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Why Google's New Products Need Not Succeed
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:01 AM
from the in-and-of-themselves-heretofore-thereunder dept.
from the in-and-of-themselves-heretofore-thereunder dept.
RJS writes "There have been some industry analysts lately who have called into question Google's real success, claiming that while Google's search remains a big winner, it has missed the mark when it comes to generating profitable, secondary products. BusinessWeek has just such an article ("So much fanfare, so few hits") but others argue that success relative to the size of Google's bread-and-butter (search) ultimately doesn't matter because it doesn't cost Google much extra to keep these secondary services — like Gmail — operational: the Google grid is on and growing regardless of what services are being run on top of it."
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Economies of Scale,Buliding a Brand,Marginal Cost (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Economies of Scale,Buliding a Brand,Marginal Co (Score:4, Insightful)
But if you own that overpriced stock on the premise that Google is going to keep generating new businesses to complement the only thing they have that makes them money -- then it matters whether GWhatever turns a profit or not.
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Re:Economies of Scale,Buliding a Brand,Marginal Co (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the GP's point is that all these secondary 'misses' are just another way to keep the google brand (and google search and adwords) front in center in Internet culture. One could argue that Coke wastes tons of money developing advertisements and promotions, but they have a very strong brandname and they got it because they continually push it. As soon as Google stops releasing a new beta for everyone to go gaga over once a month, they will no longer hold the spotlight, and people will take them for granted. As long as google uses new products to generate buzz, they will keep generating revenue for their ads.
An analogy would be how Nintendo used to operate... I'm sure they didn't make a ton of money on each game title, but having a good collection of games was critical to get people to buy the console in the first place. This analogy isn't too great though, because nowdays the consoles most likely sell at a loss and the bread and butter are the games and accessories.
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Sure, they want to make money (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure, they want to make money (Score:5, Informative)
Also, Google Sketchup [google.com] is pretty neat...
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Re:Sure, they want to make money (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that the point of them doing this is that it adds value to their brand. Maybe they aren't turning a profit with some of their niche services, but those services are driving users to the rest of google's more profitable offerings. Have you used the google text messaging service? It's incredibly useful, and probably not directly profitable for google. Often when i'm driving around and realize i need to go somewhere (for example a hardware store) i can just text google, and seconds later receive a text with addresses and phone numbers of nearby hardware stores. They haven't made any money directly off me with this service, but since I enjoy and use the service so much I'd say I'm more likely to look out for other google offerings and use other google products in the future.
It's kind of like advertising - they're just building their brand and driving more and more users to their products. Even if their new products don't "succeed," per se, as long as they're pretty neat it will help them in the long run.
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Re:Sure, they want to make money (Score:4, Funny)
*slaps your face*
SNAP OUT OF IT! Don't you understand!? They're here to kill us all! ALL OF US!
++Om
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Gmail -- logins! (Score:3, Insightful)
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Archive everything to keep your Inbox clear. Then search for old messages when you need them, by labels, by people, or by keywords. You don't have to see a "cluttered view" of your mail.
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Is email simply a chronoligical list of snippits of information? Or could it contain actual conversations?
Maybe email can be more than you allow it to be, if you were to just let it do so.
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It's all a matter of what one *does* in email. I've never really used it for 1-off communications, so the conversation thing works. Folks who don't generally reply or *get* replies would probably rather sort via some other
Funny thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Funny thing (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's generally true of any product that attempts to enter an already established market. You make an initial splash but then it takes a while to build a base beyond the initial rush. Word of mouth eventually takes over and assuming a product is useful or even desireable, eventually its acceptance rate increases (look at Firefox's steady growth).
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Re:Funny thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice thing for Google, is that although they are the new player on the block (vs. yahoo, aol, MS, etc), they have a superior reputation to all the other players. They just have to capitalize on that (i.e. no crap products that take their name down).
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Re:Funny thing (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that bothers me about Google is: is it too much of a good thing? Put aside quality for a moment; is it possible Google's continuing expansion will spread it too thin? Mind you, Amazon has been expanding for what seems like eons now, but their main site is starting to get cluttered and I think they've been overstepping their reach with some of the areas they've gotten into (Groceries?). I'd be afraid of Google diluting itself too much in an attempt to become universally ubiquitous.
