You might think that I am crazy to say that it is time to say good bye to Google. However, think about it. How useful is Google really? When you think about it, there are many occasions when Google is probably not your best first option. Here are a couple of use cases where I think Google does not offer users the best experience:

Product search:
- Do you really use Google to search for products? Why? It makes absolutely no sense, except for habits or for being lazy. You should go to a major shopping site like eBay or to a shopping aggregator like shopzilla or shopping.com. These sites offer a far superior experience.

- What about facts and figures. Sure, you can and should go to Google if you are looking for obscure information but if you just want to know the population of Germany, go to Answers.com. It is a great answer engine that gives you the facts straight. No way to game / spam that engine with commercial results.

- What about travel? Here the Google equivalent is expedia. Why in the world would you want to go to Expedia? Sure, they might have the best brand and so for now it might still be top of mind. However, you would be far better of using a specialty search engine like kayak.com

What is my point?

First, the web is going to pieces. What that means is that it will become more and more fragmented with many wonderful sites at the long tail. However, what is needed is a much quicker, simpler, and easier way to find, and get access to these wonderful specialty sites.

This is what we are working on. Stay tuned to learn more. We will soon be launching our first new sites in beta mode any day.

Mike

Here are some very impressive stats on Skype:

This is one hell of a trajectory that this company is on. So far, it does not appear to be slowing, despite the fact that Yahoo! and MSN are making waves about their enhanced VOIM product.

Well, time will tell if Skype can keep up. For now they are great. I cannot believe my other family members have yet to install this app. They are so frustrated from having tried Yahoo! and MSN in the past that they just don't believe that this actually works!

Mike

How is Skype going to fare now that everyone has decided to want a piece of the next big thing?
If you think about the online competitive landscape there are 4 major online players that will want to get a piece of this market:
1) MSN Messenger - just got enhanced VOIP capabilities
2) Yahoo! Messenger - just got enhanced VOIP capabilities
3) AOL - just launched a VOIP subscription service
4) Google - will likely want to round out product portfolio and offer IM, and VOIP in addition to email. After all, they are the only major player without a major desktop communication client

Vonage and the major telecom carriers. I think as of right now they are like the newspapers. They will not see the light of day until it is too late. Vonage? They are a hardware based vendor with a higher cost structure.

So, what about Skype? Can they go it alone? What other standars have been able to go-it-alone? The only application that comes to mind is PayPal.

So far, PayPal is on a roll in building the standard for online payments. However, there is a huge difference. PayPal really is going it alone, where as Skype has plenty of other competitors that offer PC-to-PC VOIP.

Granted, Skype is the only player that is offering PC-to-phone and now Phone-to-PC but for how long will they be the only player and is that enough? What else could give Skype a sustainable competitive advantage just like PayPal?

We are living in a momentum driven world. Why is it that currently anything Google does gets covered a million times with glowing reviews? Is it because people want a success story so bad? I guess everybody loves a good story but why loose all sense of objectivity?

Currently it seems that Google simply can do no wrong. Am I a Google fan? Yes, absolutely. I admire the company and the innovation it has unleashed upon the world. I love Gmail, I love Google maps, and above all I love the Google search engine. However, that does not mean that I love everything Google does.

It seems to me that currently they get applauded for doing anything no matter whether the product is great or poorly executed. After all, take a look at the GWA and MyGoogle. Are these breakthroughs? No by all means. They might be down the road, after all, we all know that Google does not stop innovating but they definitely do not deserve all of the attention they have been getting. Or if they deserve press, then it is negative and a critical look. Instead, the press is just nuts and gaga over Google.

First, GWA has some serious privacy issues and had a few defaults set that could disrupt whole web applications. MyGoogle, that is not even worth talking about. How hard is it to add a little bit of code and customization to a page? It is utterly unoriginal and yet it has gotten more press than most innovative new sites could ever hope for? Why? Well because it makes a good story. MyGoogle goes after MyYahoo! That is major news!

I guess at the end of the day, Google should try to milk its momentum for all its got. They definitely have an incredible PR engine. You have got to leave it to them. Congrats on getting applauded for doing something entirely unoriginal.

