Post by Matt Dickman: http://www.friendfeed.com/mattdic... - Louis Gray

I call link bait! There is only one way to kill Google and that's to beat their advertising model and and THEN out innovate in something big like search. It's gonna take big $ and big ideas - David Knight

I think someone could make a really good Feedburner alternative (if one doesn't exist already). And if it's marketed to some influential bloggers - and if they are pleased with it - it could do well. - Kevin L

Matt, a bit of a pretentious title for a post about Google not taking care of user needs. They, like any big company are making mistakes. And these need to be corrected. But imo killing a company as big as Google will take a bit more than another company doing a few things better. We often tend to forget that Google has become way more than search or advertisement. If you are going to compete with Google you better remember they have unprecedented nr of servers and data centers. They are one of the largest infrastructure companies in the world and have fiber all over the world. The sheer investments needed to overcome that alone are incredible. That doesn't mean they are untouchable. Just like anything else that comes up it will come down t some point. But it may be a good idea not to have an ambition to kill Google, but rather have an ambition to do something entirely new exceptionally well. After all, that is what they did too. - Alexander van Elsas

google wont die...ever. ;o) way to big - Rob Sellen :o)

Two bad services does not mean the end of Google by far, for one Google is much more than any of those individual services. FriendConnect was written in the hope that people love Google enough to form social connections with other Google'ers, they aren't. Facebook, Myspace, etc have the social network market wrapped up currently and that isn't likely to change at least with anything coming out of Google. Also I would say that Feedburner while yes bad, isn't the company: search and advertising is. - Justin Yost

I'm afraid by killing Google we may be killing the only power player that gets it. They're clearly narrowing their large ideologies to win one, or a few big ones. That is how it's played sadly. I'm sticking with them, until someone can tell me about another power player in regards to the net that is so close to making positive change. - timedalkat from twhirl

I also think the title is a bit dramatic. I like the idea thoug that although Google earns it's money with advertising, they also have to make their other services really great. No one is going to look at ads displayed next to something that isn't good. I remember when I started using Google search, they absolutely outperformed the other search engines (Altavista for me). Now there doesn't seem to much of a difference. Concluding, a big company can also make mistakes, but it's about how you set them right. - TobiasVerhoog.com

Was replying to these in the blog comments, but I'll repost here: - Matt Dickman

David -- Granted the revenue model they have is working for now, but it is trending down especially in this economy. Innovation can come from anywhere. Would you have said the same thing to Google about Yahoo back in 98-99? If they had listened then, they would not be where they are now. - Matt Dickman

Kevin -- You're right. Some of their products are more at risk than others. I love Gmail, use it all the time and the switching cost is too high. - Matt Dickman

Alexander -- I don't know if I would say pretentious, but I certainly wrote it purposefully. Companies that don't pay attention to their users are at a huge risk. You are right about their scale and they've invested in other elements of business. It's a lot of inertia to move as an upstart, but they did it to Yahoo and scalability is easier now then it was in the late 90s. It also probably won't be a one-to-one attack from a new major upstart. It will be 50 small entrepreneurial companies chiseling away over time. I just wanted to get people thinking about all of these small companies who are making a big impact. - Matt Dickman

Rob -- In this business environment anything is possible. If advertising spending drops, how else are they making money? - Matt Dickman

Justin -- Thanks for the comment. Google is a collection of services kept afloat by advertising revenues for the most part. You're right about the idea of Google doing social networking, it doesn't really work. More than a few people have asked why they would use the service. "What does it do for me?". Right now I can't really answer them. Obviously killing Google from the outside in is a tough idea, they need to make sure it doesn't happen from the inside out. Feedburner is one small example, but I think the trend is one to watch. - Matt Dickman

with the data they have, they will know better than any of us. ;o) - Rob Sellen :o)

timedalkat -- I don't think most of us have a choice but to stick with Google. Overall, I am happy with most of the products they offer. They are, as you said, focusing down on a couple of things and I think that's where the opportunity lies for upstarts to latch on and pick away the things on Google's periphery. - Matt Dickman

Tobias -- I did write the title to get attention, but my goal was to get conversation going like the one happening here. Thanks for weighing in. You stated this better than I did so thank you. They have so much going on and need to focus on making things great again. Differentiation + ad revenue sounds like a great model. - Matt Dickman

Rob -- You're right about the data. They know a LOT ;) - Matt Dickman

yeah..and it will tell them al they need to know. :o) - Rob Sellen :o)

Matt, envision a world in which advertisement is not the premium currency ont he web, and you will find a direction in which Google can be attacked. They currently own the online search and advertisement space. Instead of fighting them head on I would create a nice that makes their methods less relevant. Search is already becoming less important, and that provides alternatives that can become as big and important as Google is now - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander -- That's a great way to frame this. It's a shift from ad-focus to user-focus/innovation. - Matt Dickman

Jason -- I am not saying Facebook is the solution. They have the same issues. There are alternatives to GMail and Reader. They are good, but somebody could easily build something better. There are more tools than ever and more people who have the skills. Do they all work at Google? Could anyone invent the next Reader? Absolutely. - Matt Dickman

Matt, thx, it actually touches a theme I write about every once in a while (did it today too btw) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

