Debunking the Google mystique
Someone over at SmartMobs is praising Bambi Franciso’s analysis of the GoogTube deal.
A Google acquisition of YouTube underscores what many observers believe about the future. Yes, it’s about video. But it’s also about a community and about reaching the so-called long tail of production and consumption opportunity on the Web.
No single company has done more than Google this year to demonstrate how strongly it values social networks and the long-tail business potential they could offer.
Ok well here’s where I disagree.
1. Remember Orkut? Can anyone honestly say that Google is doing a great job or even mediocre job with Orkut? Its the epitome of one of those Google experiments they threw up, only to have it abandoned and orphaned.
2. Blogger. Ever heard of Blogger? It went from being the inventor of hosted blogging, to just another blogging tool to…… an also ran follower. Ho hum - whatever.
3. How ’bout Google Base? Ever heard of that? How’s tha ‘data sharing with the rest of us’ coming along there guys? I’d say that the ONLY reason for Google Base is to suck as much value as they can out of the community and monetize it for local ads and listings - purposes.
4. AdSense - sure. Google search - suire. But to who’s benefit? Sergey, Larry and Eric have collectively cashed out - in CASH - almost $5B - in CASH! Give me a break, that ain’t community that’s good old fashioned John Doerr Silicon Valley greed.
5. Google maps, Gmail, GCalendar - all unrelated, random output of the labs, thrown up to justify their R&D expenditures. No strategy, no business model - pure altruism. Oh yah Google Scholar, digitize every book in the planet, take the high road and blow everybody else out of the water. Think maybe that’s hiurting some folks? You bet!
6. Then there’s this thing called GData - which as far as I can see - is only there to be Google’s Data. Sure you can use our stuff, as long as you use OUR stuff. Sound familiar? - that’s Microsoft circa 1988-2000.
7. Oh yah - Google values social networks as long as they are THEIR social networks. Lets see how willing Google will be to inter-connect their social networks with others. To give birth to ecosystems which feed off of their social networks. My bet is that they’ll be more onerous that MySpace.
This ain’t open platforms folks - this is new age lock-in. Google ain’t about social networking Bambi - its about new age greed, lock-in and old school politics and business models, just twisted a bit.
$1.65B for YouTube - sure why not. That’s less than half the value of increase in stock price that Google gained over the past week. Don’t you just love Wall St.?
October 10th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Google is getting far too big and washed up. Their grubby little hands are over any new piece of informational web service, because oh yes, their mission is “to organize the world’s information”. Nevermind what their expertise is in. Chad and Mike knew how to run YouTube. They created a great site from the ground up, that in less than 20 months, they were able to cash in for more money than many could ever dream of in a lifetime. I’m worried that the quality of YouTube, and its number one strength, which is user interaction, will deteriorate now that the Google brand stamp has been placed squarely on it.
October 10th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
Search, Mail, Maps and Earth
They do search quite well. They monetize search spectacularly
Their mail product is strong (although a little scary from a privacy standpoint)
Maps is good (but could be MUCH better)
Earth is way cool (but that was a buy, not a build).
The rest of the product suite is pretty unimpressive. Froogle? Google Video? Picasa? Finance? Gtalk? News? Are all poor to mediocre products that only have any usage because the Google traffic firehose is pointing at them.
They seem to suffer from corporate ADD.
Social software? Y! is way ahead.
October 11th, 2006 at 7:18 am
Marc, I Would not write off Google Base. Google Base items in one-search boxes are about to replace Froogle. Google is attempting to enter the price comparison shopping market again.
Why is Google Base about to become popular ? Because it is a door onto Google Search Results.
Google to Phase Out Froogle
October 11th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
not to be a google brown-noser but come on guys…GMaps shook up maps bigtime. DITTO (3x) mail. i mean, gmail KICKS ASS. g-analytics is nice for the low end (lowly bloggers). i still like blogger even. from where i’m sitting they’re doing better with the slapshot strategy than some other bigcos i could name with “integrated” approaches.
October 11th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
[…] Chad Wliiams by his own admission - does some serious brown nosing for Google. He’s probably looking for a job. […]
October 14th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
[…] Some support for GoogleBase. […]
October 14th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
[…] Some support for GoogleBase. […]
October 16th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
[…] At a time when people are still wowing over the Google-YouTube deal (and wondering why their 2.0 company didn’t get bought for $1.6 billion), it’s good to know that Marc Cantor is dead down on it. Not because of the copyright issues or “limited” advertising potential of YouTube that others cite, but apparently because he just doesn’t like Google anymore. […]
October 16th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
[…] At a time when people are still wowing over the Google-YouTube deal (and wondering why their 2.0 company didn’t get bought for $1.6 billion), it’s good to know that Marc Cantor is dead down on it. Not because of the copyright issues or “limited” advertising potential of YouTube that others cite, but apparently because he just doesn’t like Google anymore. […]