Google Moves to Challenge Web Portals -- Wall Street Journal & NY Times

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: KOB <smoke_dc () yahoo com>
Date: May 20, 2005 11:30:10 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] Google Moves to Challenge Web Portals -- Wall  
Street Journal & NY Times
Reply-To: smoke_dc () yahoo com


The initial version seems *lite* -- few news choices, the Google news
feed, NYT, BBC, BBC, some boilerplate stock reports. These automated
feed collections are a commodity. What I don't get is this "labs" link
thing? Is this still rocket science or clever marketing to make it seem
like rocket science?

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Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 11:24 AM
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Subject: [IP] Google Moves to Challenge Web Portals -- Wall Street
Journal & NY Times




Begin forwarded message:

From: "John F. McMullen" <observer () westnet com>
Date: May 20, 2005 11:05:05 AM EDT
To: johnmac's living room <johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com>
Cc: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>, CardinalFarley List
<CardinalFarley () yahoogroups com>
Subject: Google Moves to Challenge Web Portals -- Wall Street Journal
& NY Times


(johnmac -- I just set this up; it's easy to set up -- particularly
if you already have a g-mail account -- and is very nice; go to
labs.google.com)

 From the Wall Street Journal -- http://online.wsj.com/article/
0,,SB111654074449338521,00.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news

E-COMMERCE/MEDIA
Google Introduces Web Service For Users to Customize Pages
By KEVIN J. DELANEY

Google Inc. is introducing a way for consumers to create personal Web
pages with customized news, stock prices, weather, and other
information, marking a further foray outside the pure search business
and competing even more directly with Yahoo Inc. and other Web portal
sites.

The new service, to be released in a test version (at
labs.google.com1), allows individuals to view information from
different Google services -- such as weather forecasts or messages in
their Gmail email inbox -- on a single Web page. It mirrors some of
the functions available to consumers through Yahoo's "My Yahoo"
service, "My MSN" from Microsoft Corp., and other rival offerings.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has said in the past that the
company is focused on search and isn't a Web "portal," a term used
for the generalist Web sites that often offer such personalized home
pages. But the new Google service shows how the company is
nevertheless providing many services traditionally associated with
portals, having added a number of them over the past year. It also
provides a way for Google to encourage individuals to spend more time
with its different services, and to show them more advertising.

"It's Google strengthening its relationships with its own users,"
said Danny Sullivan, editor of the "Search Engine Watch" Web site. He
doesn't believe the new service will steal consumers away from rival
offerings such as those from Yahoo and MSN. "It's more like shoring
up a weak spot than breaking through with something competitors don't
have," Mr. Sullivan added.

Similar services handle a substantial amount of the user traffic to
other Web sites. About 26 million people visited My Yahoo in April,
representing about 22% of the 115 million U.S. visitors to Yahoo's
sites, according to comScore Networks Inc. Almost 10 million people
visited My MSN in April, representing about 10% of MSN's 97 million
U.S. visitors. Spokeswomen for Yahoo and MSN didn't respond to
requests for comment.

Mr. Schmidt has said recently that personalizing Google's services to
specific users was one strategic focus for the company this year.
Yahoo also has cited personalization as one of its strategic pillars.

Google unveiled the service to media and analysts at its Mountain
View, Calif., headquarters.

Write to Kevin J. Delaney at kevin.delaney () wsj com

Copyright 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

 From the New York Times -- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/
technology/20google.html?
ex=1274241600&en=3a4d837ef6517029&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Google Moves to Challenge Web Portals
By KATIE HAFNER

The expanse of white space at the bottom of Google's main Web page,
possibly the most valuable undeveloped real estate in cyberspace, is
about to be subdivided.

Moving more directly into competition with portals like Yahoo, MSN
and AOL, the search company today unveiled a feature that allows
users to personalize the Google home page with features they use
frequently, like stock quotes, news and e-mail.

Google's goal is to give its users an expansive, one-stop home page.
"It's Google formally declaring that they are a portal," said Danny
Sullivan, the editor of searchenginewatch.com, a Web log devoted to
the industry. "And it's a very competitive market."

