I admire google as a company. But I do not like everything they are doing. For one, I fear the idea of google taking over the internet. It's true everything on the internet. Them putting their hands into everything, taking away other people's business. It's not much differen't from how Walmart threw out the other player's. But this is entirely on a different level. Every business to survive on the net, has to be good with them. Them starting froogle and also scanning books, is an issue to be fought with. I dont like the way they are monopolising everything. They provide good service and are very dynamic. That, I totally agree. But, do we want a company to get so strong, that it controls the whole Internet? I do not. I am not being overly paranoid, just something I want to hear other people's opinion on.
I hear what you are saying. However, on the plus side, when a company gets really big and successful it usually starts to turn to bad ideas to earn more revenues. These bad ideas and practices annoy a lot of people who then go off and refuse to play with them anymore. It's not like Google has us by the nuts like Microsoft does. We can go to another search engine at a click of a button... but how easy can most users switch to a new operation system? -- I can't wait until I get my own signature...
If there is anything where there is money in, Google will try to dominate that market! Check out labs.google.com and you can see just a few areas (revealed now but who knows what else they are testing right now!!)that they are interested in. They probably know what web sites using their ads are most profitable and then they want to go into that area. I don't think they revised all travel sites just because of too many spammy sites, they found out that it is a profitable area and will very soon release something like Google Travel using their Google Earth and/or Google maps......
Even if google is dominating they're going for the broad niches. There will always be plenty of room for specialised sites. Just look at all the sites using google maps for just that. Did all other statistics packages die off when analytics was introduced? No. Adsense/adwords has spurred a flood of new advertising programs, adbrite, bidvertiser, azoogleads, ypn, msn (soon) etc. Orkut is imho a failure, maps is handy, but it's not a killer application. Yahoo & msn does travel etc etc. The only part where google is truly dangerous and might stiffle competition is in search since the needed investment is becoming so huge when the net grows exponentially. When google set up shop almost anyone could have done it with enough skils. Today you would need millions just to cover your server costs.
I will sya now that Google may be big, but every conany can get way to big for there own boots, Google will not be around for ever for a start look at them loosing the deal with Alexa and Amazon lol and where have they gone, I would have thought alot of people are seeing something good is going to happen soon with MSN ok alot of people think that MSn are not that great but good old bill is spending some big cash on it and I think there cooking up something good. Also with MSN starting to join the game with adverts etc etc, and alot of people like your self and me not likeing Google all that great people will soon see that there are other big boy search enegines out there that can do a great job for us. The only reason why Google have stayed so big is because every one wants something they can't have or get and that with Google is #1, as we all know we all love stuff that meens a fight and with MSN and Yahoo this is easy. I dont use the Google tools like analytics or anything like that, I use the Google site map but thats it as I dont trust them knowing everything about your website, and with Alexa now gone there only way for source of traffic with other peoples websites is analytics so lets see how long things start to take before they start getting that bit more sloppey
i agree with that microsoft part, in economics class, teacher said that Bill gates can get away with selling you a product that does not work and then sell you another one that does work. like the concept of 2 different kinds of windows etc. home/pro
Google gets away with loads of crap too. Just look at froogle and base. It's just that they have some really innovative and great stuff going. Gmail, everyone loves gmail, why? It's better, faster and cheaper (in terms of gb) than everything else. Finance (http://finance.google.com/ - this service truly kicks ass, if i ever built a local, in my country, service for this - I'd mimic this 100% and then add some).
Why are they taking over the internet? Because they offer the things that people pay for, for free. Look at Google Analytics, Urchin, is a 700 dollar product that they are allowing you to use for free. The downside to google, it seems like EVERYTHING stays in beta forever.
No its not because they offer new things for free. It's because of the fact that they are becoming too monopolistic. They are everywhere, and because of their financial clout. The competition is weeded out. Secondly coming to their adwords part.. many times adsense publishers get busted for fake clicks and their income is frozen. Google states that the money is returned back to the publisher. Till date I have never spoken to an advertiser who has got money credited back to his or her account
I don't believe Google is taking over the internet. Actually I think they may be heading downhill soon. The thing that draw most people to Google is not all the freebies they offer - it is the web search. Since they start selling ads, Google tend to favor non-commercial or information sites even for searches of commerical sites. Their results are becoming less and less accurate. I did a search the other day: computer service new york city. The returned top 10 sites included .gov, .org and .edu. Also, the math algorithm-based ranking can only be accurate to a point without human input. So, I actually think Google is close to its peak. The thing about internet is the speed of change. You never know who will take over as the next Google, but you don't know how long they will last either.
Don't worry about G, if they take over the net we can all switch search engine, right? I'm more worried about telecom companies even thoug G could easyly monopolize the market in that area too... p.l.u.r.
I don't really care for google... I perfer Yahoo, and MSN. I just play by the rules because everyone else does, and everyone else = $ for me.
Yep, true enough. I dont see valid searches on google for a lot of things too. I am waiting for msn search to come out full fledged. Am a Microsoft Bhakt
I must admit, google analytics is a useful tool although it's buggy about some results. other than that i am not happy with the serp results i am seeing while searching, although my sites started ranking in reasonable places.