4 ms·

There is always room in any given space for another company. What if Google took that attitude when looking at Yahoo, AltaVista, or HotBot?

• pbhj 17y ago
  But Google had an idea that was different to what Yahoo, et al., were doing that's how they broke in. They were well differentiated and were effectively offering a new product, low spam SERPs drawn from a wider crawl of the 'net. If Yahoo had already been offering a comparable product to Google then Google wouldn't have done so well at all IMO. That said, when we started our pottery painting business we were pipped to the post by another very similar business (ie pottery painting) in the same area, we'd already been concerned that the area might not support us alone. We'd started the business, rented a building and refurbed it, quit jobs, bought stock, etc.. Still we're going 5 years later and they lasted 6months before closing (due to family issues). The point being you can still succeed you're just going to have to try a lot harder. They may fail, even if they're better. You can still win even if they're better (betamax, hddvd, etc.).
  • redrobot5050 17y ago
    Actually, the founders of Google initially wanted to sell their product to Yahoo, Alta Vista, Ask.com, et all. Nobody really believed their algorithm would significantly better. They were convinced state of the art was all there was and could ever be. So they founded Google, and pretty much owned their stagnant competitors. There's a reason Ask.com spends good money marketing itself among rednecks with a NASCAR and Google doesn't.