Does Google understand their own successes?
I don't have any stats one way or the other to back this up, this is just my random musings.
After a better start than Google Buzz, it seems Google+ (Google's "Facebook killer") is rapidly going the way of the former, which was supposed to be Google's "Twitter killer". I know Google got their start by building a better mousetrap (search engine), but perhaps they might do better in technology spaces where they don't already have a 900-pound-gorilla of a competitor? In fact, on consideration, some of their biggest success stories have been in areas where there really wasn't a clear winner, such as browsers and search engines, both of which had multiple viable entities before Google came along. Similarly, in the Maps space, before Google Maps came along there were several entities competing - MapQuest probably being the largest, but other viable contenders were still there. Same thing again with e-mail - when Google Mail (then GMail) entered the space, Yahoo!, Hotmail, and others were fighting for eyeballs and clicks.
So, it appears that Google does better in fragmented markets, rather than when they try to take on an entrenched market dominator. If Google+ had been released when Facebook and MySpace were still duking it out, maybe they could have come up the middle to achieve dominance. At this point, though, the game is Facebook's to lose - if they pull a major gaffe that convinces people to leave in droves, Google+ is well poised to be the benefactor, but absent that happening, Google+ seems to be "too little, too late".
Thoughts?
After a better start than Google Buzz, it seems Google+ (Google's "Facebook killer") is rapidly going the way of the former, which was supposed to be Google's "Twitter killer". I know Google got their start by building a better mousetrap (search engine), but perhaps they might do better in technology spaces where they don't already have a 900-pound-gorilla of a competitor? In fact, on consideration, some of their biggest success stories have been in areas where there really wasn't a clear winner, such as browsers and search engines, both of which had multiple viable entities before Google came along. Similarly, in the Maps space, before Google Maps came along there were several entities competing - MapQuest probably being the largest, but other viable contenders were still there. Same thing again with e-mail - when Google Mail (then GMail) entered the space, Yahoo!, Hotmail, and others were fighting for eyeballs and clicks.
So, it appears that Google does better in fragmented markets, rather than when they try to take on an entrenched market dominator. If Google+ had been released when Facebook and MySpace were still duking it out, maybe they could have come up the middle to achieve dominance. At this point, though, the game is Facebook's to lose - if they pull a major gaffe that convinces people to leave in droves, Google+ is well poised to be the benefactor, but absent that happening, Google+ seems to be "too little, too late".
Thoughts?