-
Website
http://www.scobleizer.com/ -
Original page
http://scobleizer.com/2006/08/28/bloggers-have-a-double-standard-when-it-comes-to-google-vs-microsoft/ -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
You're not proposing that Microsoft send cash into the system to get blogger coverage, are you? ;)
I try to pull away, but you keep pulling me back in any time you talk about Google. :)
Speaking of which I'd love to have you on my video show. Interested?
I find it weird that no blogger mentions a Microsoft product with the same set of features.
This is incredible herd mentality - and definitely not 'long tail'.
Also, I found it interesting that all the traditional news sources like Reuters mentioned Office Live.
I'm not doing 'blogger bashing' here. I think there's some introspection that needs to be done on why the mainstream media is doing a lot more fact checking on this particular story.
Because Google's products are better. I know it's a tough concept for softies to understand. Google's products work and are fun. Even their limitations are obvious.
Microsoft's idea of fun is an AJAX-ENABLED CLIPPY.
Yeah, its free and I still dont mind paying for all em services when the time is right :)-
CLIPPY: It looks like you're trying to be sarcastic. Would you like some help with this feature? ;-)
After a while, they seemed to figure out that most users preferred "maps" (by typing maps.google.com into the address bar, which forwarded to "local"), so they changed it back.
Google isn't immune to branding mistakes.
I agree "Windows Live" is better than "MSN", but I still think it's not the best brand they could have come up with. Two words is kind of bleh, and Windows itself doesn't exactly have the best brand in the minds of consumers these days. If I was MS I'd have gone with "start.com" (which I presume MS still owns?) and made it the "start menu for the web" or something like that.
And FWIW, I think bloggers are more fair minded than you give them credit for. Windows Live Writer got a fair bit of attention when it was released... because it's actually a good product, not a "me too". The MS Office ribbon has gotten attention as well. I think bloggers simply like innovation; the attention is reflective of which company they see the most innovation coming out of.
1. So only fair to kick the big dogs? Not in my book, equal opportunity kicking.
2. 100% Web, compliments the Blogger myopia navel-gazing, only whatever is in their nose-level view, matters. Just say "ERP" to a Blogger and watch his/her eyes glaze over.
3. Agree. Office Live is a a Ray Ozzie lucid dream. Not hosted real Office, just some micro-portal fantasy joke.
4. Microsoft ALSO gives away TONS of free stuff, I mean Junkets, Launch Parties and MVP Entitlement techie drugs ahoy. Microsoft beats Google easy in free. Can't buy love, either way tho.
5. Google is fuzzy because we yet not know, Microsoft is fuzzy because we do. Once Google comes out of its turtled shell, the awe will fade. But not knowing, is part of their Apple like marketing-strategy. It allows dimbulb journalists and bloggers to fill in blanks.
6. Branding. Well Microsoft, in getting their bread and butter from the Enterprise, likes boring names. Horrid branding, yes, but not necessarily a bad move. Boring can be good, and quite lucrative. The flashy Web 2.0 branding doesn't exactly play in Peoria.
But Scoble says we should be transparent :(
It's a real art to sell vaporware.
In India, we have a cell ph service company called Hutch, which came up with a briliant set of ads, featuring a kid playing with his Dog. The ads were so powerful that they established Hutch's image firmly as a very customer friendly company. So much so, that despite their service being no where compared to their image, it was proven in survey after survey, that customers took a lenient view.
Never underestimate the power of branding and communicating the brand.Microsoft has failed miserably in connecting to their customers at a 'humane' level.
7) Mashups. Google is aligned well with the web 2.0 hacking mentality. It thorws out stuff that developers can use, create something else out of it, and let the early adopters drive the brand and image further. If web 2.0 is participatory, Google content creation apps are a natural fit.
This is sports kibbitzing. When Microsoft entered the game console market against the dominant brand (Sony PS2), they got a lot of buzz and attention. As Microsoft prepares to enter the portable media player market against the dominant brand (iPod), they're getting huge buzz and attention. Any time a credible, well-resourced challenger comes along, people gather around to watch the fight. So, now, here comes Google. "Google Makes Its Move" pretty well captures the story. People have been anticipating this--and more--since about forever. That's not to say that folks are necessarily rooting for Google to take down Office. But they do want the spectacle of a fight. And the prospect of competition to improve the choices for businesses large and small.
