I noticed google are allowing people to come up with new products for them to improve themselves, I thought of an idea which as far as I could see no one else had come up with, but im just wondering whether google will award us or just say thanks a million.
They'll just say thanks a million and then makes millions from it. My advice would be either run with your idea yourself or patent it and then appraoch google.
This is a common of Google culture, isn't? I have read Google history and remember they do reward not just a winning idea, but all potential ideas will also be rewarded. Employee who come up with a new potential idea will get their own teams and all their needs to start the work separately. If those idea work, the employee who came up that idea would become a leader of the team. This could mean a ladder of career and everyones want to be a part of every new idea. However, not all idea are works. Google Orkut is a good sample of the idea that failed.
Bottom line is never inform Google about your Ideas . Once you start and patent it than you can always sell it for millions
I see evidence of this but more along the lines of this: You come up with an idea, put it together, launch it, if it becomes popular and is of use to google then they usually want to buy the business from you, then you cash in and make hundreds of millions from a site maybe only 4 - 5 years old, small change to google but life changing for you.