5 ms·

Honest question, why does google want to get into every damn online market? They are freaking awesome at launching moonshots like Self-driving cars, maps/street

by dm8 13y ago

Honest question, why does google want to get into every damn online market? They are freaking awesome at launching moonshots like Self-driving cars, maps/streetview, Glass etc. why they even care about 'smaller problems' (comparitively) like online music that is fraught with licensing problems and lawyers? There are so many problems in the world that Google could solve with it's resources and can turn into billion dollar markets. They are pretty much becoming MSFT rather than AAPL in doing so.

dpcx 13y ago
You can't index all of the world's data unless you have all of the world's data...
- acangiano 13y ago
  Plus supposedly smaller problems can become in time much bigger ones. Basic for Atari was a small problem.
  - dm8 13y ago
    Well, online music is not particularly new or smaller problem. The problem is online music is fraught with litigation challenges. Of course, only GOOG or any other tech giant could fight them off with their resources. But at the end of the day, will it really lead to multi-billion dollars in returns?
    - acangiano 13y ago
      I'm not defending their choice per se, but I can see how they see this move as potentially worth the trouble. It could for example give them an edge when it comes to the adoption of Android devices. Directly it might not generate enough revenue, but it can be an important piece within an all-encompassing ecosystem they are trying to create, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
- roc 13y ago
  Further, things like this give them competitive ammo in G+ vs Facebook & android vs iOS, which are battles over far larger chunks of data than this service alone will generate.
MatthewPhillips 13y ago
> Honest question, why does google want to get into every damn online market? It's inevitable when you get into the platform business. This is a check mark for comparison charts, nothing more.
tnuc 13y ago
Answer; Money. The other things you listed aren't money makers.
- RyanMcGreal 13y ago
  > The other things you listed aren't money makers. Yet. It's nice to see Google focus on a mix of cash cows, short-term easy risks and longer-term speculative ventures.
pmelendez 13y ago
To be fair, is not that crazy and it is consistent with making the android platform stronger. One of the reasons I love my WP8 is Xbox music which IMHO doesn't really have a match in Android world.
sp332 13y ago
It gives them more fine-grained demographic data to show you more-specific ads later.
VikingCoder 13y ago
"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

by dm8 13y ago

dpcx 13y ago

You can't index all of the world's data unless you have all of the world's data...

acangiano 13y ago
Plus supposedly smaller problems can become in time much bigger ones. Basic for Atari was a small problem.
- dm8 13y ago
  Well, online music is not particularly new or smaller problem. The problem is online music is fraught with litigation challenges. Of course, only GOOG or any other tech giant could fight them off with their resources. But at the end of the day, will it really lead to multi-billion dollars in returns?
  - acangiano 13y ago
    I'm not defending their choice per se, but I can see how they see this move as potentially worth the trouble. It could for example give them an edge when it comes to the adoption of Android devices. Directly it might not generate enough revenue, but it can be an important piece within an all-encompassing ecosystem they are trying to create, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
roc 13y ago
Further, things like this give them competitive ammo in G+ vs Facebook & android vs iOS, which are battles over far larger chunks of data than this service alone will generate.

MatthewPhillips 13y ago

> Honest question, why does google want to get into every damn online market? It's inevitable when you get into the platform business. This is a check mark for comparison charts, nothing more.

tnuc 13y ago

Answer; Money. The other things you listed aren't money makers.

RyanMcGreal 13y ago
> The other things you listed aren't money makers. Yet. It's nice to see Google focus on a mix of cash cows, short-term easy risks and longer-term speculative ventures.

pmelendez 13y ago

To be fair, is not that crazy and it is consistent with making the android platform stronger. One of the reasons I love my WP8 is Xbox music which IMHO doesn't really have a match in Android world.

sp332 13y ago

It gives them more fine-grained demographic data to show you more-specific ads later.

VikingCoder 13y ago

"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."