4 ms·

This is something that's been going on for a while - Google killing small web apps; Convertors, calculators, movie listings, ip finders, weather stats, stocks.

by user24 15y ago

This is something that's been going on for a while - Google killing small web apps; Convertors, calculators, movie listings, ip finders, weather stats, stocks. It's not all low-hanging fruit. I'm not saying they shouldn't be doing this, nor that it's intentional. Their goal is to be the best search engine which means connecting searchers with answers as quickly as they can. But even so, it sucks for the web apps who get made redundant by Google. Also, it's interesting to compare this with, say, Yahoo's approach. Yahoo would have put an "IP" widget and a "weather" widget on their portal homepage. Google waits until the user searches for the info before giving it to them - which keeps their homepage clean and more importantly keeps their message strong "we do search well", while Yahoo's always seemed to be "we do a whole bunch of stuff, some of which you may need". I know Google/Yahoo comparisons aren't really du jour, but still it's interesting.

keeperofdakeys 15y ago
What's worse is that they could drop these services in the future, all of a sudden there is nothing capable of performing the function.
- vilya 15y ago
  ...leaving a gap in the market which something would surely arise to fill.
  - keeperofdakeys 15y ago
    It still disadvantages those people who want to use that service while there is nothing to perform the job. Take google recently killing code search http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/fall-sweep.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/fall-sweep.html. One of the commenter's had been building their own code search platform before google did. Google entering the market meant that this was no longer viable though http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3112444 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3112444. A new code search platform will no doubt pop up, but it will take a while to get something that works well. This is the problem with the giant company stepping into new areas, it often leaves destruction in its wake.
biot 15y ago
It sucks, but if the small app someone wrote can be duplicated in 10 seconds of coding then its days were already numbered.
- user24 15y ago
  This is why I mentioned that it's not all low hanging fruit. Movie listings? Requires feed integration, handling a lot of data, non-trivial presentation. Same with weather. Getting a good weather app is not 10 seconds of coding. Some, like ip address, are simple things, but even so whatismyip.com built a huge range of products around that one simple service.
  - catch23 15y ago
    I always hated how weather sites could not just detect my approximate location based off of ip (eg weather.com) and required me to enter in my zip code, google fixed that.
    - artur_ 15y ago
      About a year ago I've built a small weather app which detects users' location using Geolocation API: http://wthr.in http://wthr.in
    - eli 15y ago
      http://www.wunderground.com/ http://www.wunderground.com/ has worked by geoip for a while now.
      - ajross 15y ago
        Pretty sure they got that after google. For years, wunderground was the best of a bunch of terrible web sites. They're still about 40% ads by pixel though, and have a hugely cluttered UI. I'll use them as a second step (Google's "detailed forecast" link) after typing "weather" into the chrome address bar. But broadly, they still suck compared to Google.
ChrisArchitect 15y ago
with the more significant things like movie listings, weather..... it's about Google + the world's information. They want it to flow through them/be indexed by them/found and offered up by them
antirez 15y ago
Actually the only way for a "my IP" application to make some money is be indexed as first result in Google I guess. At least I never remember the domain of one of that 200 trivial apps and search on google. So makes a lot of sense they showing you the result if you search for "ip" or "my ip".
- markmccraw 15y ago
  I bet some of them find alternative ways to get visitors and that a decent number of people use the bookmark feature. Now, how valuable a visitor is to a page like that is another matter.
markmccraw 15y ago
Well, a lot of those webapps fall in the "feature, not a product category" and were pretty clearly living life on the edge. I await the day I can anagram via the search bar.

by user24 15y ago

keeperofdakeys 15y ago

What's worse is that they could drop these services in the future, all of a sudden there is nothing capable of performing the function.

vilya 15y ago
...leaving a gap in the market which something would surely arise to fill.
- keeperofdakeys 15y ago
  It still disadvantages those people who want to use that service while there is nothing to perform the job. Take google recently killing code search http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/fall-sweep.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/fall-sweep.html. One of the commenter's had been building their own code search platform before google did. Google entering the market meant that this was no longer viable though http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3112444 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3112444. A new code search platform will no doubt pop up, but it will take a while to get something that works well. This is the problem with the giant company stepping into new areas, it often leaves destruction in its wake.

biot 15y ago

It sucks, but if the small app someone wrote can be duplicated in 10 seconds of coding then its days were already numbered.

user24 15y ago
This is why I mentioned that it's not all low hanging fruit. Movie listings? Requires feed integration, handling a lot of data, non-trivial presentation. Same with weather. Getting a good weather app is not 10 seconds of coding. Some, like ip address, are simple things, but even so whatismyip.com built a huge range of products around that one simple service.
- catch23 15y ago
  I always hated how weather sites could not just detect my approximate location based off of ip (eg weather.com) and required me to enter in my zip code, google fixed that.
  - artur_ 15y ago
    About a year ago I've built a small weather app which detects users' location using Geolocation API: http://wthr.in http://wthr.in
  - eli 15y ago
    http://www.wunderground.com/ http://www.wunderground.com/ has worked by geoip for a while now.
    - ajross 15y ago
      Pretty sure they got that after google. For years, wunderground was the best of a bunch of terrible web sites. They're still about 40% ads by pixel though, and have a hugely cluttered UI. I'll use them as a second step (Google's "detailed forecast" link) after typing "weather" into the chrome address bar. But broadly, they still suck compared to Google.

ChrisArchitect 15y ago

with the more significant things like movie listings, weather..... it's about Google + the world's information. They want it to flow through them/be indexed by them/found and offered up by them

antirez 15y ago

Actually the only way for a "my IP" application to make some money is be indexed as first result in Google I guess. At least I never remember the domain of one of that 200 trivial apps and search on google. So makes a lot of sense they showing you the result if you search for "ip" or "my ip".

markmccraw 15y ago
I bet some of them find alternative ways to get visitors and that a decent number of people use the bookmark feature. Now, how valuable a visitor is to a page like that is another matter.

markmccraw 15y ago

Well, a lot of those webapps fall in the "feature, not a product category" and were pretty clearly living life on the edge. I await the day I can anagram via the search bar.