The Prospect of a Public Google Portal – Part 2 of 2
[ Have you already read the first part of this post? ]
FAQ
What about YouTube and Knol, you may be asking? Good question! They most definitely fulfill the functionality of a web portal. The YouTube homepage gives you a rundown of users’ activity, recommended channels, featured videos, and more. Knol also has a featured section, and their Plain old bag o’ knols. However, both YouTube and Knol are kept apart from the main Google portal (where both the search engine and iGoogle reside).
Turning the actual Google.com into a public portal — displaying (more or less) the same featured content to all visitors — would have a huge impact on the web. Of course, I expect this featured content to come from all corners of the web, and not to be restricted to the Googlesphere. Nevertheless, I don’t think Google should be too shy in featuring YouTube videos and Knol articles as well.
But then again, other public portals do exist — why should Google.com join the game as well?
Well, the very reason I’m contemplating the prospect of such a portal is because:
- I enjoy having an easy and quick access to diverse content.
- I keep seeking new venues where my own content can be featured.
Mashing up the power of social bookmarking, editorial picks, syndicated streams, personal customization, and statistically-discovered content could make one hell of a web portal. Then what’s stopping Google?
Pros and Cons
From the Google perspective, designing a public web portal is an almost certain golden egg:
- It would give the company even more control over flow of information in the web.
- Its overnight success is without a doubt, and it would draw away users from using the portals of rival companies (I need not mention names).
- It’s also a great way to promote less-than-successful initiatives, such as Knol — and would also help monetizing YouTube.
From the user perspective, many people would start to find all their virtual needs fulfilled entirely within the Googlesphere (for good and mostly for bad).
And as a publisher, if my small-time content can manage to find its way into the Google.com homepage, then not only would I’d be flooded with more traffic than this site can handle, but my reputation would also be accredited with the Google stamp of approval. Ensuring the promotion of random blogs and alternative sources of information is what interests me the most. I mean, isn’t this the very essence of the American dream (turned global dream)? Anyone could have his 15 minutes of fame.
- However, featuring bad content might project doubt on Google itself.
- At the same time, featuring YouTube/Knol/Blogger content might yield cries of ‘foul‘.
- I can also imagine all the bad press such a move would ignite: “Search company makes its final transition into a media network”.
- And let’s not forget the obvious animosity this would spark among rival media companies and advertisers alike.
Summary
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize what a terrible idea this is. In the long run, such a public Google portal would not only disadvantage the rest of the web industry, but might also do great damage the Google’s credibility and therefore afflict its advertising revenues.
Perhaps the Googlefolks realized this too, and that’s the reason why there is still no “public” Google.com portal after 10 whole years. Or perhaps someone there honestly believes in the “do no evil” motto.
I guess the prospect of a public Google portal will remain yet another Halloween tale.
I don’t know why would you thought that having a portal would be a good idea for google.
Google’s business is not content providing. Google’s business is service providing. Google is providing tools and applications for companies and individuals to search, access and even create content.
They are, right now, the most important and most popular service provider for searching (google), and sharing information. (youtube / sites / blogger etc)
As such, they are used by people who prefer different kinds of content. People who read technorati, and people who read yahoo, and people who read ynet and people who read CNN, NYT, and what not..
Becoming an active player in the content market (even by selecting “featured” content) will strongly decrease their hold in their huge market.
They will lose their business focus, they will face tremendous criticism and they will cease being accepted as an “objective” (sometimes even “scientific”) tool for information retrieval. This is a huge advantage they have over MSN, YAHOO and their likes. Why would they forgo this advantage to become like their losing competitors?
There are already voices that accuse google of promoting policies through search ranking algorithms. Why would they want to distant more people, by “editorializing” their supposedly objective data services?
Their entire motto is that the user is king, and their algorithms supposedly try to consider different “economic” rules to establish what is a good source. Human intervention will get them in lots of trouble.
There are already two services who promote “featured” non-google content on their first page. That is Google News and Google Blog Search. They do that using algorithms without human intervention. Both services are facing problems. Their content featuring algorithms are not the best in their respective markets, and they face constant criticism over creative rights, and objectivity (who’s to decide what is an objective news source? who’s to say what blogs are scanned and what blogs aren’t?)
So again, accessing the content market would be a HUGE mistake for them. They are currently a whole level above content players such as Yahoo, MSN, CNN, NBC and what ever.
Why would they want to stoop to a smaller market share which creates an issue over public trust of their main services?
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