The Friendly Monopoly
Is it just me or is Google.com on the verge of simply taking over? It seems that their business is a lot like the Apple of old (or, to use a contemporary example, Pixar). Everything that they attempt seems to succeed. From their outrageously popular search engine beginnings, Google's risen to become the leading competitor in all things electronic. Their search engine's the undisputed king of all search engines. They provide better web-based email than... anybody. Heck, Gmail seems to be overshadowing ISP provided email. Professionals now either have a company email address or a Gmail address. Google maps provides directions. Even Google Earth is breath-takingly amazing. Have you ever tried Google Answers? Google's provided a Blog Search if you want to find a blog about a particular topic. Froogle for shopping. Even personalized homepages, in case you miss the clutter that dominated Yahoo.
So dominant is Google that even their threats are taken with immense seriousness. When Google expressed a passing interest in the payment industry (e.g. Paypal), Mastercard, the 2nd leading credit company in the world, took it as a personal challenge and stepped up to compete with the non-existent Google payment service. Mastercard, now, is introducing an increase in its distribution of its no-touch cards, a new payment process that uses radio frequencies instead of magnetic strips that allow a person to pay at a register or a gas pump by simply waving the card over a reader. They're also currently working with cellphone providers to try and make the cellphone into the next credit card, making it "a high-powered payment and sales device." This may or may not work, but it shows innovation. And, I appreciate innovation. Mastercard's taken the Google challenge, so to speak, and seems to be coming out better and brighter.
Now, Google is testing out a WiFi service in the greater San Francisco Bay Area (whoa! Bay Area rocks again!). Assuming history does repeat itself, this will have one of 2 possible outcomes. Either Google's WiFi service will be vastly superior to SBC's (I believe the leading service provider in the Bay Area currently) or SBC will step up to the plate be innovative enough to grab ahold of its market shares. Personally, I hope SBC goes under (personal grudges with SBC) but either way, Google proves that it can become the catalyst for improvement.
Google now reminds me of Microsoft then. Even the stock prices (~$300/share) are reminiscent of MSN when I was in 5th grade. I remember because we did a stock project for a summer school program that year. Someone chose to invest in MSN stock, despite it being the highest costing stock and was one of the few people to actually make money at the end of the 3 weeks or however long it was. I just hope that Google can learn from the mistakes of Microsoft. They're certainly more favored now than MSN was favored then. Perhaps this will become a Google.com world. Perhaps we won't care. It seems, at least for now, that Google has yet to even begin to really go at it. It seems to me that when they do start to go full speed ahead, there will be good things to come. So, here I am, looking forward to what the next big Google project will be.
So dominant is Google that even their threats are taken with immense seriousness. When Google expressed a passing interest in the payment industry (e.g. Paypal), Mastercard, the 2nd leading credit company in the world, took it as a personal challenge and stepped up to compete with the non-existent Google payment service. Mastercard, now, is introducing an increase in its distribution of its no-touch cards, a new payment process that uses radio frequencies instead of magnetic strips that allow a person to pay at a register or a gas pump by simply waving the card over a reader. They're also currently working with cellphone providers to try and make the cellphone into the next credit card, making it "a high-powered payment and sales device." This may or may not work, but it shows innovation. And, I appreciate innovation. Mastercard's taken the Google challenge, so to speak, and seems to be coming out better and brighter.
Now, Google is testing out a WiFi service in the greater San Francisco Bay Area (whoa! Bay Area rocks again!). Assuming history does repeat itself, this will have one of 2 possible outcomes. Either Google's WiFi service will be vastly superior to SBC's (I believe the leading service provider in the Bay Area currently) or SBC will step up to the plate be innovative enough to grab ahold of its market shares. Personally, I hope SBC goes under (personal grudges with SBC) but either way, Google proves that it can become the catalyst for improvement.
Google now reminds me of Microsoft then. Even the stock prices (~$300/share) are reminiscent of MSN when I was in 5th grade. I remember because we did a stock project for a summer school program that year. Someone chose to invest in MSN stock, despite it being the highest costing stock and was one of the few people to actually make money at the end of the 3 weeks or however long it was. I just hope that Google can learn from the mistakes of Microsoft. They're certainly more favored now than MSN was favored then. Perhaps this will become a Google.com world. Perhaps we won't care. It seems, at least for now, that Google has yet to even begin to really go at it. It seems to me that when they do start to go full speed ahead, there will be good things to come. So, here I am, looking forward to what the next big Google project will be.
posted by Chris "Krang" Yang | 12:44 PM
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