The "me too" syndrome
Google is the best search engine. Period.
And that would have been the start and end of a glorious internet story, was it not for Wall Street and its perpetual greed for higher revenues and profits even at the cost of sacrificing what is core to the business.
Google seems to have fallen prey to what must be one of the most desirable of evils, over-capitalization. Under-capitalization can cause a great deal of pain and angst to the promoters, but then so can over-capitalization. When you have more money that you know what to do with, you lose your focus, forget your roots and make flashy decisions.
Google's search and advertising business is great. But, in this situation of over-capitalization, Google is dumping money into second-rate efforts on multiple fronts - It is becoming the generalist in an era where access to specialists is enabled, economically through the internet, the very technology that made Google, Google.
Mail - Yahoo wins
Chat - MSN/Yahoo wins
Directions - Mapquest wins
Groups - Yahoo wins
Pictures - Snapfish/Epson wins
and so on .....
Its going to be interesting to see if the power of "centralized services" gives Google the edge over these above services that are clearly superior to its own equivalents.
And that would have been the start and end of a glorious internet story, was it not for Wall Street and its perpetual greed for higher revenues and profits even at the cost of sacrificing what is core to the business.
Google seems to have fallen prey to what must be one of the most desirable of evils, over-capitalization. Under-capitalization can cause a great deal of pain and angst to the promoters, but then so can over-capitalization. When you have more money that you know what to do with, you lose your focus, forget your roots and make flashy decisions.
Google's search and advertising business is great. But, in this situation of over-capitalization, Google is dumping money into second-rate efforts on multiple fronts - It is becoming the generalist in an era where access to specialists is enabled, economically through the internet, the very technology that made Google, Google.
Mail - Yahoo wins
Chat - MSN/Yahoo wins
Directions - Mapquest wins
Groups - Yahoo wins
Pictures - Snapfish/Epson wins
and so on .....
Its going to be interesting to see if the power of "centralized services" gives Google the edge over these above services that are clearly superior to its own equivalents.
Comments
There was an interesting article on Google's traffic on ITWorld. In spite of all its new services like calendar and notebook, 80% of its traffic comes from search. In contrast, Yahoo gets about 35% of its traffic in the form of mail users.
Sun has tried the whole Internet as a platform bit before, and they were unsuccessful. Google is a new company with lots of young blood and high investor expectations. It could very well be a great success, but the way Microsoft is taking them seriously could only mean hard times ahead.
PS: Yahoo! wins even in the pictures services. Have you tried Flickr? Excellent user experience.
You are doing a great job.fantastic views and amazing thought process.