Google has a huge list of products on the market right now which are utilized everyday by people. Some of these great products include AdSense, AdWords, Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Calendar — just to name a few of them. But not all of these have been a success.
Two huge success stories include the AdSense+AdWords platform for advertising and the second is Gmail. These products have honestly changed the way the world of the Internet actually functions. AdWords+AdWords brought a new kind of advertising to the table and let small-time publishers start earning a few bucks here and there. Gmail re-invented AJAX — which Microsoft created nearly 15 years ago. AJAX lets a user check for new e-mails without ever leaving the page. This AJAX technology blew up and became widespread across the Internet. The technology wasn’t new, but not many people knew about it until the release of Gmail.
So what kind of failures has Google had? For starters, the recent Google Answers was shut down because it was barely even being used. I posted a video just now about how people really do want to save Google Answers and bring it back to life. It’s hard to see how Google will respond to the public on this one. Google has always listened to the community to see what we want so it could go either way. Another failure was Google Finance.
It’s been eight months since Google launched its Google Finance Web site to much fanfare. With the search juggernaut’s enormous resources and winning streak, many thought it would only be a matter of time before Google’s service would usurp the position of Yahoo! Finance — the most visited financial site on the Web.
While Google Finance is still operating, it hasn’t gotten anywhere near the kind of response they were looking for in it. Yahoo! Finance still has the upper hand on the amount of people using the product. One last product which people are talking about is Froogle. I personally use Froogle almost everyday because I think it’s a great tool. It’s clear, concise, easy to use, and doesn’t bog me down with extra crap. But talk has been that Google might be shutting down Froogle and focusing on Google Base more.
Google does indeed need to be focusing on features and enhancements rather than creating new products right now.
