Google 10 years old

The Herald calls Google the world’s most powerful 10 year old.

It brings back memories of AltaVista, the former number one search engine. It was amazing how quickly Google replaced it as the search engine of choice.

Google is powerful but not quite all conquering. When they launched Google Video, I thought that would dominate the online video market as they had the brand and resources of Google.

But You Tube kicked their butt, because they had a superior product. The “embed” function especially turned every blog into a gateway for You Tube and they gained massive market share over Google Video.

Of course Google then went and purchased You Tube. But it still shows that product is still more important than brand, and that Google’s dominance can not be assumed to last forever.

But having said that, I am a regular user of:

1. Google Search
2. Google News
3. Google News Alerts
4. Google Adsense
5. Google Analytics
6. Google Maps
7. Google Images
8. Google Toolbar
9. Google Calendar
10. Google Docs
11. Gmail
12. Google Talk
13. You Tube

I have also played with Google Chrome and check out Google Groups very occassionally. So it is hard to see an Internet without a dominant Google anytime soon.