One of the fun things about having strong guest posters is that I'm allowed to occasionally disagree with stuff on my own site! I think what Matt has noticed is absolutely true - the trust of Google has decreased as new services have rough edges, slowed response times, and invisible support. Combine that with the ads first, users second mentality and you can see why people are frustrated. But I don't think Google is going anywhere, and I want them to succeed vs. others (Microsoft for example) - Louis Gray

marketing is probably starting to run things just like they did at yahoo, where are the visionaries?, where are the leaders? the folks that really believed that you can never be evil - Iggy Kin

@Louis that is odd. I tend to disagree with myself all the time ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

I'll call linkbait too, but interestingly enough I've been talking to both the FriendConnect and the FeedBurner folks recently, and feel pretty excited about what I'm hearing. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't understand FriendConnect at first, but recent conversations with that group (and OpenSocial) have me very excited. - Matt Cutts

P.S. I'll also strongly disagree that Google as a whole isn't listening to users. This is an interesting economic environment and every company is recalibrating in different ways, e.g. Google has closed some products recently. But I think people are over-generalizing about some remaining products. And from where I sit, I see many more clued-in Googlers watching the outside world to see what we need to do better on. I love that Jeff Huber (VP Eng at Google) showed up recently to reply to some comments. - Matt Cutts

@Matt Cutts and others: I had the option to change the proposed headline, but left it as I think Matt Dickman can answer why he feels the way he does. As for linkbait, that's a different post opportunity. I don't believe linkbait works the way it used to, so I don't believe in it. Re: FeedBurner, I'm sticking with it, and FriendConnect I'm watching from the sidelines so far. - Louis Gray

Louis isn't kidding about his headline changing powers. I think he spruces mine up every time, and they always need it too ;) - Daniel J. Pritchett

Very true. Some of what's happening here speaks to the common misconception that listening to customers means doing everything they say. - James Koole

Louis -- They aren't going anywhere soon. Death by a million paper cuts is a better analogy. I think Google also lifts the industry which is why I am so frustrated to see this lack of support. - Matt Dickman

Matt -- You can call linkbait, that's your opinion (though, isn't that passe now?). The title is the way I feel. I think service is a huge opportunity that the company is missing out on. You have a very large company, but support should be the first priority, especially with new products. People's questions are still sitting there unanswered on FriendConnect, early adopters and evangelists should be the first people who get help. I would still align service first. - Matt Dickman

Also, Matt your engagement here shows the model that Google should be looking toward. Get your smart, passionate people out there, engaging and solving problems. Thank you for that. - Matt Dickman

Ok, liked due to Matt's insane ability to respond thoughtfully to every comment. Google's ads can be considered a user benefit, they can be focused and personalized. Since the campaigns are tailored by humans and not algorithms they can also give you better results on search pages if you're not exactly sure what you're after. Until someone can manage to come up with a "free" revenue model that provides more value to it's users than Google does, they're not going anywhere - David Knight

+1 David. Matt D. is doing a great job of keeping on top of the comments here. I love seeing a post take off like this. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Thanks Daniel and David. I love these conversations too. I wanted this to get people thinking about this. David -- you're right about the ads, but when is the last time you said "man, I wish I had a better ad?" vs. "man I wish I had some support". Ads rule for Google (revenue is key especially now). - Matt Dickman

James -- Listening to customers and doing what they say isn't productive, but not letting them know you're listening is crazy. I'll take a "we hear you and are working on it" any day of the week. Much better than silence. Thanks for commenting! - Matt Dickman

MattD, I'm not begrudging you the title--I think the time is always right to kill Google, and I try to think every day about how I would kill Google. That way I can help prevent it by making Google better. :) But there will always be parts of a company that don't converse as much as people want--that doesn't mean that they don't hear the complaints, or aren't working behind the scenes to make things better. Talking to the FriendConnect folks about the future is getting me psyched, for example. - Matt Cutts

I run Google ads on my site, I wish for better Ads EVERY DAY - David Knight

MattC -- I know you're working hard as a company and I am *really* a fan. Just two things within two weeks that piqued my interest. You're smart to look for the "Google killer" and it is people like you who keep our faith in the company. We just want more ;) Thanks so much for jumping in! - Matt Dickman

David -- That makes a lot of sense :) I see the publisher side, looking @ the consumer side. I would pay for no ads, but not better ads. - Matt Dickman

No worries. In my ideal world, every Google property would keep an eye on what people say in the blogosphere/web and then respond. In practice, the first half (listening) usually happens, but we could still do more responding in the conversations. I think articles like this help push Google into conversing more though. - Matt Cutts

David, do you know about http://projectwonderful.com ? I've been trying it for just a couple months so far (as an ad publisher). The jury's still out for me (see it in action here: http://bebepool.com/arthur), but it's worth investigating. - Micah Wittman

@Micah - I've heard of, but never investigated it I'll take a look thanks :-) - David Knight

MattC... you said..."Talking to the FriendConnect folks about the future is getting me psyched, for example"..... any chance of a hint to why...? :o) - Rob Sellen :o)

I'm with Rob. Would love to know more about FC - Matt Dickman

yeah Matt.... be an interesting thing to hear. :o) - Rob Sellen :o)

This is silly. - Svartling

The more I understand about FriendConnect, the more excited I get. If you haven't seen, there's an OpenSocial hackathon at the Googleplex in February: http://socialapp.wordpress.com/2009... - Matt Cutts

Google is the future. They have the scale and R&D/grunt to do great things everyday in everyway, particularly improving our lives. Matt, you are a lucky boy to be working there with such interesting things and people. - Bob Sonin