There are advantages to both sides: Yahoo knows exactly what Google is offering and can offer something uniquely different, albeit in the same product. For example, we saw how much attention Google got when they opened up Google Maps. The way Google’s system was built is completely different than in the past, and the idea of online maps was not from any one company’s ideas exclusively — both MapQuest and Yahoo had online maps at the time, but Google copied neither’s ideas. Google brought online maps to the next level, and shortly thereafter, our friends over at Yahoo reconstructed their system (in Flash, no less) to rival Google’s system. Google, on the other hand, can claim that they were the creators of this higher level of mapping, and have a head-start on Yahoo.
Of course, since Yahoo has been around longer, many of Google’s ideas may appear to be from Yahoo, but we’re not looking at the big picture. Online mapping was developed by more than one single company, as was email, online storage, web searching, and many other things that Google offers. Regardless, Google has taken ideas which, in some cases, have garnered limited success in the past and turned them into practical, though possibly over-hyped, applications.
You might say Google is copying other companies’ ideas in the same way that Yahoo is copying Google’s ideas (or their own ideas after being influenced by Google’s changes to them), but what makes it so obvious that Yahoo is intensely watching Google and jumping on any opportunities to offer the same products, is how Yahoo closely follows behind Google. It was just a few months following the release of Google Maps that Yahoo Maps was reconstructed, and it was just a few weeks following the announcement of GMail that Yahoo (and MSN) expanded their email storage capacity.
In Yahoo’s defense (which I admit, due to my biased point-of-view, I will attempt to make as washed-up and worthless as possible), if Yahoo had not closely rebuilt Google’s recently released products, Yahoo would certainly be falling further behind in the game. Yahoo’s decisions make perfect economic sense, but one of the ramifications is the appiration that Yahoo is simply copying Google. And unfortunately for Yahoo, the public gets this impression, too.
To illustrate that the public gets the aforementioned impression, I’d like direct your attention to the following snippet of a conversation I had with a friend a few days ago.
Me: I call it the “Google-Yahoo Effect”
Me: Has a nice ring to it, eh?
Friend: A bit
Friend: What is it about? Google makes something innovative and then Yahoo copies it and tries to beat it?
Hence the two companies, in all fairness, are battling over who has the better product line, and for now, the winner is Google. It also seems that the one thing Yahoo forgot to copy may be one of the most critically important things they could have done to maximize revenue early in the game — before it was too late — and that thing is called advertising. (Okay, they have advertising, but you never hear anyone talking about “Yahoo ads” do you? I think that, to be consistent, Yahoo should have competed with Google more in this area than they did. Who knows? Yahoo may have become a major advertising competitor at this point.)
Taking ideas that are innovative, new, old, unsuccessful or successful, reinventing it to become even better, and having a rival follow in your footsteps: this is the Google-Yahoo Effect.
That sounds like a conversation I had with you. I agree wholeheartedly with you–google is a company that is recognized for its innovation and because of that has an edge over any other web application that might be its rival. If there is an application that is very similar to Google Maps, but you know Google’s reputation and the quality of their products, they will use Google over the other company. That’s the way it is. Until Google tells its audience otherwise (by creating a type of application that isn’t up to their standards) I know I will use Google. Its my search engine of choice, mail client of choice and also my map engine of choice. This is partially because I am familiar with the company. Yahoo is a great site in its own right- I use it for all my sports-relating things such as using its Fantasy Sports stuff, such as creating Brackets for March Madness; I know that I will turn to Yahoo for that sort of thing, but otherwise, I see no need to use multiple sites/web apps when I can just use one site, that site being Google.
March 16th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Great read. No one would have thought Yahoo would last this long, but they surprisingly did. Though I do not follow ads too closely, it seems that many people are actually switching to Yahoo ads. The logic behind this is that Google is able to deliver more content based ads, but Yahoo pays more per click.
With every up, there’s a down. Yahoo had it’s ups, and arguably it’s downs (though in my opinion I think it’s more neutral than down). Google’s time will come.
I hope Yahoo, as well as other companies keep competing like this, because in a sense, Google has become a “Microsoft”, and the idea scares me, as well as most people I’m sure.
Nice article Jona
March 17th, 2006 at 12:22 am
But it was quite logical for MSN and Y!Mail to keep up with the trends its competition, with out Yahoo Mail, Yahoo would be finished.
April 6th, 2006 at 5:37 am
Yes, like I said, Yahoo made economically sound decisions, it’s just that personally I would have opted for other decisions — I would have started by improving their existing services extensively before Google even went public.
April 6th, 2006 at 10:29 am