Comments on: How Google has always managed to be on top

By: atul

atul — Sun, 31 May 2009 08:34:39 +0000

@Prashant – Gmail hardly considered successful? That’s quite a strong statement IMHO. But yes, let me also correct myself – I was referring to the web email market, where GMail has grown quite fast.

Facebook – Well what I wrote is my opinion. I feel the Ajax features have contributed to a better user experience, like in the example I described. Frankly, I would hardly care if Facebook checked my identity when I signed up. In fact I would prefer if they allow me to have a change in name, without me having to get that checked somewhere! Anyway, that’s just my opinion.

By: Prashant Pawan

Prashant Pawan — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:04:08 +0000

Also IMO, Google is on top because of one very imp. reason: clever acquisitions (Adsense – makes all their money, Earth, Maps, Docs, Spreadsheets, Youtube…the list goes on. check the wiki page on G’s acquisitions)

By: Prashant Pawan

Prashant Pawan — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:00:05 +0000

Facebook became popular not because of more ajax features. In fact Facebook is widely accepted to be too cluttered. The background work most people don’t notice but value, is its carefully crafted social design (eg: privacy and real-identity and many other things). That’s what made it click.

And Gmail btw, is hardly considered successful. Innovative yes. But very ordinary market share worldwide. Google knows its power is purely on the browser (MS is the king on the desktop of course). Which is the reason they push for standards and protocols on the browser (chrome, wave, open social etc.)

By: maximus

maximus — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:29:27 +0000

Nice article! Though I feel Google has great technology but their marketing is also one of the best. Google Search became successful because no other search engine was understanding what the users want … a clean, simple, easy to load interface.

By: Aashish

Aashish — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:08:40 +0000

Nice article! The google timeline service looks incredible.

By: atul

atul — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:01:49 +0000

Gaurav, AT_Korvus and Ravi, thanks for your comments.

Gaurav, I have tried to focus as much as possible on the traditional marketing elements and less on the features, and probably that’s why I deviated away from the clubbing features.

AT_Korvus, yes you are right Orkut’s losing ground. Somehow Google doesn’t seem to have ever done much innovative on Orkut. For example, if I were to get into detail, Google is well known for its AJAX features, but somehow, surprisingly very few of them exist in Orkut. However, in case of Facebook, you see loads of AJAX features. An example within the example would be, say you have 7 friends on Facebook to be added, you can add all of them with 7 different submit buttons on the same page without the page actually refreshing. However, in Orkut’s case (and also in case of LinkedIn), you need to actually move to a new page each time you want to accept an invitation. Absence of such good features on a Social Networking Site can be a major put off in my opinion.
Ravi, Gmail is lagging behind Yahoo – but just as you mentioned, the rate of growth is far higher for Gmail. Also, as far as I know, the Google Apps count is not included in the Gmail count, which can make a huge difference to the numbers.

By: Ravi Karothiya

Ravi Karothiya — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:09:26 +0000

Nice article… but isnt gmail still lagging behind Yahoo mail and Hotmail ?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/gmail-grew-43-percent-last-year-aol-mail-and-hotmail-need-to-start-worrying/

“Although Yahoo Mail grew only 11 percent last year, it still added more visitors (9.4 million) than Gmail (8.8 million).”

By: AT_korvus

AT_korvus — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:11:44 +0000

Interestingly, the referral services have worked well for gmail, but not so much for Orkut, which has steadily lost ground to Facebook and Myspace.

By: Gaurav Parashar

Gaurav Parashar — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:53:36 +0000

I am surprised that you have not mentioned some of the key products of google and one of the key things personalization and clubbing together of all the google services in a single account!