Google is now starting to push Urchin which they bought a while ago.
What does this mean to you and I?
It means that google pretty soon will know everything about every website online. Imagine how good of search results they’ll be able to provide when they know exactly how long someone stays on your site for, how many pages they view, and exactly how many hits your site gets.
That’s powerful.
Couple that with the direct stab Google just took at Microsoft with paying people to advertise for firefox. People can now put a graphic on their website and get paid to refer people to use firefox, IE’s biggest rival.
Do you think this is going to prompt a huge market share jump for firefox? You better believe it.
Why would google do that? Because not only do they dislike microsoft, but they’re going to get amazing statistics from it, just like they’re getting from the IE toolbar right now.
Plus, if people are using firefox, that means that microsoft isn’t getting those statistics.
Now couple that with the google reader that came out a few weeks ago. Does google now know what are the most popular news/blog sources online? Yes.
Gmail? Controlling email?
(twilight zone music plays)
Now, I like google for somethings, and don’t like them for others, but this may just be getting a little out of control. Pretty soon, google is going to know about everything that goes on online…anywhere!
You won’t be able to hide anything from them, if it’s online.
Good? maybe.
Bad? probably.
Monopoly in the making?
Maybe.
Will I be using google analytics on all of my sites? Absolutely not.
Will I download firefox with the google toolbar? Maybe. Depends on how cool it is and how much extra value I get from having it over what I currently have with firefox.
The one mistake I see google making right now is not targeting the younger audience. Kids and teenagers are using Yahoo right now. Do you think they’ll switch when they get to college? I doubt it. Not if Yahoo keeps improving their offerings like they do.