Is Google Still the Best?
I really enjoyed today's Business Week article titled Can Google Stay on Top of the Web? It raised a lot of interesting points and talked about the current strengths and strategies of its main competitors in the sphere of dominating the way people interact with internet content. It is a six-page read and it focuses primarily on Google working to improve its search functions.
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Aaron you famously said that "Google understands how people use the internet better than any other company" - do you still feel that's true? Do you feel that Twitter or any competitors are close to "getting it" like Google does?
ReplyDelete(and yes, I realize your quote isn't famous - yet)
You've done it Royce - you've finally found one that's guaranteed to pique my interest. Just opened the link, and found the caption for the source of the first image to be awesome:
ReplyDelete"Illustration by Alex Robins, based on photograph by Dan Krauss/The New York Times/Redux, photograph of illustration by Wolfgang Stahr"
When's the last time you saw 3 credits for one image?
Here are my initial thoughts/comments:
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed these two quotes:
1) from Kimbal Musk: "Google's very good at searching content as if it's out of a library. Twitter let people know another kind of search is possible."
2) from Udi Manber: "My worry is we could be stuck on top of a hill, and it's not the right hill."
I enjoy the first for its simplicity - to me, it takes the content of the full article and condenses it into 1 comment. I enjoy the latter cause it shows insight into how a really driven person thinks about accomplishments.
I also found it very interesting that the advertising world appears to be actively pleading for a rival to Google to try and limit Google's powers over online advertising. I think this may be the one key finding out of the article for me. As soon as Yahoo! and/or Microsoft can show that their results line up with Google's, Google may be in serious trouble. To me, it's not really about what Google can do, but about what the others cannot.
PS I think their trend program is pretty neat - I found this search particularly telling:
ReplyDeletePalin's 15 Minutes of Fame
I think I could have fun creating "pictures" with this...
Yes. I still stand by my quote. (wasn't that from a discussion on cloud technology? Either way I may have to defend my quote in the future.)
ReplyDeleteMy take away was that Google is still on the forefront of Internet technologies and has the money to buy any great technology it doesn't come with on it's own, i.e. YouTube. However, they haven't figured out how to monetize anything other than their incredible search engine. Fortunately for them, no one else has really figured it out either. I think Twitter hasn't figured out how to take full advantage of it's own technology, but when it figures out, it could be dangerous for Google. I am a little surprised Digg hasn't truly taken off. It's the ideal format for everything Google can't do, but never made the next step. Facebook is closest, because they have been able to take that next step and go beyond just MySpace. Apple with the iPhone and app store are also competitors.
Your take aways from my thoughts should be that open-sourcing is an important aspect that Google hasn't really embraced AND that there is a huge difference between Internet technologies and the ability for companies to make money from those technologies.
Aaron it looks like we may get to see some of the next-level innovation of Google with their product called Google Wave. It's a multi-use platform which supposedly combines email, messaging, and networking functions as described in a recent Business Week article.
ReplyDeleteI find the concept very cool. Because I have a HUGE amount of trust in the Google brand I would be willing to give this the benefit of the doubt and try it. What do you guys think?
My favorite part of the article was the quote at the end that "Microsoft already allows users to communicate easily using Windows Messenger and Hotmail" - I laughed at that. We all use Gmail because it blows Hotmail out of the water. If that's the comparison Microsoft really wants to make, then bless their hearts.