Google announced the new feature, called Fusion, at the end of what
it called the Google Factory Tour, a carefully staged daylong event
in which it briefed reporters and industry analysts - more than 100
in person and 500 more by Webcast - on its current services and
future directions.

Until now, Google has insisted that it is first and foremost a search
engine, with no plans to join the portal wars. But it has steadily
added services that provide functionality far beyond searching Web
pages.

And as it has done so, its rivalry with others - notably Microsoft -
has only grown more intense.

Last year, Google introduced Google Desktop Search, a direct
challenge to Microsoft's control of desktop computing, as it searches
for information on a user's personal computer as well as on the Web.
(Yahoo and MSN now offer a similar feature.)

For its part, Microsoft this year introduced MSN Search, a bid to
counter Google's Web search capability.

Eric E. Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said Fusion came about not
for competitive reasons, but as a result of user demand.

"It turns out that people really want a personalized Google," he said
in an interview. "They want Google, but they want it to be their
Google."

Like many of Google's new services, Fusion is starting out on a trial
basis, at labs.google.com. Users with a Google account can customize
a page, filling it with drag-and-drop icons for news (including
headlines from the Web sites of The New York Times and BBC News),
weather, driving directions, movies, stocks, and Gmail, Google's Web-
based e-mail service.

Marissa Mayer, the company's director of consumer Web products,
introduced Fusion, which was developed under her supervision. She
said that Google would not sell advertising on the personalized home
pages at the outset, but was considering doing so later.

Mr. Schmidt said he believed that Fusion would eventually become "the
definition" of Google.

"It will become a central part of Google," he said. "A majority of
people will eventually use Google like this."

Indeed, until now, Google's minimalist home page has been reminiscent
of what the writer Gertrude Stein once said about Oakland, Calif.:
There's no there there.

"It's obviously another major effort by Google to try to combat the
portal lock-in that MSN and Yahoo have," said James Lamberti, vice
president of comScore Networks, a market research company. "The
question for Google is how to give consumers more utility with Google
as a home page rather than just search."

Competitors were quick to assert that Google was simply following a
trail they had already blazed.

"Yahoo has a long and successful history in personalization," said
Helena Maus, a Yahoo spokeswoman. "We launched My Yahoo nine years ago."

My Yahoo, which allows customization of content on the Yahoo home
page, had 26 million visitors last month in the United States,
according to comScore Media Metrix, which tracks Web usage.

Adam Sohn, director of global sales and marketing at MSN, Microsoft's
Web portal, said of Google's announcement: "It validates an approach
we've had for a very long time. It's a less functional version of
stuff we've had in the market since 2001."

Over the last year or so, Google has intensified its efforts to
introduce new services.

It has added Google Print, to compete against the Search-Inside-the-
Book feature of Amazon.com. And the new Google Maps service uses
conventional mapping functions similar to those of MapQuest and Yahoo
Maps, and combines them with satellite and aerial images.

Even as the competitive pressure mounts, Google's share price has
soared.

Shares of Google closed at $239.18 today, almost three times the
price the company set for its initial public offering nine months ago.

The company also used the day to introduce the next generation of
Google's high-level executives, half a dozen or so engineers,
researchers and advertising sales executives, many in their 30's.
(The average age at Google is 30.1.) Among those present was Sergey
Brin, the co-founder and head of technology for the company, who is
31; Mr. Schmidt is 50.

The event took place at Google's five-building headquarters, a
complex ringed by volleyball courts and swimming pools.

The notion of a "factory tour" was highly metaphorical, of course, as
the only manufacturing in sight was the gourmet lunch produced by
Google cooks, who number roughly 100 and prepare meals for Google's
more than 3,000 Mountain View employees when they are working.

In addition to Fusion, the company showed off Google Earth, a global
database of satellite images of higher resolution than previously
available. It will be added to Google's offerings within a few weeks.

Laurie J. Flynn, in San Francisco, contributed reporting for this
article.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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    "When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra
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                           John F. McMullen
    johnmac () acm org johnmac () computer org johnmac () m-net arbornet org
                   johnmac () tmail com johnmac () echonyc com
            jmcmullen () monroecollege edu johnmac () alumni iona edu
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                   http://www.westnet.com/~observer
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