| — |
Google Apps Standard Edition Findable Again (via techcrunch) Sawickipedia says: RealNetworks was the king of the where’s waldo free link for their real player for years (vs the paid premium version of dubious value). As a monetization geek, I get way folks do it but it’s really a short term play that grates users and begins to undermine the killer brand that google has built. This is NOT helping google’s users and is purely a cynical monetization ploy. Worse users will see it from a mile a way. This is one step closer to a meme where people begin to think of google as another big, bad corporation, in many ways not dissimilar to MSFT. When the day comes, and its coming, that google gets sued for antitrust, the lack of popular support will bite them in the ass. Anticompetitive crusades are politically driven and a disaffected populace won’t help google at all. All in all a dumb move. Google doesn’t need where’s waldo so it shouldn’t use the tactic. |
Google just emailed to say that a link to the Standard version has been added back to the landing page. And they reiterate that they have no plans to kill the product, they’ll just make users play a version of Where’s Waldo to find it. (Ok, they didn’t really say that last part about Waldo).
“
