3 ms·

Etherpad is making its way into Google Docs... of the 3 you mentioned, only Dodgeball was neglected.

• mgkimsal 16y ago
  Etherpad's team was initially put on google wave (the reference to bad interface above) before that was shut down (also referenced above). Etherpad itself was shut down before a replacement was made available (by google - the code was released which was nice). My point is that there's typically this huge gap between acquisition and any demonstrable positive action. During that gap, there's either no change at all or the service is hobbled/impaired, during which time competitors could come in to the market. In those tech acquisitions, the barrier to entry was kinda high (hard to write a good replacement for etherpad quickly). The barrier to entry in groupon-space is nill - there's dozens of copycats already. If Google takes its time as its done with other acquisitions, they may end up owning the #2 or #3 player in this space within a year. You'd think with the muscle of Google behind them, nothing could go wrong, but if Google doesn't choose to do anything useful with them (perhaps only buying to prevent MS or Yahoo from owning them), it could still stagnate.
  • ditojim 16y ago
    "My point is that there's typically this huge gap between acquisition and any demonstrable positive action. During that gap, there's either no change at all or the service is hobbled/impaired, during which time competitors could come in to the market." ok i agree. it does take _forever_ for google to convert its acquisitions over to their infrastructure, often with no improvements to the service initially.