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I think it al depends on how Google organizes itself. If it tries to become a borg, then it will suffer from its size like all of the rest of them. But if Google can operate internally as a distributed collection of startups, all leveraging the great infrastructure they've built and minds they've collected, then I think they stand a much better chance of benefitting from economies of scale and not being dragged down by bloat.
Re:Funny thing (Score:4, Insightful)
I also think that, while unstated, one of Google's philosophies with hiring is to just get a bunch of smart people together in a room, give them resources, and say, "Make whatever you want, because probably other people want it too." This requires one thing primarily, an ability to find just the right people who will use this environment and not exploit it. The key to continuing Google success is being able to find the right people.
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Re:Funny thing (Score:5, Interesting)
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There's one thing I've seen as constant in Google's products: they raise the bar on too-cheap-to-meter. Then they do a value add and make money with the pros. Some things, nobody can make money on, so they just give it away to drive the nickel-and-dimers back to boiler rooms and fax spamming where they belong.
The freebies also make everyone more willing to tolerate their main profit generator, the ubiquitous ads which they already take great pains to make as unobtrusive as possible. gmail, groups, news,
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That simply isn't true. When a new and better search engine comes out, it spreads like wildfire. Google search gained market share extremely quickly, as did Lycos and Alta Vista when they each introduced search products that were markedly better than what was available at the time. Google took only 3 years to go from first round financing to absolute leadership of a mature market. There's no significant inert
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In contrast, while webmail came about in early 90's (I seem to recal
Hmmm... maybe? (Score:3, Insightful)
I do disagree with TFA in that it treats other services as inconsequential. There is a reason that Yahoo! ranks #1 on lists of most popular websites. Although there are GMail and a customized homepage [google.com], Yahoo! still beats them on those fronts. The search market is pretty well defined. In order for Google to become an even bigger success it must become extremely successful in its side businesses. I refuse to accept TFA's arguement that it doesn't matter because they aren't spend that much money on it.
Re:Hmmm... maybe? (Score:5, Interesting)
The reasons I like GMail so much better are:
1. I got on board early (admittedly not a design feature) so I got the names I wanted
2. Better GUI - simpler, more powerful
3. Integration with awesome products that involve sharing I love being able to share Google Calenders with my wife. We each have a personal calender and we share a calender for stuff we do together - and it all shows up (color-coded) on one display. It's brilliant. We use Google Spreadsheet for simple budget tracking as well.
Yahoo is #1 because of the head-start, that's it.
-stormin
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Multiple Accounts are allowed..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Having just checked both the GMail Terms of Use [google.com] and the Program Policy [google.com], the only information I can find relating to multiple accounts is:
"Prohibited Actions: Create multiple user accounts in connection with any violation of the Agreement or create user accounts by automated means or under false or fraudulent pretenses...."
which is under the Program Policy.
Where are you getting your information regarding only one account being allowed?
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Re:Hmmm... maybe? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I did it, alright! I admit it! I did everything.
But why!? Why would you do that to Google, Stormin?
It was for the money. Money I needed. Money I could only get with 2 Gmail accounts.
Well do you think it was worth it now, Stormin? Now that we've got you red-handed? We're taking you downtown after this. It's the big house for you, Stormin. You threw your life away!
You don't know nothin copper! Was it worth it? Damn straight it was worth it! I did what I did to survive. Out on the street it's have 2 GMail accounts or die. I ain't sorry about what I done. I lived my life like a man, a man with with TWO GMAIL ACCOUNTS. Even if it's all over now, you can't take that away from me!
Sorry? The only thing I'm sorry about is getting caught. If only I'd kept my mouth shut on the stupid Slashdot forums, I'd have made it. I nearly did make it. You just got lucky, copper, and I didn't. You and I, we ain't so different.
Watch your mouth, Stormin, you want to run into an accident on the way to the station? Is that what you want?
We're through here. Just take me in already. Let's get this over with.
-stormin
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Personally, I don't know what features Yahoo has (besides being able to view unread emails) that's not in GMail. Does it integrate with a calender? Does it integrate with chat? Does it do anything like that? No - it just immitates a stand-alone program. Well here's a thought - if you want a stand along email program why don't you act
yahoo... yeah back in the 90's (Score:3, Interesting)
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Yahoo mail - eh - I could take it or leave it, but my.yahoo.com is unblievably configurable. I can put and arrange content from just about any site I find on the front page.