You can now access the personalized Google home page here:

http://www.google.com/ig

I am underwhelmed. I thought they would do something brilliant. This is unoriginal and not all that interesting. Hmm... is Google loosing its magic?

Wow, this does not happen often. Google accidentally leaked information about a new product - MyGoogle.

Looks like Google is trying hard to make their site more sticky and drive users to their site for more and more occasions. I am going to bet that MyGoogle is going to be far better than MyYahoo!. I find MyYahoo cluttered and I am quite annoyed with all the online advertising on the site. In fact, I stopped going to MyYahoo! along time ago but MyGoogle might be a great way to navigate the net. The screen shot below looks compelling.

Darn, soon we have to ask what does Google not do. They are everywhere!

Source: http://www.pandemia.info/archives/2005/05/google_personal.html

First of all, I have to disclose that I am the biggest fan of Skype. They are the first true VOIP player that have delivered an awesome customer experience and I continue to be a huge enthusiast.

In fact, I think VOIP has huge implications. I have now benefited from the service for two years and it has saved us thousands of dollars in phone bills. In fact, at our startup we used to just rely on email and instant messaging until Skype came along. What a liberating service. It truly brings the world closer together.

However, Skype's success has not gone unnoticed. MSN beefed up its offering and Yahoo! just announced in a misleading way that they entered VOIP. Sure, they entered VOIP but it is really just VOIM (voice over instant messaging). That is great, good enough for me to use Skype initially but will it be enough to catch up?

Google had a lot of people at the last VOIP conference and I am wondering what they have up their sleave. They already entered email and are the only major player without an IM or VOIP client. However, how will they do? Do people want to create yet another buddy list? Google succeeded with Gmail because both Yahoo! and MSN stopped innovating their email applications. This can hardly be said about Skype.

If (when?) Google enters this space, and I am sure they will given the compelling strategic rationale, who will end up winning?

Can Google compete against a nimble fast moving startup? This is going to be an interesting race to watch. My gut tells me that Skype is going to do pretty well, however, they will need a big war chest and strong partners to survive a battle with Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, and the telecoms. Talk about a competitive market.

I guess that is what happens when hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. The US telecom market alone (fixed and wireless) is already $200+B per year.

Mike

Yesterday I wondered what other new types of sites would start popping up that combine some great information with Google maps. Today I found another site.

This one combines the listings from gasbuddy.com with Google maps. The site is VERY useful, especially in times of rising gas prices. You can very quickly pinpoint where the closest and cheapest places are to fill up around town. Amazing to see the difference in gas prices within just a few miles. Here is the link:

Cheap Gas Prices

Hopefully this can save you a few bucks or two. Alternatively, just get a hybrid and start saving big time.

Mike

I thought this was pretty clever. Someone combined the Chicago crime reports with Google maps so you can see what crimes are being reported. You can browse by area, type of crime, date and hour. This could be pretty compelling for anyone moving into a new city.

I guess this shows one of the benefits of Google making their mapping engine easily accessible to developers. They can innovate much faster than Google can on its own. First we got craigslist plus Google and now this. I am sure there will be dozens of great new applications and sites emerging in the near future. It’s also a brilliant marketing strategy because Google gets a ton of free publicity that way. There are even sites devoted to spotting great images items via Google’s satellites images.

Here are the two sites:

1) Chicago

http://www.chicagocrime.org/2005/may/05/8am/

2) Google Sightseeing

http://www.googlesightseeing.com/

I guess I did not promise too much when I said that we would be seeing more and more people playing around with tagging and tagging clouds. Today I found another site (Yahoo! News Tagged) that is noteworthy for a few reasons.

1) So far, most tagging sites rely on user generated tags. This one is fully automated
2) Via web services, greasemonkey, MySQL, and PHP, this developer was able to hack something together in less than 5 hours! Wow, that is impressive and shows how in Web 2.0 just about anyone can start to re-organize and present content in a new and creative way.

Well, I guess this is just the beginning. What is next?

Mike