25 things I hate about Google at Search Engine Watch.
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March 15th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
All his gripes seem really nit-picky. They seem like things that most people would never deal with, or things that anybody could easily ignore (like his first one - that search count is just a widget, who cares if it\’s right?).
Google has never done me wrong. The main reason this is so is because everything they give me is free, and even has relatively low advertising compared to any other site.
Their search engine changed how I get around the web (I can now do it faster and more accurately, and I don\’t have to visit multiple search engines to find something). Their caching of web pages means that I can get the information I need even from a very old link that was taken off the web years ago. The fact that Blogger is free, and ad-free, was the main reason I got my blog started in the first place (if I had to pay, or had to put up with ugly ads and pop-ups, I would\’ve given up). Gmail is giving at least twice as much as both Yahoo and Hotmail, and it\’s cleaner, faster, and (once again) free.
True, they\’re not perfect. I wanted Blogger to have categories or a more customizable commenting system. I want the search results to have less duplicates overall. But it\’s free. I\’m not going to complain.
That\’s why I can\’t even believe that one of the things this guy hates about Google is that everything\’s free. Is he kidding? He hates it essentially because he\’s scared that they won\’t be able to sustain it. I\’m not sure he understands the expectations of free services that people have come to have for the internet. If Google went to pay services for anything, even $1 to sign up for e-mail, I\’d drop them and go back to Yahoo or (shudder) Microsoft for my internet needs immediately.
As long as the internet remains unpoliced there will always be free services on the web, and I think we\’re blessed that at the moment Google is offering high quality ones. Seriously, that guy should wander around the web a little more. Google has by far the least intrusive, least annoying, and most relevant ads of any website around. If that\’s the only price I have to pay for a high quality search engine, the best e-mail experience I\’ve had yet, and free blogs whenever I want them, then sign me up, please.
March 15th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
I read his other article, 25 Things I Love About Google and was reminded of two other reasons I’m a Google fan for life (or at least until they start screwing me).
Reason #1, Google maps. This really only starting hitting the net around the time we left America, but it’s everything I always wished Mapquest would have been. I lived on Mapquest (which makes it very hard to come to a country that is not mapped), and I know if I still lived in the US I would have a reason to be on Google maps everyday.
Reason #2, Google Desktop. Specifically Desktop Search and even more specifically, it’s caching feature. Twice now I have accidentally deleted a set of very important files from my computer. And both times, Google Desktop saved me by keeping them cached for me. Because of that, Google Desktop is one of the first things I put onto a fresh Windows install, up there with virus and spyware killers.