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Google is about to learn a tough lesson

blog.calbucci.com

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Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#221

Post by danenania »

xaa wrote: post #76
danilocampos wrote: post #28

So, what's going to happen, exactly? "Influencers" who liked Google Reader, now jilted, are going to use their magic influence beam to halt the growth of Android, to erode the dominance of Google in search, and prevent the regulatory approval of self-driving cars? Google has quite a few heavy responsibilities on their hands. They have to manage growth and competition in hugely complex, emerging fields. The lesson the…

Search, which provides the majority of Google's revenue, is precarious because there are very low costs for someone to switch to another service. To combat this problem, Google started providing all these associated services -- Finance, Reader, Blogger, etc, etc -- so that people would begin to use their Google ID as a significant component of their online identity. These services were never supposed to be profitable…

"Search, which provides the majority of Google's revenue, is precarious because there are very low costs for someone to switch to another service."

Google's dominance in search has nothing to do with customer switching costs. They are dominant because, imperfections and privacy issues aside, they legitimately have the best performing search engine on the market. They are able to retain this position because search is an extremely difficult and resource intensive technical problem (like mapping), that nobody has been able to credibly challenge them on since they took over.

If someone builds a better search engine than google, then yes, their position will be precarious, regardless of the other ways they've roped people in. But none of the current crop of competitors give any reason to believe this is imminent.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#222

Post by mkr-hn »

eCa wrote: post #88

> Third, and lastly, Google is sending a strong signal to the market that it will have no mercy of killing whatever product it doesn’t think it’s going well. They have been doing that for years. I'm not sure if anything but Search and Gmail are safe from the axe. They'll probably not end-of-life Maps or G+, but almost anything else should probably be treated as a beta that can be removed at will.

I read a post a while back where someone theorized that Google owns enough fiber to make YouTube inexpensive to run, and it's deeply embedded in the minds of most web users.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#223

Post by mkr-hn »

fernly wrote: post #144
zer0gravity wrote: post #33

I guess they're doing everything they can to get everyone to Google+. If they can't bait you, they force you. They want their own Facebook. Probably Blogger will also be phased out as soon as they afford to. But I don't think the future will belong neither to Google+ nor Facebook. I'm looking forward to a descentralized, user centric platform, that anyone can run on its raspberry pi box at home, that allows you to ma…

They are still "enhancing" Blogger. Less than a month ago they introduced a drastic change in the image-upload UI that basically broke it for everyone. It appears to have been meant as an improvement but whoever did it, clearly didn't understand who used it and how. Now they are "looking at" how they can fix it. So what are the good alternatives to Blogger? And what if you have multiple blogs with hundreds of posts i…

WordPress.com can import from Blogger, and then export an almost human-readable XML file with posts. It costs money to point your own domain at it, but it has a DNS editor (text-based, but it has some click-based tools). It's worth the small price if you're concerned with easy portability.

And it's not a peripheral service like Blogger. Automattic is WordPress.com, and all their peripheral products exist to serve it. The best part? You can take your WordPress.com and turn it into an identical WordPress.org with a billion different service providers.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#224

Post by incongruity »

henrikschroder wrote: post #207
mcherm wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point here is that your facebook has been filled. In other words, there may only be a few upset people, but they're people that other folks (like you) listen to.

In this case it doesn't matter, because the vast majority of my friends don't know what RSS is, don't care, don't use it, and don't care about Google Reader. The few that cared posted their angry rants, and noone cared. Noone commented. It's a complete non-issue. And even if you accept the premise of the article, that the ones who care about Google Reader are influencers, what exactly does that mean in practice? Goog…

The bigger issue isn't whether they influence the masses, it's whether they influence the decision makers who do matter to Google's revenue streams – and that's an open question, IMHO.

The idea that you can't rely on Google to keep services around is a bit of a chilling one for many and too much of that vibe may well mean that established companies and smart startups are more careful about what services they depend on (and who they get them from).

But we're not at that point yet... and Google is hardly alone in the general rug-pulling-out-from-under-you trend these days.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#225

Post by Teckla »

kanzure wrote: post #66
simonsarris wrote: post #12

I sympathize with Google Reader users. I find it occasionally tiresome to be half-foot in an ecosystem. But I've come to accept that this is just the way that Google does things. I love Gmail/Calendar/Maps/DamnNearEverything. I love Groups, which they've recently taken pains to hide[1] so I suspect its up soon for the chopping block. Heck I even love Google+. All that said, at least they had the gall to kill it. One…

> Groups isn't even on the extended products list in the Gmail header bar, though Reader is! You have to click "Even more" to get to Groups. They have been really destroying Groups for a while now. The new ui is terrible, the new url format is also bad. They got rid of instructions for emailing for subscriptions, and someone reported to me earlier today that emailing list+subscribe@googlegroups.com doesn't even work…

It's probably too late to ask now (the story was posted 19+ hours ago, as I write this), but -- do you know what happened to Google Groups digest emails? They just stopped working for me a long time ago, with no communication about what happened.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#226

Post by kanzure »

Teckla wrote: post #225
kanzure wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Groups isn't even on the extended products list in the Gmail header bar, though Reader is! You have to click "Even more" to get to Groups. They have been really destroying Groups for a while now. The new ui is terrible, the new url format is also bad. They got rid of instructions for emailing for subscriptions, and someone reported to me earlier today that emailing list+subscribe@googlegroups.com doesn't even work…

It's probably too late to ask now (the story was posted 19+ hours ago, as I write this), but -- do you know what happened to Google Groups digest emails? They just stopped working for me a long time ago, with no communication about what happened.

No, I don't use the digest email feature. Sorry. The other day I had to clean out some old Groups subscriptions, because apparently you can only subscribe to 200 groups at a time. What a fucking joke. :(

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#227

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

alexfarran wrote: post #197

It's very easy to make up a story like the one about MS Word after the event. Not so easy to predict in advance who these influencers are, who they influence, and if they exist in the first place. Duncan Watts has researched this and there's an interview here. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/scientist-in... " They throw parties or they give away free samples or they advertise in particular publication…

That was an extremely interesting link, thank you.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#228

Post by wwweston »

Mindless2112 wrote: post #10

This was my second thought when Google announced that they were retiring Reader (the first was "Nooo!") Half of my friends use Gmail because I suggested that they switch. I am starting to see Google move toward the dark side, and that means you won't see me recommending Google products to friends. It'll take a while, but there will be backlash... because I'm not the only one in this boat.

> I am starting to see Google move toward the dark side

Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn!

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#229

Post by pseut »

baby wrote: post #208
camus wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i do , and all the french journalists i know.

maybe in some professions, then it's a professional tool and not a "for everyone's" usage. There are several options out there aside from Google Reader, especially if you're willing to pay.

Yeah, that's the point of TFA. It's a professional tool for journalists and bloggers, or, even more bluntly, it's a professional tool for people with a platform to share their opinions.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#230

Post by mcintyre1994 »

r00fus wrote: post #172
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's fair. They're an AI/machine learning company at heart now. Primarily that powers advertising of course, but they have the potential to do so much more.

Just that it used to be that they'd do it because it was cool, and potentially profitable. Now they'd do things to be profitable first, and cool as a side effect. It's arguable which iterative path leads to a greater market social and market impact.

Of course. We shouldn't expect them to pursue things that some people might deem "cool" and their shareholders will deem a loss leader, but to argue that they are just an advertising company is to miss the bulk of what they do in my opinion. They'd be nowhere without AI and machine learning, and really are pushing boundaries of where we can take them things. Primarily to sell adverts and be profitable sure, but what they are doing is not equatable to any other company that sells adverts.
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