Breaking Google’s Stranglehold On The Internet
The backlash against Google’s recent moves was amazing to follow last week, and it’s been rare to see such little support for their actions. One of my favourites is from One Mans Blog who suffered a Page Rank 8 to 5 Page Rank reduction, even though they were in personal contact with Google’s Matt Cutts.
I actually feel that Google have done me a personal favour this weekend by reducing my Page Rank from 6 to 3, as it made me realise how reliant I had become on google for the key services I use on the internet, and I’ve decided it’s time to break free and to only use Google once I’ve decided their services are actually the best, rather than just by default because the service is from ‘Google’.
When I was new to the internet everything was fun and I loved to experiment with new services, which was perfect as my job for the last 8 years has been to find new services and content to offer to ISP customers, by either building them internally or through partnering with existing providers.
I’ve only realised today how much I’ve bought into the Google ‘brand’ and how I use their apps for virtually everything. Take search for instance. In the past I used to constantly use different search engines. If I couldn’t find what I wanted on one search engine, rather than refining terms I’d try just move onto the next search engine. Now I just use Google for everything, and if I can’t find it on Google I just give up rather than trying Yahoo or AltaVista etc
This isn’t good as part of my day job is to understand the pros and cons of key online service providers, and just using Google for everything isn’t helping me professionally. Because of this and because the Page Rank debacle has left such a sour taste in my mouth, I want to find replacements for the Google services that I use personally. Even if Connected Internet can’t break away from Google’s stranglehold, then there is no reason Everton Blair can’t. I’ve worked with Google in the past professionally, and I will probably do so again in the future when I’m making decisions for my company where the priorities are different from my own. But, from today I will only use services from Google myself once I’ve proven that they are the best available.
The Google services I now have to find evaluate potential replacements for are:
- Gmail: I think I will switch to Yahoo! mail as I haven’t tried it since the service launched the Ajax client. Does anyone have any other recommendations? Key requirements are webmail, IMAP/Push functionality for my Nokia N95, a big mailbox and a way to manage multiple email addresses from one mailbox. I own the domains (x3) for all my addresses - maybe it’s time to run my own email server?
- Search: I’ve moved to Yahoo initially as they are doing so much work with Panama and other engine tweaks that I haven’t been tracking sufficiently, although I intend to try a few others as well
- Google Reader: A tough one as I love it, but then again, I haven’t even looked at another reader for around 18 months. Any recommendations? Again I need something that i can sync with my Nokia N95 i.e. fast and only shows me stories I haven’t read yet
Update: Martin has been having virtually identical thoughts this weekend
Bookmark & Share
Comment by Mark on 28 October 2007:
What about feedburner, who were acquired by Google? Or is that taking things too far, by using an alterative?
Comment by Pranjal on 28 October 2007:
I just came back yesterday from the college trip and check my blog…. My PR had change from 3 to 4. But i didn’t gave a damn about it back then and still won’t give a damn. Google sucks, ever since they have virtually monopolized the web search space they started acting like a big fat capitalist. I always have preferred yahoo mail as it much better then gmail. GOOGLE SUCKS
Comment by Ankit on 28 October 2007:
@Everton
No, I really mean it. Its nothing related to this Pagerank Mayhen. Yahoo Search Assist can be very very useful. I have written a similar post on Yahoo Assist as well.
Comment by Everton on 28 October 2007:
Yahoo Search Assist is very useful - I love the almost realtime search feel
Comment by Ankit on 28 October 2007:
@Everton
I can`t agree with you more. The difference between Google and Yahoo is not about relevancy, its about being more famous. I tried Yahoo couple of days ago, on suggestion from few of my friends. And I was really thrilled with Yahoo’s new features like Yahoo! Search Assist.
Just try some of new Yahoo! for few minutes and I am sure many more will be converted.
Comment by Everton on 28 October 2007:
@Marcus
*80% of the web (actually about 70% in UK, 50% in US) use Google because in 2001/02 the webmasters and techies of this world started telling the mass market that Google was the best, whcih was true, and everybody started using Google. Before that there used to be regular ‘battle of the search engines’ tests to find the best one - I haven’t seen one of those for years.
If those same groups start testing other engines and recommending others people will switch. We’ve seen it happen with Firefox - not quite mass market yet, but when you think of the progress is has made in an even tougher market with less competition it has done amazingly. there’s no reason that same community of trusted individuals can’t take down what they built.
Comment by Will Dwinnell on 28 October 2007:
I have been encouraging people to use multiple search engines for years now. I have nothing against Google, but there are other, perfectly good options. Some of my favorites are: AllTheWeb, Clusty and DevilFinder.
Pingback by Reevaluating Google is the best theory on 28 October 2007:
[...] Breaking Google’s Stranglehold On The Internet Related Posts [...]
Comment by Marcus the Lover on 28 October 2007:
I wonder how switching to competitive services can help me and my sites. What matters is that 80% of humanity out there still fire up google for their data mining activities.
Comment by Bloddard on 28 October 2007:
This is very encouraging Everton. It makes you sort of stand outside and look in, it give you perspective. I only use Google now because I have Adsense on my blog and also I do the occasional search. Aside from that, Hotmail and Yahoo are my best friends.