All of us admire Google’s willingness to experiment with new ways to build cool and potentially profitable products or features alongside their infrastructure. And their readiness to accept and shut down failed experiments like Lively, Dodgeball and Jaiku (Knol seems exception to this treatment though 
) too.
We had always thought Google (GOOG) was all about frugality and focus but in recent years, that has changed. The search giant has been missing on all cool innovative things that can be done around search technology; and instead their urge to come out with something cool and innovative has led them into plagiarizing some of the best validated stuff and business of others.
Google Buzz this time. Goo.gl URL shortener sometime back.
See here is a small conversation of my friends on Google Buzz:
“Arvind Nigam – Buzz – Public – Muted
Am I killing twitter by doing this…:-)Edit
PANKAJ – oh my Twitter is soo dead…unless they open a mail system better than Gmail11:01 am
Shailesh – I seem to agree. Twitter won’t survive this avalanche. They don’t even have a good business model yet.11:07 am
Nilesh – But twitter does allow you to follow celebrities without having to know their email address. That’s a pretty big use-case for twitter.11:18 am
Shailesh – Oh yes!! That certainly is one great use case. I didn’t think of it!11:21 am
”
Gmail is one of the coolest product from Google. I would personally rate it above their search technology. But one should not forget that Google used Gmail’s powerful infrastructure before to kill Yahoo Messenger by embedding Gtalk into it. Similar fate is thrust on Twitter this time around.
The social trending, news feature, re-tweet everything else would fall apart if Google Buzz picks up nicely. And there seems significant reason for Buzz to buzz well. There seems not much differentiation or social engagement that could ensure Twitter’s popularity. And over Gmail’s infrastructure with Buzz embedded within, one can only pray for mercy on Twitter. Monetization was anyway a question for Twitter as per our post last September.
Another more serious matter of concern is the strategy of Google. Bit.ly was fu*ked sometime back in much the same way and there seemed no concrete reason for doing so. There is hardly any feature-set for which Goo.gl would score over bit.ly. Nor extra money that Goo.gl might end up bringing in to make an impact on its already strong revenues or branding? Except in a negative way.
We’re not sure what Google is thinking these days.
Similar deadly efforts have been made against Wikipedia with Knol, against Twitter with Jaiku, against SecondLife with Lively and many more smaller feature packed instances. There is hardly any documentation of how Google Wave repeated only a 10 year old technology developed by colayer.
Google seems to be earning a reputation for nothing so much as plagiarism, social ignorance, and self-promotion. And the threat is only growing bigger now.
Google can afford to this as individuals come up with these products as their weekend project and Google looses nothing by embedding them.
It is not loosing focus but only broadening its base.
Its like an Angel investor, will try anything on the HOPE of getting 10x returns.
Twitter is not really a ‘weekend project’ right?
Google is posing serious threat given its sheer size. A lot of people recognize this but is it possible to reverse it? And if so, who will do that?
sad that they haven’t introduced buzz for google apps email accounts.
Jaiku was acquired, I almost thought it would die, but now its been integrated into the system.
Google doesn’t need to bring products into the eco-system at the beginning of the hype curve, just has to acquire similar technology at the beginning of the hype, let the hype run out and during its second coming, introduce it.
Google does a better job at inventing and introducing technology, they are coming close to the very high benchmark set by 3M, I think they have passed Xerox a while ago.
I am a bit miffed by google’s do no evil but I realize it is from a consumer point of view… as a consumer I dont care if the product was made by google or someone else. as long as it does most of what everyone else does plus a bit more on the side, then I am happy as a consumer.
What buzz does well is, integrate it into my email like a conversation. (not completely there but it will get there), it allows private communication, esp. good for teams following quick discussion. This can tie-in well with a cross over into google wave. I am happy despite the discontentment, google continues to keep gmail and gwave separate.
Twitter, has to innovate into a commanding position of real-time search. They have a committed user-base to do that.
As for username/email botchup… each persone while making a google profile can choose a profile name contrary to their email address, this has been there for a while.
nice article
good observation
i like gmail more with buzz
google is eating royalty
Why is Google doing this?
Because of this – http://siteanalytics.compete.com/google.com+facebook.com/
Now that’s a very very big deal
Imagine FB turning on a powerful search engine now..:)
That’d be crazy.
~Arvind
… or just an email system – Project Titan:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/05/facebooks-project-titan-a-full-featured-webmail-product/
Google actually makes things better by acquiring them. At least it does its best to make them better. I see no reason why people should accuse Google of doing thing better than others. I guess Google is becoming the new punch bag and an easy way to grab attention is to diss it.
I would not for example comment or read this had it not had a title as sensational.
This is a typical act of big companies that have grown enormously. That’s the “Free” and “Capitalistic” market for you..They are not violating any law..They are just trying to offer a better service to their customers. Agree, some startups are always victimized. But this has been the case with every industry in every market…someone innovates…if they show the potential and cannot scale up quickly, the bigger players will spot the opportunity and go after it..
Also, It’s not goog.le, it’s goo.gl!
I agree with you Bharani on the strategy of Google. Buzz is gonna change the landscape, and coax facebook into jumping out with equally reactive measures. For sure.
It was a bit tough for my aging eye to locate goo.gl from google while writing that piece. Still there are some corrections I made.
Cheers,
Arvind
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