I just signed up for this:
So, as I understand it:
– When I ‘Search’ for ‘Campion School’ (the school I went to), not only will my school’s search results show up on the left of google, but now on the right, I will also see search results of Campion School as available in my personal Gmail id!
The results on the right will most probably be those e-mail trails of old school friends with whom I have been communicating with, newsletters from the Campion School Alumni Association, etc.
– I am most likely to find the information on Campion School I was looking for on either side of google, and by adding both the www and gmail results on one page, google just made my life a whole lot better!
– Yeah, I can go to my gmail box and search for ‘Campion School’ in the ‘Search box’, but that’s a pain. This is a one shot interface.
– More importantly, I may have forgotten that I had actually communicated with people on a particular subject, or I may not remember the context, etc.
This new feature makes gmail even more compelling to use. I mean Outlook or Live or Hotmail or Bing or Bong or Dong – whatever it’s called, just gets destroyed with a feature like this!
– Next, imagine that I am in a Christopher Columbus frame of mind (he was an explorer just in case you flunked your history lessons!) and sign into G+ (Christopher Columbus did do some crazy stuff once in a while)…
I look up Campion School inside the Search box there and G+ gives me these options:
Now, lo and behold, I now get G+ posts of other people on the subject! (facebook will lose a big battle on this if they don’t open up Universal search on their site).
What’s missing in the drop down is ‘gmail’ and I am sure that it will come soon.
Thus, I will be able to now ‘Search’ across the world wide web, google + posts and my own gmail account!
I just love the way Google is Pivoting its nuclear missile called ‘Search’ and preparing to nuke everyone around!
PUN – The ‘Outlook’ for folks like Microsoft if they know how to read the writing on the wall, is rapid extinction.
– Also imagine when google combines ‘Search’ with results from the Android Market place (if the drop down had ‘Android Apps’ and there was a Campion School App, then it would come up here)!!
This combination is looking like a real killer!
Lessons:
– If you have a major success in a business or product or brand, then first make it rock solid (like Google has done with Search). Make it unbeatable.
– Next use that winner and layer it if possible around your other business ideas and check if ‘cross success’ (as I call it) is possible.
– Keep experimenting with the trials, but never ever change the DNA of the original winner.
So, while google has failed in so many of its trials with products such as ‘google buzz’ etc, it has never tampered with ‘Search’. It has never twisted or stretched ‘Search’ to make it suit some new product ideas hot out of the smokey Mountain View labs.
– Closer to home, Games2win – a casual games company of whom I am the CEO and Co-Founder, believes that its 600+ web (flash) games are its core winners.
We toss and throw these games around and mutate them to adapt to platforms such as iTunes and Android, but we never compromise on making 8-10 new flash games a month.
– Yahoo! in my humble belief, has ‘Traffic’ as its killer!
Attracting 400-600 million global visitors a month is no joke. These visitors come to look up content on yahoo.com, and also check into their yahoo mail, but in the past many years, Yahoo! has just not been able to leverage its visitors to do something beyond ‘landing up’ on its home page and mail accounts.
“Keeping still” is a curse and Yahoo! is paying for it miserably.
– Google and how it leverages search within e-mail is a shining example of ‘inter play’ between two disparate but critical consumer requirements on the web. I salute Google!!
Homework:
Can you list examples that you have tried, and also of other companies & brands that come to your mind?
*******