I have to confess a certain fondness for Google, an admiration that has grown out of frequent innovation and creativity. And its frequent luck in the form of success.
Then again, my livelihood doesn't overwhelmingly depend on the whims of Google, so the idiosyncrasies of its search and other services is professionally interesting and not much more.
But to a growing legion of small and midsize e-commerce players today, Google's evolving rules and exact methodologies can devastate—or make wildly successful—and these are matters where those small players have virtually no say.
Despite efforts by Yahoo and others in recent months, no one has come close to touching Google's overwhelming marketshare for Web search. In the olden days, this was called "cornering the market" and it was a good thing, to be congratulated in the nearest wood-paneled corporate watering hole.
But there are few parallels to Google's success in the history of American commerce. In its heyday, Detroit's big three auto makers were king makers for tons of auto supply and car component firms, but their clout only impacted one vertical—automotive—and it was split among three manufacturers.
In Google's case, succcess is consolidated with one company and yet impacts any e-commerce anywhere around the globe, selling absolutely anything, from car doors to cream cheese to karate lessons.
If the latest Google rules smile on you, you'll have a very different day than if it changed their processes and you didn’t discover it until an hour after your competition did.
Source: eweek.com
Then again, my livelihood doesn't overwhelmingly depend on the whims of Google, so the idiosyncrasies of its search and other services is professionally interesting and not much more.
But to a growing legion of small and midsize e-commerce players today, Google's evolving rules and exact methodologies can devastate—or make wildly successful—and these are matters where those small players have virtually no say.
Despite efforts by Yahoo and others in recent months, no one has come close to touching Google's overwhelming marketshare for Web search. In the olden days, this was called "cornering the market" and it was a good thing, to be congratulated in the nearest wood-paneled corporate watering hole.
But there are few parallels to Google's success in the history of American commerce. In its heyday, Detroit's big three auto makers were king makers for tons of auto supply and car component firms, but their clout only impacted one vertical—automotive—and it was split among three manufacturers.
In Google's case, succcess is consolidated with one company and yet impacts any e-commerce anywhere around the globe, selling absolutely anything, from car doors to cream cheese to karate lessons.
If the latest Google rules smile on you, you'll have a very different day than if it changed their processes and you didn’t discover it until an hour after your competition did.
Source: eweek.com
on July 14, 2007, 8:23 am