My Google Time?

“Does Google have a strategy, or are we just a bunch of mad computer scientists running around building whatever we want?” Catchy way to start a blog post I thought, conjuring up Einsteinian images of madmen in white lab coats with the gleam of computer screens reflected in their spectacles. Of course, the question isn’t really answered by Google’s Marissa Mayer and Jessica Ewing – they’re writing to announce the launch of a “personalisable” Google homepage.

The pundits began their analysis with the usual vigorous adoration and scorn (occasionally in the same blog). Danny Sullivan, from Search Engine Watch wrote:

The new personalized home page service will no doubt make many people scream “Portal!” That’s because despite the name, it is essentially a “My Google” feature, similar to the My Yahoo, My MSN and other My Whatever pages that portals created so their users could access the many features they offer. Well, Google’s already been a stealth portal as I’ve called it for some time, offering standard portal features such as email, search and the home pages of today, blogs. The new personalized home page is merely a visible acknowledgement of this.

Users of the new service can add features like:

• News, including Google News and other sources like Reuters and BBC
• Weather
• Driving Directions
• Quote and Word of the Day

Yahoo’s Jeremy Zawody jeered at Google’s adoption of what he thinks are Yahoo’s ideas. He taunts: “Not only are they inching ever more down the slippery slope to portaldom, they’ve decided that we at Yahoo have really been on the right track all along!”

Google haven’t officially adopted the Yahoo-like title “My Google,” but people like Tony Gentile are sticking with it, and if you go to customise your homepage you’ll notice a “My Stuff” section where you can add things like stock market info, Gmail, and movie info.

The stock implications are interesting. It seems like this development brings Google’s products into closer competition with the other major players. As David Jackson points out:

The Internet technology commentators are right that this development was predictable; but that doesn’t mean it’s insignificant for investors. The sentiment reflected in Yahoo, Google and Microsoft’s stocks does not adequately reflect the fact that those companies are increasingly competing with each other. Remember, 18 months ago that wasn’t true: Google was a search engine, Yahoo a portal and Microsoft a provider of desktop software. Now the focus of all three companies is increasingly the means to access content.

But what about users? Does the new site make information gathering easier? As always, it’s not wise to listen to the rants of others without checking it out for yourself. Having already signed into my gmail account when I went to the new address, my personalised page seemed to activate itself – kinda freaky, but convenient I guess. It seemed to work pretty well to me, but I’ll probably be sticking with the “blank” homepage on my computer at home; I like the whole blank canvas feel, where you seek the information, rather than it seeking you. Still, check out Google’s customised homepage for yourself here.