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Tepid Results from Google's New Product Process

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the still-a-fan-of-their-search-thingie dept.

bart_scriv writes "BusinessWeek digs into Google's new products, first interviewing Marissa Mayer on the process behind the recent flurry of product launches; the essential process: 'try a bunch of new ideas, refine them and see what survives'. How successful is the process? Despite lots of fanfare, a close look at the products reveals that Google still hasn't produced a huge winner: 'An analysis of some two dozen new ventures launched over the past four years shows that Google has yet to establish a single market leader outside its core search business, where it continues to chew up Microsoft and Yahoo.'"

5 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Success for Gmail rated on use of others??? by CaymanIslandCarpedie · · Score: 2, Informative

    is the system of choice for only about one-quarter the number of people who use MSN and Yahoo e-mail.

    So in an article about the success of Google products, the only way they gauge the success of Gmail is if someone also maintains an account with a competing service? What about Gmail users who use it exclusively (like me)?

    I can see how you could read it that way, but I don't think thats the way it is meant. They are trying to say Google only has about 1/4 the total users of MSN or Yahoo. If you have an account with more than one, you'd be counted for each system you have an account with. Now I have no idea if those numbers are for active users or all accounts, but by one measure or the other apparently Google only has 1/4 the users.

    --
    "reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
  2. Product Updates? by why-lurk · · Score: 3, Informative

    My main complaint about Google's product releases is not their scattershot approach -- I'm happy to see them try to find ways to improve existing product niches.

    But they rarely seem to update their online products:
      * Gmail, despite its strong launch and obvious success, has seen little development since. By now, we would expect to see much stronger import/export features, more filtering and junk mail controls...
      * Google Video was pretty weak at launch, and amazingly, hasn't improved much since. Details on the videos shown is weak, and 3rd-party review links, imdb links, etc. are nonexistent. Methods for transferring and showing the video on portable devices and Tivo are... completely absent.
      * Froogle, News, Maps, and more have stagnated since their beta launch (except that Google's purchase of new imagery for Earth has benefited Maps), despite much improvement from the competition (seen Yahoo Maps lately?).

    In fact, pretty much the only products they regularly update are the native apps they purchased from startups, like Earth, Picasa, and Sketchup. These appear to have kept their development teams from pre-acquisition days, and continue to make small but regular improvements.

    It's amazing to me that a company with as many employees as Google can make so many online services appear to be the work of one or two developers in their spare time -- strong on concept, but weak on follow-through.

        --kirby

  3. Silo? by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 2, Informative

    >Gmail is a silo: you visit the site, and you check and write email, and then you
    >leave.

    Huh? Like when there's an address in the email, and Google offers to map it for me? Like when there's a time in the email, and Google offers to put it on my calendar?

    I have a GMail tab open at all times.

    1. Re:Silo? by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 2, Informative

      >I've been using Gmail for about two years, and I've never seen this feature. In
      >fact, I'm looking at an email right now that clearly contains an address, and I see
      >no link of any kind.

      And I'm looking an email right now that has two addresses in it, and GMail is offering to map them both (under "Would you like to ..."). The HTML for one of the links is copied below.

      <td class="cx"><img src="images/cob_map.gif"></td><td><div><a target="_blank" class="re" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=4206+South+108 th+Street+Omaha,+NE+68137" onclick="return top.js._AD_GoTo(window,event,this,0,'oa')">Map this</a></div>4206 South 108th Street<br>Omaha, NE 68137</td></tr>

      To the right of the email, above the sponsored links, and below the New Window and Print links.

  4. Misses the point. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    This article misses the point of what Google is doing. Google isn't launching standalone web applications and having them fizzle. They are allowing us to beta-test their web application suite. Right now, you can use Sketchup to create a model of your house, and push it to Google Maps/Earth, then, when you email a perspective buyer about your house, they can (from their GMail) easily access the model of your house, and quickly add the appointment to their calendar. While this is a rather mundane example, compare it to the same process 5 years ago. Create a website, post a picture of your house. Email someone the website address, and directions to the house. Then that someone has to open their calendar, and mark the appointment.
    Google's various apps do have a ways to go, but that's part of the plan. Do you think that it particularily bothers Google if not many people are using their spreadsheet at the moment? I doubt it.

    Finally, regarding the GMail statistics, I have to wonder if the MSN/hotmail numbers are inflated. I would be very interested to compare usage numbers, such as the amount of non-spam mail received by the users of each service.