How many companies have witnessed their names becoming a verb in common day-to-day life?
Very few. Actually only 2 that I can think of.
The first one being Xerox and the latest entry....Gooooogle.!!
[Have often heard people saying :: Let me ’google’, I ’googled’ !!.].
Just when the search engine market was being commoditized and everybody thought that you just can’t search better, Google rewrote the rules of the game and comfortably grabbed the Engine No. 1 seat!!..
But to me, Google seems like what Yahoo!, Amazon and AOL were in their startup days -- full of energy, new biz ideas, the ’indefatigable’ ones, media loved talking about them .....But, where are these companies now?
I won’t say they are a failure -- but definitely, not a huge success...!! They are faring okay.Just okay!.
Size, they say is enemy of Innovation and Google (like Yahoo!, Hotmail and several others) might just prove to be another example.
Google has been launching killer apps (the ones I really enjoy are Picassa, desktop search and of course Gmail), but do they make money out of these products? NO.
Google’s main source of revenues are its Search and AdSense programs. Have they improved their search capability? Definitely NO.
Infact, Google’s ’PageRank’ algorithm has lost its ’MOJO’ and has been royally exploited by spammers..
Search results are getting too noisy and of little relevance
[For e.g: Type ’miserable failure’, hit the search button -- This takes you to George Bush’s biography!!.. Not that Mr. Bush isn’t a failure, but the search definitely is!!]
-- I searched for ’Google Balance sheet’ and the the first relevant result that shows up is from Yahoo!!’s financial site and nowhere I get a listing of Google’s own page
–Isn’t that a failed search -- Give me a reason why should I use Google??
Infact, Google’s reliance on link popularity/rank is exploited by spammers to use non-descript keywords, to link to their website, get a high rank in google’s index and, in short-- fool google users.
Even Adsense fails to add-sense to publishers. Many publishers have turned back to banner ads.
Gmail -- If you have same ’subject’ mail sent to diff people, you will see all the mails in same thread. Highly Irritating.
For e.g. - most of my emails to my friends have the subject ’’Hi’’ and the foolish Gmail clubs all the mails in 1 thread -- now that’s what I call STUPIDITY.
So whats next for Google then?
>>
Its interesting to see Google realizing the vision of Sun Microsystem [i.e “The Network is the computer”]..and challenging the grand daddy of OS i.e Micro$oft in its very own turf -- the Operating System.
Well, Google is building a network OS, which will be centralized on google servers.
What it means is that you dont need to install any software [except for the Google browser], but you can access all your docs located on a central server..hence this will save your $s (M$’s upgrades etc..) in a big way..
And this means hitting Micro$oft -- hard and at all the ’’soft’’ places!!! It’ll be fun to see how M$ will retaliate and try to kill this product (the way they killed Netscape, Go corp and several others....].
> Its pathetic that most of Google’s enterprise products pricing are following M$ way -- a whopping (Oh YES!! its a whopping amount for mid-market segment), 2, 995$ for Google Mini!!!
If this is the price of Google Mini, I wonder what will be the pricing strategy for Google OS? Why the hell should I buy Google product?
If I were to summarize google:
Their core strengths are:
>Ability to churn out products quicker, I adore their risk taking attitude-- these guys throw many technologies against the wall to see if it works,
> Their cool UI -- Neat and simple, not too cluttered.
Weaknesses:
> No innovation in their core product -- i.e search. Always remember that my loyalty/ disloyalty to google is just a click-away - If somebody gives me a better search result, I ditch Google!!..And so will others!!
>Expanding into too many product lines:: I would rather associate Google with their search engine than their other innovatively stupid products.
> It wont be long when Google’s UI will get as cluttered (and clumsy) as Yahoo! -- The ’’defacing’’ has already started withe the launch of MyGoogle!!..(google.com/ig)
My take on Google::
Guys, focus on what you are good at..i.e search engine.
It wont be long, before another highly pumped up startup [with a better search idea and a better pricing model] dethrones you!!..(an e.g. being https://use.com)
and we see another one biting the dust..
Have a look at this:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1156360.cms
-- Google ’sued’ over click fraud ::: - Thats what happens when you are too drunk (with ’spirit’ of success) and close your eyes/ears..
Another one:: Google was hacked by a developer (and it took him just one day!!)
https://forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2005/06/29/ap2116906.html
Ciao. Keep Googling..