The Plot to Kill Google

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-02/ff_killgoogle?currentPage=all

by __ • 18 years ago

38 14 18 years ago

peregrine• 18 years ago

Interesting article; Google comes seemingly out of nowhere takes the web by storm and then pokes around in the usual suspects business.

Yea they are hated but you bet they are not laying off one lawyer.

sahaj• 18 years ago

with the economy the way it is, i think a lot of these companies are gonna have to start focusing on their own business models. google is competing very hard both on the marketing and product innovation front and is snatching away market share from the others and will continue to do so because of this. google offers significantly cheaper prices on their products compared to microsoft (the quality of google offerings is up for discussion). they are well positioned to compete with the telcos as well, with products such as grandcentral and android. they are even spurring up competition in the entertainment biz with youtube. yes, it is true that the big companies are not willing to partner with them, but the underdogs are lining up to work with google.

with the moderate size force of lawyers (compared to the competitors) that google has acquired over the years, and the amount of legal information they have learned from all these legal dealings, i have no doubt in my mind that google is fully prepared to take on the big dogs.

keep in mind that google is a very efficient company and has a lot of cash. as many venture capitalists know, cash is very important in making your ideas work.

richcollins2• 18 years ago

> Every time a new chunk of radio spectrum becomes available, Google argues it should be opened to the public. Sounds great—except to telcos that have wanted it for themselves and broadcasters that worry new devices will mess with their transmissions.

> Google's insatiable hunger for data scares even some of its allies. Now its business rivals have launched a privacy crusade to drum up fears that Big Brother lives in Mountain View.

Google wants to compete on a landscape that favors innovation but the old guard (which apparently includes wired) is doing everything they can to stop them.

pierrefar• 18 years ago

Just like you argue that the "old guard" are fighting to keep the status quo of how they make money, Google is fighting to make the competitive landscape favor its business model. Neither are evil or good. It's just business.

Calling Google's landscape as favoring innovation is just sugar coating it. At the end of the day Google does not like anything that may disrupt its business; the Wired article is a great example: Google did all it can to stop MS from buying out Yahoo! and succeeded only to find out later that the war was never about Yahoo!.

There is a lot of "wrong" things about Google just as there are a lot of "wrong" things with MS and the "old guard". So please, put down that Google Kool Aid (beta) cup and see the world for what it is: hard nosed business as usual. Google is no angel and it shouldn't be.

richcollins2• 18 years ago

You are refuting arguments I never made.

I agree with everything you said, but in the end, the direction Google is pushing things will end up creating lots of opportunity for innovation.

illume• 18 years ago

A friend of mine was kicked off google ads. Now he can't find anyone else to replace them with.

Monopoly.

zepolen• 18 years ago

Do you mean Adsense?

Why can't he find anyone to replace them?

pixcavator• 18 years ago

Yahoo and MS won’t give you enough traffic. And I am not saying "they won’t give you same traffic for same money". No, they simply don’t have enough searches, in my experience.

axod• 18 years ago

It's a monopoly as far as the 'competition' is unbelievably lame.

The story of overture + yahoo etc is amazing.

wensing• 18 years ago

What about Quigo? http://www.quigo.com

Herring2• 18 years ago

Being a monopoly isnt illegal. Making an excellent product isnt illegal. The problem is using that monopoly for anticompetitive ends, eg pushing competitors out of other markets (Netscape).

blackguardx• 18 years ago

Yes it is. Research Alcoa

dopkew• 18 years ago

why can't they just get along? ;) i just want great service and so therefore i want ethical competition. so who am i to side with?: when one of the competitors, by virtue of their own hard efforts or whatever, becomes big enough to gobble up its competitor. hasn't the, now big, competitor earned it? shouldn't it, by the spirit of capitalism, be allowed? we are all scared of this point of competition where it kills itself. why should society have to intervene in such issues? i like a system that takes care of itself.

people are learning how much free rein competition should be given. should we enact laws that ban competitors from gobbling each other? it seems hypocritical.. also proper checks have to be put in so that there will only be ethical competition.

The Plot to Kill Google

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