Re:Hmmm... maybe? (Score:4, Insightful)
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MalaMata.com to upgrade Google (Near Topic) (Score:3, Interesting)
Googles real strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
Put another way, once people are Google-centric, they can use a Mac or a "GooglePC" or anything else. Linux anyone?
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Yes, there are lots of things for which a stand-alone computer need to be used, however from a practical perspective, we've been discussing diskless workstations and thin clients as being useful in a large percentage of the "work" market. If that is true, then there is no reason (outside of security or redundancy
Dot-Com Mentality (Score:4, Insightful)
Time will tell (Score:2, Insightful)
It takes time for new software to catch on. In the meantime I think google is doing the right thing by putting a lot of new products out there. Maybe all of them won't catch on but it seems like the majority of them are building a following.
Bombshell (Score:4, Interesting)
Google has an ace in the hole: the reverse of the Net Neutrality extortion scheme. First they get everybody to use all their free services, Google account, calendar, mail, search history, desktop search, etc. And then Google says to the big ISPs, hey, your customers want to jack in to our distributed computing network? Better pay up! $x.xx per user per month. Guaranteed revenue from the big telcos/cable companies, the ISPs have to run the billing and collection operations while Google just rakes in the bucks.
They're already evil. (Score:3, Interesting)
They're already evil. Why else would they be retaining personally-identifiable search information? So far, they've refused to divulge it. But a change in company policy or a court-order could change that. (It's like the library information controversy in the PATRIOT Act arguments: once you've returned the books, why should the library retain any sort of record of your past book checkouts AT ALL????)
Money, bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is building highly usable applications that are not OS-dependent. THAT is what is scaring the traditional software makers. The browser is the interpreter. Firefox is Google's wedge and everything they do is helping to change the way people use computers.
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If a Web application can do 100% of the 5% of functionality of Excel or Photoshop that most users use, an
Goodwill. (Score:3, Interesting)
A good business builds goodwill The extra services by google builds goodwill.
Sure right now its mostly appeals to advanced/experienced net users.. but advanced/experienced net users we're also the first movers/adopters of Google(search)
Yet they've caused innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
Google might not be making large sums of money off of their other products that have been created but it's hard to deny that they haven't caused a major change in how other online companies do their business.
After using Hotmail for all those years and then switching over to GMail as my primary e-mail I was stunned by how many things Gmail did that made it easier to work with. Now my junk e-mail account was still at Hotmail and when they asked me to be part of the beta testing for Windows Live Mail I figured it's only the junk e-mail account so I gave it a shot.
Windows Live Mail seems like someone tried to take Outlook and GMail and just mash the two of them together. However, Microsoft has still dropped the ball in making it easy to work with. For anyone who is part of the beta just try and delete multiple mails at the same time. Due to my long time of using computers I have no problem but most regular users are going to have trouble.
Even before Microsoft went for the complete overhaul they upped their maximum storage capacity in order to compete with GMail. So while it may not be a giant winner for Google money-wise, they've been a great boon to the end users who have finally started to see things get shaken up
Just like the article mentions I'll leave this innovative and beautiful Google web program with just a name, as if you've used it it's not likely you've forgotten it: Google Maps.
Exactly! (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly! I stopped beta-testing it because they made it so difficult to delete the spams. In the regular hotmail, you can tag-check the spams in your inbox quickly and then delete the tagged ones. In "Live", you have to right-click al
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not to say that i like windows mail beta. it's god-awful. i use gmail.
critical mass, similar to M$ approach (Score:5, Insightful)
Profit is not expected yet FOR a reason! (Score:3, Funny)
Um. Yes they do need to succeed. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called R&D, folks (Score:3, Insightful)
Google is doing the right thing in two ways here - they are allowing their developers to think and work on their own pet projects, which will ensure retention of some of the best and brightest, and they are understanding that for every brilliant idea there will be a string of failures. If they spend one billion on R&D (made that number up for the sake of argument), drop 999 products that aren't winners and get one single product that becomes a 6-billion-a-year success, they will have done the best thing for their investors, for their developers, and for their own continued growth.
Re:So wait. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, I'd rather trust Google's established business model of targetted ads than some dvorak like tro^h^h^hpundit on
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Re:So wait. (Score:4, Interesting)
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