LetsMoveToTheMoon

God, Technology, and Things That Make Us Want to Move to the Moon

6 Thoughts on the Success of Google Me

June 29, 2010

Briefly, here’s what I’m thinking about the instant legend that is Google Me:

1. There’s hope. The reality is that we’re seeing lots of influential people who are more and more disenchanted with Facebook (while not necessarily an influential person myself, I fall into the disenchanted category). People don’t like Facebook’s past, and they’re often scared about its future. If someone will beat Facebook, now’s the time.
2. Google’s fighting an uphill battle. And by uphill, I mean Mt. Everest covered in baby oil. And by baby oil, I mean baby oil…with flames. Facebook is very, very big. It took my mom a lot of years to finally jump on the Facebook bandwagon, and I think it’ll be a lot more years before she’s going to jump somewhere else. Not only that, but people are deeply invested into Facebook. If there’s no way to export my Facebook data, I might not even make the switch.
3. Realistically, Google’s the only guy out there with a chance. Who else would be able to pull this off? Microsoft? Apple? Wal-Mart? Honestly, Google is the only web company that’s trusted enough for people to give their product a legitimate shot.
4. Hype may hurt them. Exhibits A and B: Google Wave and Google Buzz. Case closed.
5. It has to be brilliant. If Me isn’t Google’s best product to date, buh-bye.
6. They’ve got to buy Me.com from Apple. This one’s not as serious, but I think it would be their smartest business decision if they really want Me to succeed. It’d be a huge gamble, though, as I think Apple would charge Broadcast.com-numbers for Me.com.

So there’s a couple quick thoughts for you. As a sidenote, I want to say that I’m pulling for the success of Diaspora. However, I’m not sure it will succeed on a large scale—unless someone large enough picks it up (a la Jabber -> Google Chat). Really, though, I want Google Me to succeed. Competition is great, especially for the beast that is Facebook.