Attention web entrepreneurs: Are you a Googleholic?
This morning I woke up and wondered something that had never occurred to me before. Am I a Googleholic? I mean, what are the signs? Just the fact that I’m wondering about it must be bad, right? Anything with –holic attached to end of it is not something to be aspired to, it’s to be avoided. I didn’t get depressed when Google’s stock took a tumble yesterday. That’s good, right?
I even started doing more on Yahoo! (note the above stock link) just to prove to myself that I’m not really addicted to Google. I can go a whole day without a Google fix. I’m sure of it.
Well, it was about 8:30am when someone mentioned Glendale, Arizona in our office and we were all wondering where that is in relation to Scottsdale. I scrambled to my desk and launched Google Earth to find out and then triumphantly announced to the team that Glendale is north & west of Scottsdale. I didn’t even think to go to Yahoo! Earth to find the answer. (Is there even a Yahoo! Earth? I think I’ll do a Google , er Yahoo! search to find out.)
I’m especially concerned about web entrepreneurs. If your business model is an internet based or e-Commerce company you may be particularly susceptible.
I don’t know, maybe I should just give it up. I mean, it’s just so easy to say, “Did you Google him?” to my friend Dave who is meeting with someone for the first time. If I said “Did you Yahoo! him?” it just wouldn’t have the same clarity.
Google has won the brand war in my mind for search engines. And yet, I love an underdog. I’m rooting for you Yahoo!. There’s definitely a war being raged right on my own desktop! I have both Google and Yahoo! toolbars installed on my Microsoft browser. They sit right on top of one another and vie for my attention each time I go to do a search or check email or look at favorite websites. Microsoft is also a part of this battle – I’m using MSN Messenger for instant messaging.
Hey, maybe not a Googleholic after all! Thanks for letting me get this out. Who needs therapy? I have a perfectly healthy relationship with my computer tools.
(Yikes, that didn’t sound too good.)
February 1st, 2006 at 3:56 pm
I”m a Yahoo girl myself. Maybe it’’s no surprise since according to a search engine user demographic study done in June, Google users were 51.5% male, compared with 49.7% at Yahoo. The American Dialect Society chose the verb "to google" as the "most useful word of 2002 (though it was still picked up by my spell check), so I will concede that Google may have won the brand battle. However, there are still plenty of us yahoos out there conducting our searches and getting our weather, news, driving directions, movie listings, stock quotes and email from Yahoo dozens of times an hour. The war wages on my friend…
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:20 pm
You know I”m pretty much a Google-guy Joel, but one big challenge all of these guys face is that it’’s so easy to bounce back and forth. Back in the day companies could work to raise those wonderful "switching costs"; the costs, real or imagined, or moving your consumption from one corporation to another. In the online world, most of your switching costs (if any exist) are emotional, and if someone doesn”t find something on Google then Yahoo (or MSN, or Ask, or…) are always there to pick up the slack.
February 3rd, 2006 at 6:23 am
I”ve used Google since 1998, learning about it as I recall from a Red Herring article (or some other pub from the hey day), as well as from some word of mouth.
Recently, I”ve been trying some of the others, as while i still really like Google’’s UI, the relevancy of searches does not seem to be as strong.
And that’’s my point, mirroring Chuck’’s. Google really needs me to make a decision to pick Google each time i search to keep the engine running. Sure they”ve added GoogleNews, Gmail, and other assorted sticky applications. But they have a challenge. The basic value is in a UI that is simple, yet that very UI doesn”t allow them to put their sticky applications in front of me. A9, Ask, and others are also using the simple UI, while Yahoo has really tried to embed it in their applications. Google’’s not going away anytime soon, but the stock hiccup I think was an example of perhaps a bit too much air in the Google stock balloon.
February 3rd, 2006 at 9:20 am
Extremely insightful stuff from Chuck and John. Is it possible that Google is the biggest ever house of cards?
February 8th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
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Yes, I did Google that person to gain whatever insight I could prior to my meeting. A Gooogleholic? Let’’s see….I have the Goooogle tool bar, customized my Gooooogle content, added GMail to that content (even though I wasn”t invited…drats!). I have Goooooogle as my home page on my pc and I”m listening to the Gooooooogle book on cd to boot! Holy high goooooooogleness….I”m pretty sure I”m hooked.
April 21st, 2006 at 6:31 pm
John said that Google may be a house of cards. I dont think so. While the stock may be over inflated the market will equallize this problem. While services of google provides could change, I think Google will never go away, nor will the Googleholics that love it!
April 21st, 2006 at 6:36 pm
One other thing I failed to mention in my previous post. People love to have the access to web based features such as gmail, and the google calendar. With these features and more they are moving closer to concepts that allow one to be productive and plan, no matter what computer they are infront of. In a way they are moving many of us back to the idea of server-centric data.
April 21st, 2006 at 6:44 pm
[quote]Google really needs me to make a decision to pick Google each time i search to keep the engine running.
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John…what is that thing that Google can do to make it a more reflexive decision for you?
I agree with you, but Google Earth, sooo cool.