Office Live is just a product announcement. (yawn) "Google Apps for Your Domain" (did someboday say Google knows naming?) is a prelude to an epic battle. It's the Sharks vs. the Jets... King Kong vs. Godzilla... Ali vs. Frazier. Olbermann vs. O'Reilly. That's why there's extra juice around this. How good are the products? That's pretty much besides the point at this stage.
Please explain what you think is exciting about ERP. To my eyes, ERP is an over-kill solution in search of a problem.
"When Microsoft entered the game console market against the dominant brand (Sony PS2), they got a lot of buzz and attention. As Microsoft prepares to enter the portable media player market against the dominant brand (iPod), they’re getting huge buzz and attention"
If (unlikely) they managed to accomplish anything in either of those markets, they would surely get plenty of media/blogger attention.
Google has been able to deliver actual interesting products. What has MSFT done lately? You can't get buzz in absence of pollen (to use a bumblebee metaphor).
Suppose you go to a new city. You take a cab. Why do you trust the drivers driving skill? Do you check his driving license? No. You trust because if he is in an accident then he has as much chance of getting hurt as you. You basically have tied your safety with his.
A lot of Google's free stuff is a loss leader for them. They have not yet figured out a profit strategy for everything or at least not yet have conveyed to us. Remember Google is a public company. If their profit strategy, which is still a unknown to us, fails then wall street will force them to drop the loss leaders. Or else their stock will be punished which makes all the googlers unhappy. (Note: their cash reserves is made from selling goog, they did not need that cash except they may be expecting a rainy day).
What happens if goog app turn out to be one of the loss leaders they drop? Do you want to tie your company's profit with another companies loss? I would not. Basic game theory says, you should tie your company's profit to another company's profit and not their loss.
Following is a reasonable possibility: Suppose Yahoo's panama turns out to be a success. They increase the ROI for their advertisers. That implies that advertisers bid on adwords may fall. Decrease growth, no matter how much current profit, invariably punishes the stock. In that case Wall street expect companies to stop putting money in loss leaders. See what happened when Microsoft announced a meagre, by microsoft standards, 2 billion extra expense. Google has not faced such a day and no body knows what Google's reaction would be. Microsoft announced buy back to bring wall street into confidence again. Google won't be able to do that either.
So think twice if you want to lock in your company's infrastructure to an unproven, uncommitted and unprofitable product.
Disclaimer: The commentator is a Microsoft employee but the analysis in the comment is his own.
Its true. Google innovates, and MS copies.
Robert, brands can have an expiration date but I assure you among its users MSN is a brand they won't soon part with--it is more than its technology. The constant pinging of multiple incoming instant messages in the ajoining room is testament! If they are rebranding or rolling up the brand, they better be careful lest they lose that immmense equity. My 17 year old just told me. "it's [the name] cold and unfriendly". Yikes.
About brand extensions:
When one brand is extremely successful their caretakers tend to stretch that brand to the point of snapping. Japanese corporations have put the same name on everything from cars to photocopiers and have effectively diluted and commoditized their brands. This can be very destructive because there is an emotional resonance with a brand--it is complex and deep. And stretching its meaning (key element) can dilute its strength. Google things are good. But too much Google will hurt. This I stake my experience on. It's not about techonology and functionality--it's about personal resonance. How you identify with a social network. I am so glad you brought up branding. Tech folks needs to pay close attention to the deepest human element. Good post Robert.
YOUR POST: "That probably will turn out to be the right decision in the long term, but in the short term Google has the better naming team — by far. Calling Google Maps “Google Maps?” Sheer brilliance! Who came up with the name “Windows Live Local?” Blllleeeeccchhh."
I think you've got here. Naming is very important. The use of public or common use language again commoditizes a brand. But Google Maps is effectively a product feature of its search engine. They search many a thing, text, maps--images on their way with both Microsoft and Google. Did you know Larry Zitnick at the Microsoft lab is developing an image search engine yet unnamed? Hopefully it will be called something new and fresh--perhaps another onomatapoeia like Yahoo or Google. How about Swissh or Swoosh or zippitydodade. Hey, Blllleeeeccchhh might even work in this world of counter cultures. Kudos for your 360 approach to a new launch.
1. Google is doing a heck of a lot of client side work for a company 100 percent focused on the web.
2. Market share on Gmail does not bear out your point -- you could have said the same thing 10 years ago about mac use, or five years ago about Palm use, or 2 years ago about RIM use.
Bottom line, the press love the competition, they love the insurgent. Google, despite its success, is still seen as the insurgent fighting against an industry leader.
