Google have so many products, but they still have a way to fully utilize and nail down their competitors. Here is a short list,
- Google Buzz failed to build the momentum to compete against Twitter, despite being shoved down our throats through Gmail. There was no community or value for users.
- Google Wave failed by being pointlessly complicated, even for geeks like me. They built an API for extensions before getting the main product right.
- 3rd party authentication with multiple identities (Gmail / Google Apps) is a pain for users, unlike using Twitter or Facebook which have one clear identity: myself.
- Social review sites (like Yelp) focused on consumers are eating Google’s lunch in the business listing market. Compare Yelp’s social approach to Google Maps’s aggregator for the same place.
- Different products are barely connected. Google Analytics, Google Adwords and Google Webmaster Tools seem to follow completely different UI guidelines and have overlapping ways of verifying you own a site.
