The decision to discontinue Google Reader has been quite a surprise to many, and actually an unpleasant one. So was the fate of Buzz. Though Buzz was mildly successful, I'd actually consider Reader to be quite successful. It definitely had a good user base and all the other services seemed to take it from granted, taking all the Google Reader feeds into their system. When it went away, it created a gap in the market all of a sudden. However, Google seems to be very clear about it's strategy on focusing on only that which works and shows continuous growth potential. The other aspect of it was Google's hard push for it's social networking service Google+, in a way forcing users to do what they used to do with Buzz in Google+. It has worked to some extent for sure.
Now coming to Blogging, Google acquired Blogger in 2003. Google has been making small updates to Blogger platform all the time, and I'd actually rate the current experience slightly superior than WordPress when one considers the value for money (or in case of Blogger, no money). When thinking about hosting, it provides a smooth consistent experience without fail. I've hosted 2 websites so far on blogger platform and finding it much easier to control the design and manage the blogs. Though WordPress has been known to be the engine for lots of famous websites, Blogger seems to provide just enough for a budding blogger to get going quickly with enough options for those who want to dive deep into the design.
I don't think it makes sense for Google to make sense in discontinuing blogger for the following reasons:
1. It's definitely among the top 2 now alongside WordPress, and Google wouldn't leave an arena where it still has chance to lead.
2. Without becoming a complete content management solution, blogger has already been very successful. If Google moves further in that direction, it has a chance of easily surpassing WordPress users.
3. Google is itself using Blogger platform to communicate with Googlers at the moment. In lack of a better medium (Google+ maybe), Blogger should continue to exist even if just to run Google's own blog.
4. Adsense has got a major push through Blogger. Blogger continues to be a platform which is helping Google add new Adsense users. Now it may be argued that Google should lower it's Adsense user base and only deal with the 20% that bring in 80% of the revenue. However, the competition is such that Google wouldn't want another Ad platform to succeed in a major way with those 80% users who bring 20% revenue for Google today.
5. Web Hosting. Google now officially provides a way to buy domains (even if through GoDaddy), this puts Google in sort of a contract for providing this service for the users that paid to get that domain and then to host on Google. This would be a big reason that will stop Google from discontinuing it.
So, as of now, it seems Google should continue with Blogger service, however the way it will transform into being more integrated with Google+ is definitely something a lot of people have been long speculating about. We'll know soon enough!
Now coming to Blogging, Google acquired Blogger in 2003. Google has been making small updates to Blogger platform all the time, and I'd actually rate the current experience slightly superior than WordPress when one considers the value for money (or in case of Blogger, no money). When thinking about hosting, it provides a smooth consistent experience without fail. I've hosted 2 websites so far on blogger platform and finding it much easier to control the design and manage the blogs. Though WordPress has been known to be the engine for lots of famous websites, Blogger seems to provide just enough for a budding blogger to get going quickly with enough options for those who want to dive deep into the design.
I don't think it makes sense for Google to make sense in discontinuing blogger for the following reasons:
1. It's definitely among the top 2 now alongside WordPress, and Google wouldn't leave an arena where it still has chance to lead.
2. Without becoming a complete content management solution, blogger has already been very successful. If Google moves further in that direction, it has a chance of easily surpassing WordPress users.3. Google is itself using Blogger platform to communicate with Googlers at the moment. In lack of a better medium (Google+ maybe), Blogger should continue to exist even if just to run Google's own blog.
4. Adsense has got a major push through Blogger. Blogger continues to be a platform which is helping Google add new Adsense users. Now it may be argued that Google should lower it's Adsense user base and only deal with the 20% that bring in 80% of the revenue. However, the competition is such that Google wouldn't want another Ad platform to succeed in a major way with those 80% users who bring 20% revenue for Google today.
5. Web Hosting. Google now officially provides a way to buy domains (even if through GoDaddy), this puts Google in sort of a contract for providing this service for the users that paid to get that domain and then to host on Google. This would be a big reason that will stop Google from discontinuing it.
So, as of now, it seems Google should continue with Blogger service, however the way it will transform into being more integrated with Google+ is definitely something a lot of people have been long speculating about. We'll know soon enough!
0 comments:
Post a Comment