----------
Same with Apple. Seems when you have the juice, blogging/bloggers are irrelevant, the traditional PR/marketing methods work just fine and everyone picks it up. When you don't have juice, or are a small tech/web-2.0 company you have to rely on, include, Arrington and the rest of the blogsphere.
Truth is you gotta think like a mall owner in this new world. As long as one store in the mall makes a crapload of money, you'll do just fine, thank you very much.
This is why we all go to Valley Fair instead of Vallco. Valley Fair has a lot better selection of small stores that don't make them much money. But, while I'm there I'm very likely to head into Macy's too.
Because they are f**king dumb! Yes that was a resonably good name...before this whole "Live" mania started and I don't see why "Windows" had to be attached to it....this was an opportunity to drop that "Windows" legacy behind....granted it (Windows) keeps bringing home the bacon....but there was absolutely no reason to carry that baggage into the web world.
Oh well....there is enough hate spewing around...that I don't necessarily see MS going in the right direction in the long term (but hey, I am just a simple guy - what do I know...I am no Ballmer).
I personally would rather invest in building a new brand, but that's just me. I'm from the Trout and Reis school, though, (they wrote that a brand should stand for one thing, not two) and that school of branding thought isn't well respected at Microsoft.
Apple gets tons of blogger press, yet Mac's usershare is still 4%. Linux's is 0.4% despite years and years of hype.
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qpr...
http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox46-...
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2006/April/os.php
http://www.artlebedev.com/tools/browsers/
There's a HUGE difference between the tech-hype media/bloggers and the real world.
Kermit: I thought I read that Apple's market share has gone up a lot lately. If I remember right someone said it was up to 12% in the latest quarter.
You've described how hard it is to get people to change their usage, right. Google talk usage is heading up, by the way. Watch for that number to change at next report.
Google Maps has 17% of the market and is going up. The trick is to watch its rate of growth. That'll tell you more than the current market share.
It's that kind of childishness that contributed that recent WWDC keynote to being the worst WWDC keynote ever.
See what GarageGames' Jeff Tunnell said regarding it:
http://makeitbigingames.com/blog/?p=32
"Lately, I have been having second thoughts about OS-X games and committing to “cross platform” development in the sense of PC and OS-X. After spending 1 1/2 hours watching Apple’s Steve Jobs give the worst WWDC keynote in history, I decided to air my concerns on this blog. ...
...
...
Somehow, between this initial elation and the audience raving about pricing of X-Serve, the famed “reality distortion” field wore off. It was as if a bubble popped. Maybe it was because Steve had multiple people giving the presentation, maybe it was the continued jabs at Microsoft, or maybe it was just that Apple had so little to talk about."
Oh, and Jeff Tunnell used to be a rabid Microsoft hater; see his 2001 blogs. ;-)
Note quite Robert...check this out:
Apple's Macintosh market share soars 16 percent...to 4.8%. Still pretty low...
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/07/20/markets...
1 - one of the first, and best, uses of real-time web pages (aka ajax) is Microsoft Outlook Web Access. Nothing beats it.
2 - google, via adsense, has screwed up the Web MUCH more than microsoft ever has...
I feel like I just crashed a party for the Web's blogging luminaries. Is this truly the comment thread for the IlumiBloggerati? I'll go hide my hyundai behind this ferrari over here.
That's why Google gets my respect, and Microsoft can kiss my apple.
Of course it'll head up, but you talk as if it'll constantly double evern N days.
But this July 2006 report shows how pathetic GTalk's share really is:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/24/instant-me...
"The user numbers coming out on Google Talk are staggeringly terrible. Comscore usage numbers show that nearly a year after launch Google is a distant, distant 4th after MSN, Yahoo and AIM. They hold a pitiful 1% of total instant messaging market share, with 3.4 million unique users in May 2006. See the Comscore chart below for more details (I wonder where Skype IM falls in those stats). Note that Comscore does not include Google Talk usage within Gmail itself (where it is embedded), but even factoring that in, the numbers are just awful.
The NYT picked up on this as well, noting that “Google Talk chat software had only 44,000 users in June”. Om Malik notes that there have been only about a million total downloads of the client.
Where does Google go from here? I suggest they roll some heads and figure out a real product strategy."
I don't "quote" the chart itself; you can click the link to see it.
I'm sure that GTalk's usage will increase over time, but I've grown tired of seeing Google portrayed like they can do no wrong, when in reality they seem to do very little right.
