Why Google's New Products Need Not Succeed 235
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."
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.
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.
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...
Not true (Score:2)
I'm not sure what it's called, it might be Yahoo Plus, but it's free. Just set the POP3 and SMTP servers and use whatever email client you wish. The only problem I've felt is that some span that's filtered in the webmail goes through the POP3 access.
I hate GMAIL (Score:2)
I guess Gmail did cause Yahoo to up its quota.
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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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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.
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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Now those cool serivces they make and we all use generate revenue based on the advertising that is presented along with the results.
I think the success of thier search results is based on the straight text nature sitting off to the side. When I go to a page, and I imagine this happens to others as well, when I see those flashing ads, the long sky scraper, the flash animations, I reflexively look away r
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Once you get used to it, and realize that's the way it should have been ALL ALONG, you're off to the races.
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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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A feature to be able to view email in the preferred way sure would be nice, even if it is not technically a "fix" for a bug.
"Is email simply a chronoligical list of snippits of information?"
That's the way I'd like it to work, yes.
"Maybe email can be more than you allow it to be, if you were to just let it do so."
Sorry, I think apps should serve the users, rather than users be forced to deal with limitations of apps because of some "moral"
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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
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Opera's built in email client (M2) uses the exact email paradigm as GMail, AFAIK (I was using it full time 2 years ago when I was on Windows). And it came out before GMail, IIRC.
Even, it had some nicer features like automatic categorization of mailing list emails that had the X-mailing-list (Or something like that) email header, I am still waiting for similar functionality from GMail and I have suggested it several times.
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).
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).
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.
Re:Funny thing (Score:5, Interesting)
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Amazon is whole nother creature. I have not stayed up on them and I have no friends working there, so I really can not comment on them. But from where I sit, they seem to be doing ok. Of course, they probably should do some updating on their website and consider taking on e-bay.
They've tried to take on eBay in the past - remember Amazon auctions? From Greg Linden, a former Amazon employee from the "early days":
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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
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Email addresses are built up over a period of years as you tell people your address. On the other hand, you can safely switch search sites without any ill effects. I'd say that's a huge difference in inertia. Yes, there are email indirection sites, but most of the population will never use one of them.
It's a bit like changing wh
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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I think yahoo is making greater strides with webmail under competition, their new beta interface is okay, honestly, I use my own IMAP server for most of my needs, I like gmails "light" interfa
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No, the GMail UI is decidely less powerful. You can't have multiple emails at once open for example. (By right clicking and opening in a new tab or new window.) You can't view unread mail with a single click. (To do *anything* other than plow through the main mail list requires using Search - which is decidely less powerful than the View: function used by Yahoo.)
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And by far the most frustrating thing I have had to deal with in emails is finding old emails - and GMails search is great for that.
I also just like the simplicity. Others have said Yahoo mimics a standalone program. I agree - and that's why I don't like it. I do most of my
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I didn't say view new I said view unread. (And new ones aren't bolded anyhow - at least not for me.)
Yahoo mimics a fully functional email client - that's why its more powerful and fully featured than GMail. There are folks who want that power - you are a decided minority.
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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
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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-stormin
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Still... to each his own.
-stormin
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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.
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My god, I can't believe how many people just can't figure this out.
Take a second, look at your emails in google. Now, take a close look at the messages that are grouped together...oh look! It's actually a series of replies, IE: A CONVERSATION.
GMail is not broken. Rather, Outlook and almost every legacy email app out there made a very bad design decision a LONG TIME AGO. So bad and so long ago that we totally forget getting over the hump of figuring out why all the messages are onl
Re:Hmmm... maybe? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yahoo! (and other sites) remain more popular because of Google badly broken release cycle.
Typically it goes like this: Google releases a new service into Beta that's not feature complete, or has a b
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
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Oh, please! The kinds of things that Google coudl provide from a web browser could easily be duplicated (and indeed already exist) on all major platforms. It isn't like LInux users, for example, were not reading email or using spreadsheets before G
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No, the analysts do get that point. But you miss theirs - Google is losing the battle to replace Microsoft/Yahoo/etc..., their services routinely come in a distant second. To hit the big win, they've got to gain eyeballs and marketshare - and th
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So you are actually disagreeing with the GP. You are saying that, in the case of your parents, it is OSS and not Google that is making the OS less relevent.
Dot-Com Mentality (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to push the leader from his throne (Score:2)
For reference, see Windows and Linux.
