Over the last several months I've noticed that google is simply not as
effective as it used to be. I've started using alternative search
engines. Before google, alta-vista was the bomb. Before them, webcrawler
(or was it web-bot?) and yahoo)... After google... if I knew that I'd
call my broker. I like duckduckgo.com myself...
The business cycle remains the same: 1. Create a better product
either out of luck or skill or even an understanding of the market, 2.
Make gobs of money 3. Assume that you understand the market 4. Develop
products that fit *your* understanding of the market, and not the market
itself 5. Fail, or get a bailout, or figure out a way back to step one.
Henry Ford personally went through that cycle a few times when he ran
Ford Motor Company. (Anyone who thinks google has nothing to do with
with an early 20th century manufacturer, is thinking in the stage 3
gestalt.)
Google is simply at step three. To imagine today that google will be
here forever is as easy as someone in 1995 imagining that Lotus and Word
Perfect would be dominate business software forever. It feels
invertible. It would be wrong.
The flap over Google's privacy policy and google's response speaks
volumes. Imagine if a major burger chain announced that they would be
using irradiated beef in their burgers going forward, and simply
rebuffed the criticism of it by stating that irradiated beef is
perfectly safe, and meets all FDA standards. You have nothing to worry
about from eating it and hey, it lowers your tab at the drive thru
window. And if you don't want irradiated beef in your food you can opt
out and order from the non-irradiated menu. Personally - I think
irradiated beef is perfectly safe (unless they add salt to it) - but
what retailer of a service (does anyone at google think of themself as a
simple retailer - doubtful) would sell something their customer finds
repugnant - even if the basis for that feeling is irrational?
Can you think of any time another company launched a new product and it
was routinely and severely criticized from many corners, and the company
simply shrugged and said "don't worry, it won't hurt you." If you can -=
did that company prosper from that decision?
The beauty of arrogance is that it enables you to remain completely
focused on what you have set your mind to. Google is arrogant and it has
enabled them to produce great products. Their arrogance makes them
assume they are the *only one* who can provide their services. But, to
loop back to the point at the start of this reply - their products are
not as sharply differentiated from the rest of the market anymore, any
many people would gladly give up the marginal advantages offered by
google out of concern over the privacy issues. But as an arrogant
company that believes it's vision of the market is the true market,
google is simply blind to this.
And they will fail or recalibrate. Or - like other companies - defeat
the market cycle by using unfair and predatory (i.e evil) tactics.
(Which worked for the railroads and other legacy industries in the past.)
MCC
On 3/11/2012 7:40 PM, John Sessoms wrote:
If anyone on the list has any influence what-so-ever with Google, I
hope they'll pass this along to someone there who has a f****ng clue.
If any such exists anymore.
With the changes to Google's privacy policy have also come some
changes in the way the search engine works. Google Hints, Google
Auto-complete & Google Instant are back with a vengeance, and there's
no way to turn the goddamn thing *OFF*.
Google DOES NOT KNOW WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR and it's getting damn
annoying having it hare off in all directions instead of just waiting
for me to finish telling it what I'm looking for. Especially since
when it does go off into the wild blue yonder, it takes the cursor
with it so I can no longer finish typing my search term and have to
start all over again.
What I want in a search engine ...
I want to type my search term into the text box, hit enter and have
the search engine look for what I typed into the text box.
That's what Google used to do and is why I started using Google in the
first place. But Google doesn't do that any more. Is there a search
engine that does?
I don't care if it gathers information about what I searched for &
gives me ads. I don't care if it sells the aggregated data to
advertisers. I do care if it wastes my time with a bunch of CRAP that
gets in the way of actually finding what I'm looking for.
Which Google is doing.
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