search for wow
Vinay Kamat
To understand Google is to understand the future. Armed with just an algorithm, or computer code, Google not only dominates the web, it rules your life. But the six-year-old Google has become more than just a piece of code. Nowadays, you don't search Google for simple answers alone. You locate friends, compare prices, check maps and weather, see real places, email, blog, and talk. And you would soon start using Google toolbar as your desktop's ultimate console. Google is slowly becoming the surfer's dashboard, competing with Microsoft on its own cozy turf.
What will Google be up to tomorrow? Its ability to roll a slew of leading-edge products, revive internet advertising, create search benchmarks, reinvent e-mail through Gmail, enter telecom space through Google Talk, and simply thrill its customer base, has sent pundits and competitors wondering about Google's next big thing. After all, at $80 billion, it is the world's largest media company by market value.
No wonder when two media students Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson put together a Flash prognosis of the media's future, few questioned their imagination. The duo's prediction: "2008 sees the alliance that will challenge Microsoft's ambitions. Google and Amazon join forces to form Googlezon. Google supplies the Google Grid (a universal platform that provides a functionally limitless amount of storage space and bandwidth to store and share media of all kinds) and unparalleled search technology. Amazon supplies the social recommendation engine and its huge commercial infrastructure. Together, they use their detailed knowledge of every user's social network, demographics, consumption habits and interests to provide total customisation of content — and advertising."
Googlezon may be fantasy. But its basis lies in Google's marvellous search code, around which Google is building enough muscle — a set of linear offerings — to elbow out competition. The Google algorithm creates a class structure of the web when you search. It ranks pages based on links, their readership record, and the frequency of updates. And it throws up search results in less than half a second. Now, imagine Google dominating mobile space, allowing you to search and transact on the move.
Google believes it is not just an online library but a real-time database. Actually, it is an information superpower, with eight billion indexed pages and a billion images. And when you use Google search, a back-end supercomputing system is intelligently at work. Its search prowess allows Google to position itself as an ad aggregator, helping advertisers get relevant surfers/customers by a unique process of micro-targeting.
Google’s ability to process the world's information needs in nanoseconds is a test of its hardware and software skills. This dual strength is something that competitors like Microsoft are not comfortable about.
Argues Stephen E Arnold, author of The Google Legacy: "Google is, like IBM, a company that owes its existence to both hardware and software. Unlike IBM, Google has a business model that is advertiser supported. Technically, Google is conceptually closer to IBM (at one time a hardware and software company) than it is to Microsoft (primarily a software company) or Yahoo! (an integrator of multiple softwares)."
If Google becomes the first point of entry for surfers, it could set the standards for newer products just as it did for search. Predicts Patricia Seybold, author of customer.com: "Google will play a major role in digital rights management and in creating a de facto standard for pay-per-use information. It's also possible that Google will play an increasingly important role in consumer and business retail."
But what did Google do right to get where it has? Google is a cool brand built around simplicity and convenience. Its minimalist 37-word homepage hides the complexity of its back-end robots. Beneath this simplicity is the story of its founding. Like Hewlett-Packard, Google was bred in a garage by two computer science graduates from Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergei Brin. It thrilled its fans as a geek adventure before finally deciding to create a revenue model.
Often it is an innovative experience. When Google launched gmail in beta, it created a buzz by inviting people. Gmail was a robust product with 2 gigs of space, unheard of in those days. Gmail crossed the tipping point by word of mouth, fulfilling what Google believes in: focus on the user and all else will follow.
But has Google institutionalised Wow? After all, Wow is a spontaneous, unplanned way of delighting a customer that can hardly be industrialised. Marketing experts have long deliberated whether Wow can actually be systemised. For instance, can companies delight customers on a regular basis? Can products then be rolled out in Wow fashion consistently?
Indeed, Apple and Sony have created Wow technologies. Google may have taken the Wow factor away from technology to sheer user-experience and institutionalised it.
That is why Google appears a whole tera bigger than it is. That is why it looks so unpredictable.
