is one thing, data management is another. For example, there are 600 comments for this post and there is no way I would spend my time reading all of them although I would have read if I had enough time or a better process to learn the interesting ideas or thoughts that were shared. I am wondering about you – did you read all these 600 posts and those still trickling down or you have any other smart end process. If so those smart ways should be out for such uses to one’s site visitors. I would like to see Google work on management of comments..I am not thinking rating or like’s.