Google – A 1-trick pony??

Comscore figures indicate that Google maintains its lead as the top search company with Google Search drawing most of the traffic.

Techcrunch has covered this in an article over here .

“It would appear that users aren’t using Google to buy goods, with Google’s worst performer in 2007 being Google Product Search (shopping), down a whopping 73.26%. Google Scholar search dropped 32.14% and perhaps oddly in a year that Google added YouTube videos to its index, Google Video search dropped 11.82%.”
I have been stating long that Google has its core competency in Search but just does not do justice to the other features it puts out. There has to be coherency in what it does. Some of these features seem abysmally layman-ish.

Mind you, the features are good in their own right but not something that one would invest his company’s resources on. So yes, in a way, it is good to have these features come out but then until and unless there is a commercial scheme of things behind it, Google is not going to see any great growth in its Active Repertoire(Search) like features. It will remain  a 1-trick pony for me.

On the other hand, what will be interesting is if Google incorporates the facial mapping/recognition feature in its Image Search. This will be really very handy and I am sure ppl will be willing to pay for the same. This is a very much sought after feature. Google can come up with Google Collage and that will be a good thing too as ppl do maintain online Albums where there is no intelligence to map similar/same fotos together yet.

TechCruch has also carried out an assessment on the popularity of the mail services – Yahoo and Gmail and states that Yahoo Mail is way ahead of Google.  This may be so becos ppl are not comfortable changing email accounts and that may also be because of the track record and the user experience with the service. Google is a relatively new entrant but has to think seriously if it needs to even compete with Yahoo. These are small things for Google but then on a bigger scale of things, these convey impressions of testing its features on live guinea pigs. The Google Brand is taking a beating by putting out some of the features that do not merit being out so long. You make an experiment, make it within a specific time period and then shut it down. This will help you get the data you want and also tell the users of user time-bound service that it is not going to go any further than that. This builds credibility.  I am not really sure what Google plans to do with its email feature. There has to be more to it or nothing at all.

The Google Ecosystem has to be solid and coherent. Google could do well with providing localized enhancements. For example, I am in India, Delhi. If I have to get something done for me locally, where is it that I look at. Right now,I make a mass ping on Google Search but it would be more pertinent to have something like Google Delhi or something in which all the local info is stored. Google has the cash to do it and this is something that has not been done before. So y leave it? Instead of providing generic features, it will be good to provide pointed local features which actually address live human needs. This is more satisfying and relevant to all concerned and ppl will be ready to pay for it if need be (though initially it must be free to get ppl used to the idea).

2008 will be interesting. Google will be gifted DoubleClick and then we will see …