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It's likely that this is changing in degree as Internet use widens to a less well informed public. Naive users will probably be more loyal than web users of the late 90s. However there's no reason to believe that this changes the fundamental dyna
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With Google being service oriented, users are not so much locked into a particular product like they are with their OS. If all the customer has to do is type in a different URL to get a comepeting service, you don't have lock in. The web is extremely volatile that way.
-matthew
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.
Google's “secondary” products (Score:2)
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????)
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Perhaps because that's useful data that they can use to turn their results and make their product more useful?
> Why should the library retain any sort of record of your past book checkouts AT ALL?
They shouldn't. Apples to oranges.
However, the problem is not with Google or libraries -- the problem is with a society that assumes search results and the books you read are "evidence" in a court of law.
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If you don't want it to, don't log in. I personally LOVE that it does it. I find it a HUGE benefit that I can search among just my previous searches and previous search results. I can't tell you how many times thats allowed me to find something I saw in another search days, weeks or months ago. Its a lot easier to hunt for the right keywords among my personal result set than the entire internet.
If you don't log into your google account, it won't track anything personally ide
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What DOES make a company/entity evil is selling out your personal information for raw profit, without your consent. If they're using my information to give me a better google experience, so much the better... but the moment someone else gets their hands on that information, you can bet I'm pissed
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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Anyone who says that doesn't know a thing about the "traditional software" business. Also, If you think Google spreadsheets is going to make Excel obsolete, you've obviously never actually used a spreadsheet for anything more complicated than min-maxing a role playing character or managing a grocery shopping list.
But hey, what do I know? Maybe Google will come out with gPhotoshop
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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
Huh. Shameless self-promotion? (Score:2, Interesting)
I doubt they would actually do it, though. A large advantage Google has over the competition is that they are at least perceived as a commons -- anyone can buy Google adspace, and it has nothing to do with their relationship with Google and ever
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.
FUTURE (Score:2, Insightful)
critical mass, similar to M$ approach (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think the argument is that they aren't really so useful.. at least if you judge usefullness by success.
While supplies last (Score:2, Interesting)
The more people that Google attracts to it's secondary features, the more customers it'll have using the main features. It's a special deal mail in rebate buy one get one free to the first 20 customers. Or, like keeping your doors open during the summer and letting the air conditioning blow out onto the hot streets. Anything to entice customers in.
Profit is not expected yet FOR a reason! (Score:3, Funny)
Google is not a business (Score:2)
The very first day Google moved its servers out of
PBS is likely a portion of the hybrid mo
Um. Yes they do need to succeed. (Score:5, Insightful)
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You may be missing a major point. While search growth may be slowing, Google's enterprise
This is shortsighted.... (Score:2)
Insanely useful, simple, and unobtrusive (Score:2, Informative)
Net Bloat (Score:2)
Google owns the "Web" app bra
Not every system is an over night hit. News=Wrong (Score:2)
First off Who said Google IM was going to take down Yahoo And AIM? The news papers.
Google Checkout? Who said it would take down Ebay? The news.
Who said Google Spreadsheets will take down Excel? The news.
What are all three actually? An option. So why haven't all three taken over the world? People have yet to try the option.
Personally I jumped on Google maps, and Gmail early and often. At the same time though if you alw
A deep misunderstanding, (Score:2)
This shows about as deep a misunderstanding of Google as it's possible to have. (The article itself also shows signs of the same fallacy.)
Google is an advertising company - period. Each and ever
have they lost over $8 billion on ONE project? (Score:2)
TFA wouldn't load(
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
Re:So wait. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Then they've made money from corporations by providing a valuable service, while maintaining the free product for public use, as well as wedged themselves into the service/application provider marketplace.
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Not to drag this into Net Neutrality territory, but there's every possibility they might have to, to pay to keep themselves at the forefront with the telcos, at least untill their own fibre is in place.
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And how much of that 2GB isn't actually shared with other users? Do you have some pr0n there? Maybe other thousand users have the same, maybe even with the same filename. So they say "you are using 1.5GB", but of that 1.5GB much is stored in a shared space with other users.
Funny videos, PowerPoint Slides, pr0n... it's the s
Google search lost its edge (Score:2)
I think that will happen when some competitor creates a better search engine. Google is already dated as a search engine, only nothing better has come along.
Google has failed in not allowing users to specify non-commercial searches. It's interesting that Google's success is due to the fact that they realized consumers today are saturated by marketing. It was t