I don't really like the direction that they're taking the web anyway. Seems like more and more articles are 20 pages long, each with only a few sentences per page, so that the article can be filled to the brim with google ads.
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archive...
Exciting? Wotchtalkingaboutwillis? Put down the coding Mountain Dew. Nothing is exciting about ERP. But it be vital. Try wrapping a Fortune 100 supply-chain management heavy app around a Googleish Webby-Mash-up, well, instant death. ERP is a commodity sure, but a bad implementation can ruin companies, see AT&T Wireless and that failed Siebel upgrade.
My point being tho, most bloggers are of the HTML markup webby sort, and have no idea of the real needs of the Enterprise. Mostly Comp-Sci grads tossed into software, with zero understanding of the underlining business processes at work, yabbing away on their blogs, thinking "exciting" Webby software is the only path to salvation.
Kermit: it's just marketing as a root cause. The ol brand extension I posted earlier today. Many good brands die on execution. Googling everything does not bode well because they have attached themselves too strongly to product (search) rather than meaning. There's no stretch room. A new brand is required to win the hearts of these consumers. Yahoo on the other ahnd has broader emotional meaning. And MSN is been the original social enabler. See?
Good night everybody and thanks Robert for all the fun.
Tomorrow I'll get some real work done. So don't go posting something interesting that gets me all fired up again.
Some good points. But you forgot to mention the all-important common perception of Microsoft and Google as companies. This is possibly the giant killer, the make or break deal when all this Web 2.0 stuff finally shakes out.
Google's "Don't be evil" mantra and demonstrated (read that again, *demonstrated*) good will has won the hearts of millions. I used to be a Microsoft zealot. For years, I pushed MS products to my friends and bosses because I was loyal. Now I push Google stuff where applicable.
Mindshare. Microsoft's got it. Google's got it. But it looks like Google has the most sustainable mindshare with possibly the least churn (in the web space only, of course. But isn't that where everything is going?). Even if Google and Microsoft are doing the same evil things to us and our data inside their respective black boxes, Google has at least made public claims for us to hold them accountable to, and this brings a certain peace of mind - however misplaced it may or may not be.
Microsoft - ignoring Vista delays - just hasn't given us anything to rally to in a long time. Now, I love what is happening with Xbox, and opening up the platform for indie developers was a sweet move indeed. We need more of that.
Anyway, with Ray, it looks like we're seeing the twinkle of new beginnings at Microsoft. With the blogosphere and new media taking shape the way it is, the people have eyes and ears in all places now. We watch companies closely. We hold companies accountable and flay them alive when they behave badly.
Sure, Microsoft can get by on brute force for probably a long time to come still, but I think it knows it needs to play ball in order to win more quality mindshare; the kind of brand loyalty that makes the products sell themselves. This may yet be the only battle that matters in the future as commodity technologies and services distribute among the masses.
I'm grateful for the competition Google has brought, and I hope it makes a better, smarter, and - most of all - a more lovable Microsoft.
- Google said "don't be evil"; sure, they made their mistakes, but Microsoft never even said something like that, the philosophy tends in another direction
- Google keeps close to real standards: whenever I start something from Microsoft I can be sure that it will not work with any other solution except the other solution also comes from Microsoft: Google even supports independent and open development, Microsoft oppresses it wherever it can catch it
- although Google has a huge market share (in Germany for example it is often said more than 85%!), it is clear that Microsoft will battle this down, with the usual way of bundled monopoly, so why care about Google as a monopolist when it will not last?
Both of them are guilty in case of forwarding private data of users to government structures which are not democratic or "good", whatever that means.
And last but not least: Microsoft is an aggressive monopolist, condemned several times but continues this way of marketing. That is not really a company which I would celebrate, even if they have some nice things.
The level Microsoft has to reach to be celebrated because of something new is much higher, some of the reasons I mentioned probably have caused this, too.
Microsoft on the other hand has never sent me anything with the words "Pay to the order of" they come close but usually theirs say "Pay in order to use our software"
The difference between MS and Google:
Goole tried to build the best search engine based on innovative search retrieval technology. They succeeded, and subsequently monetized their invention.
Microsoft created a system to deliver ads (MSN), then tried to pretend it was a search engine.
Throughout the 30 year history of Microsoft, they have proven they cannot be trusted. In Google's short 8 year history, they have thus far not betrayed users trust.