Reactions To My Google Personalized Home Page
So the My Google service — ahem, Google Personalized Home Page — is now out. What’s being said?
Here’s a round-up of things I’ve spotted so far. I may add other interesting things to the bottom of the list, as the day goes on.
Google Blogoscoped has a poll on what people think. When I last looked, about half
(52 percent) say they find it "a good start which might become an alternative to classic Google." The next most popular choice was "They should stop releasing new stuff and
concentrate on search," at a distant 13 percent.
The Google Blog gives you Google’s own take on the personal page,
touching on how it’s part of Google’s "fusion" initiative (please, couldn’t they have called it Fusion) to merge Google features with content from across the web.
Yahoo’s Jeremy Zawodny sits back with a chuckle and
thanks Google for copying Yahoo — so was Yahoo right all along, he declares.
Mind you, Yahoo’s itself has done plenty of copying of Google, so turnabout is fair play. And that’s the point of all this. Yahoo has shored up search, simplified things and
added features over the past two years in response to Google strengths. Meanwhile, Google adds things like Gmail, maps and now the personalized home page to stay competitive
on fronts where it is weak against Yahoo. Imitation on both sides? Yep. But even more so, it’s just reaction and staying competitive.
Jeremy also pushes for a proper name for Google’s new service: My Google. Lots of others already call it this. I certainly think it makes sense.
Obviously, Google avoided the My Google name out of fear of being branded a portal. But if everyone’s declaring you that already, jump on the bus and use the name.
John Battelle is generally positive about the move and finds it an interesting "unnatural"
move for Google, being responsive to competitive issues.
Tara Calishain wants much more offered, and faster. It should be noted that Google
pushed the launch of this ahead nearly a month, so it could be previewed at the Google Factory Tour yesterday.
Charlene Li at Forrester shares some stats on how relatively few have Google as their
default home page compared to MSN. Of course, there’s not been a whole lot of reason to have it as your home page until now, which is of course the point she and others like
myself are making. This is designed to help Google build even more loyalty. But then again, you can’t just define loyalty by default home page. Google’s whopping huge share of
search is generated by millions of users who come to them over and over again, default home page or not.
Brad Hill is feeling it’s too little, too late and wondering why.
Google?s MyCopycat at fantomNews does a recap of various comments along with a short
rain on Google’s parade.
Dave Winer sees the move as Google stepping up as a portal, open the way for someone else with a
laser-like focus on search to replace them.
BBC News with Eric Schmidt saying of the new home page: "It not a portal. It’s a personalization tool." In
case you’re wondering, the lack of horoscopes is what prevents it from being a portal page 🙂 Google also stresses that despite the sticky nature of the personalized page, the
goal remains "to get people off the Google site."
The New York Times on Google believing a majority of its users will eventually personalize through
the page and other ways. Plus a statement from Yahoo that nine years of experience with My Yahoo will serve it well, thank you very much. MSN says me too!
Search Engine Watch has the story I wrote, where I pretty much think it’s something Google had to
do but is hardly a Yahoo or MSN killer.
Want to discuss or comment? Visit our forum thread, Google Gets Personalized
Home Page Feature.