GOOGLE READER LAUNCHED... A BUNCH OF COMPANIES GET "GOOGLED"

At Web 2.0, Google announced its new feed reader. Mix reviews but I'm sure it will rapidly improve over time. Greg Yardley has a good post on mood of some conference attendees after Google made this announcement. I can imagine the words flying around... crap! f*ck! ohmy. As I posted before, it's probably a crappy feeling to get "googled" by Google. To see thousands of hours of work, dreams of fortunes, and the excitement of building something cool, hitting a brick wall at a 100 miles per hour.

A ton of people will write about the services that Google Reader provides, so let me just say this - as soon as it was announced, I heard a quietly muttered ‘fuck’ from somewhere behind me to my right. Didn’t turn to see who it was - but in the crowd we’ve got here, it could’ve been one of many, many people.

I imagine the new Google Reader will contribute even more to the quiet (or not-so-quiet) feeling that Google’s doing too much, swiping not just engineers but business models away from the small start-up. Google VP of Engineering Alan Eustace’s comments that more engineers means more products - since Google’s committed to small team-size, no more than three per project - is only going to add to this feeling. Google is at risk of becoming the Microsoft of Web 2.0. (full post)


[tags: web 2.0, web2.0, google, rss, technology, web, blogs, search]