To understand Google is to understand the future. Armed with just an algorithm, or computer code, Google not only dominates the web, it rules your life. But the six-year-old Google has become more than just a piece of code. Nowadays, you don't search Google for simple answers alone. You locate friends, compare prices, check maps and weather, see real places, email, blog, and talk. And you would soon start using Google toolbar as your desktop's ultimate console. Google is slowly becoming the surfer's dashboard, competing with Microsoft on its own cozy turf.
What will Google be up to tomorrow? Its ability to roll a slew of leading-edge products, revive internet advertising, create search benchmarks, reinvent e-mail through Gmail, enter telecom space through Google Talk, and simply thrill its customer base, has sent pundits and competitors wondering about Google's next big thing. After all, at $80 billion, it is the world's largest media company by market value.
No wonder when two media students Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson put together a Flash prognosis of the media's future, few questioned their imagination. The duo's prediction: "2008 sees the alliance that will challenge Microsoft's ambitions. Google and Amazon join forces to form Googlezon. Google supplies the Google Grid (a universal platform that provides a functionally limitless amount of storage space and bandwidth to store and share media of all kinds) and unparalleled search technology. Amazon supplies the social recommendation engine and its huge commercial infrastructure. Together, they use their detailed knowledge of every user's social network, demographics, consumption habits and interests to provide total customisation of content — and advertising."
Googlezon may be fantasy. But its basis lies in Google's marvellous search code, around which Google is building enough muscle — a set of linear offerings — to elbow out competition. The Google algorithm creates a class structure of the web when you search. It ranks pages based on links, their readership record, and the frequency of updates. And it throws up search results in less than half a second. Now, imagine Google dominating mobile space, allowing you to search and transact on the move.
Google believes it is not just an online library but a real-time database. Actually, it is an information superpower, with eight billion indexed pages and a billion images. And when you use Google search, a back-end supercomputing system is intelligently at work. Its search prowess allows Google to position itself as an ad aggregator, helping advertisers get relevant surfers/customers by a unique process of micro-targeting.
Google’s ability to process the world's information needs in nanoseconds is a test of its hardware and software skills. This dual strength is something that competitors like Microsoft are not comfortable about.
Argues Stephen E Arnold, author of The Google Legacy: "Google is, like IBM, a company that owes its existence to both hardware and software. Unlike IBM, Google has a business model that is advertiser supported. Technically, Google is conceptually closer to IBM (at one time a hardware and software company) than it is to Microsoft (primarily a software company) or Yahoo! (an integrator of multiple softwares)."
If Google becomes the first point of entry for surfers, it could set the standards for newer products just as it did for search. Predicts Patricia Seybold, author of customer.com: "Google will play a major role in digital rights management and in creating a de facto standard for pay-per-use information. It's also possible that Google will play an increasingly important role in consumer and business retail."
But what did Google do right to get where it has? Google is a cool brand built around simplicity and convenience. Its minimalist 37-word homepage hides the complexity of its back-end robots. Beneath this simplicity is the story of its founding. Like Hewlett-Packard, Google was bred in a garage by two computer science graduates from Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergei Brin. It thrilled its fans as a geek adventure before finally deciding to create a revenue model.
Often it is an innovative experience. When Google launched gmail in beta, it created a buzz by inviting people. Gmail was a robust product with 2 gigs of space, unheard of in those days. Gmail crossed the tipping point by word of mouth, fulfilling what Google believes in: focus on the user and all else will follow.
But has Google institutionalised Wow? After all, Wow is a spontaneous, unplanned way of delighting a customer that can hardly be industrialised. Marketing experts have long deliberated whether Wow can actually be systemised. For instance, can companies delight customers on a regular basis? Can products then be rolled out in Wow fashion consistently?
Indeed, Apple and Sony have created Wow technologies. Google may have taken the Wow factor away from technology to sheer user-experience and institutionalised it.
That is why Google appears a whole tera bigger than it is. That is why it looks so unpredictable.
posted by vinay kamat at 5:48 AM
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