Google Finance launched today. I know my post is late, but I have a little bit different take on it than most.
I think it is a fine start. They were smart to launch it because their users will use it. They'll keep some users (myself included) around longer as a result. In my opinion, this is not a game-changing space. Yahoo! Finance is the king. MarketWatch, CNNMoney, etc all do a perfectly good job at financial sites/portals. Does the world really need another financial portal? Probably not. But since it is Google, they can get away with it. And I am sure they will do a very nice job over time. Yahoo! Finance probably has the most to lose as a result. They have the most market share. So, presumably any extra time spent at Google on Google Finance comes at Yahoo!'s expense. This is very similar to what I saw with my own behavior when Skype launched. I spent less and less time on Yahoo! Messenger, my previously preferred IM client.
The key to today's announcement is that it is one more example of the Google "build out." All companies come to the same conclusion as they dominate one space on the web and then their growth slows... "We need more services to satisfy our users...Oh, and uh we need to keep growing and our core service is slowing down." Google is learning. So is Microsoft. AOL knew this a long time ago but couldn't make the transition to a open web world. Yahoo! is the one that has been setting the pace with new service/application build out.
Take a look at Yahoo!'s history. They do the best job of adding new services and functionality through either build or buy strategies. Remember RocketMail which became Yahoo! Mail? Overture, Geocities, etc. Recently they have been buying Web 2.0 cos. to keep with the times. It's an art, and Yahoo! does it the best. This doesn't mean that they win every time. Take a look at Skype, MySpace, etc. eBay came out of nowhere and bet the farm (practically) on Skype. I think they will look smart in the end for doing so. Clearly News Corp hit on something special with MySpace. Now they just need to clean it up a bit.
Google is learning this game slowly but surely. They are smart and a quick study. So, they will likely do well. If they err in this transition it will be on the side of build versus buy. They are builders and have great confidence in their own abilities, for good reason. So, they will get cocky from time to time and/or ticked off in an acquisition negotiation and miss the ball. I think that happened with Skype. They should have bought it. They had the money. I believe Yahoo! would have liked to, but Skype got too expensive. And Yahoo! had just made a big bet in China on Alibaba. Bad timing.
Think about it...in hindsight does Microsoft wish it had bought Overture and captured a great service with great momentum? You bet. Now they are late to the game with AdCenter, and it will be a tough battle to claw back to be major players in the PPC space. Microsoft has the same problem Google has. Can you imagine what Bill Gates thought when he was invited down in the midnight hour to buy Overture for $2 billion?! Clearly he said, "Forget that. We'll build it in a year and crush them." Easier said then done.
In the 90s there was a furious race to build out/buy. That's when big "buy" mistakes were made. Remember Broadcast.com? Lucky Mark Cuban. Right place, right bs spin. Even Geocities to a certain extent. Blue Mountain Arts, MySimon...the list goes on and on. Nowadays there is less of a frenzy as companies are willing to be more patient and studied before they put out the big bucks. Lots of people saw Skype coming. MySpace too. And obviously everyone now knows about Facebook. Who will be the lucky winner there?
"In my opinion, this is not a game-changing space."
Totally agree. I don't understand why many bloggers are comparing google finance to yahoo finance. It really does not matter which one is better. In my opinion, it would make no difference to most regular yahoo finance users what Google did in this space.
This is just one of those boring service additions to add value to their current user base. Not every google release can or should be exciting. The problem is many people expect everything google to be exciting, and this leads to disappointments.
Posted by: or | March 21, 2006 at 06:42 PM