Thank The Cheese
Registered
For the longest time, Google has been the company that could do no wrong. Their search engine technology and contextural advertising services are not only innovative, but show an understanding of the Internet that many other companies miss.
Even when they became the billion dollar success they still somehow managed to keep that "just a couple of cool guys doing stuff for the net" kind of reputation.
In recent years, however, I'm wondering if this reputation is slowly crumbling, as Google spreads and conqours every inch of the Web.
First there were the obvious ones: extended search options like Scholar and Froogle. They also came out with toolbars and News sites and Chat rooms and forums. But that was expected - after all, these services were all centred around the search engine technology anyway. They were more like extentions that actual products or services.
But today they seem to be moving away from their Search Engine and into more significant battles. Google Base may try to rival eBay and Craig's List, Google Earth to rival privacy laws, Picasa to rival iPhoto and similar apps, gmail to rival Hotmail, and now there are rumors that Google will release their own line of PCs with their own Google Operating System (Google have denied this however).
I'm not trying to suggest Google are evil, I have no problem with google. So long as they succeed for the right reasons all the best to them. They have made it as far as they have by being the best at what they do, and being innovative and smart; they deserve their slice of the Net. I just think they are beginning a shift into a new era, where they're going to ruffle a few feathers (namely Microsoft). Many people are going to turn on them in the coming years as they start to monopolise the Internet further.
Just a few thoughts.
Even when they became the billion dollar success they still somehow managed to keep that "just a couple of cool guys doing stuff for the net" kind of reputation.
In recent years, however, I'm wondering if this reputation is slowly crumbling, as Google spreads and conqours every inch of the Web.
First there were the obvious ones: extended search options like Scholar and Froogle. They also came out with toolbars and News sites and Chat rooms and forums. But that was expected - after all, these services were all centred around the search engine technology anyway. They were more like extentions that actual products or services.
But today they seem to be moving away from their Search Engine and into more significant battles. Google Base may try to rival eBay and Craig's List, Google Earth to rival privacy laws, Picasa to rival iPhoto and similar apps, gmail to rival Hotmail, and now there are rumors that Google will release their own line of PCs with their own Google Operating System (Google have denied this however).
I'm not trying to suggest Google are evil, I have no problem with google. So long as they succeed for the right reasons all the best to them. They have made it as far as they have by being the best at what they do, and being innovative and smart; they deserve their slice of the Net. I just think they are beginning a shift into a new era, where they're going to ruffle a few feathers (namely Microsoft). Many people are going to turn on them in the coming years as they start to monopolise the Internet further.
Just a few thoughts.
