An unofficial blog that watches Google's attempts to move your operating system online since 2005. Not affiliated with Google.

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July 3, 2006

If Google Didn't Exist...

* our mail account would still have 2MB or 4MB of storage and we would be happy about that.

* we would find a mail by manually reviewing each subject and sender.

* we would pay for software like Picasa, Keyhole (now Google Earth), Sketchup.

* many startups would not exist without Google AdSense, so there would be less innovation.

* Opera would still be shareware and ad-supported.

* our homepage would be a portal, or about:blank.

* our search engines would be cluttered, would mix ads with organic results and wouldn't care about the users.

* we wouldn't look for a search bar in every site.

* we would think beta software is just for the testers and it's dangerous.

* technology news would be less exciting.

61 comments:

  1. com certeza! concordo com tudo tambem! nao sei o q seria de nos sem o google =D

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  2. Oh and this blog wouldn't exist. lol

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    Replies
    1. Blogspot existed before Google bought it.

      Delete
    2. Blogspot existed before Google bought it.

      Delete
  3. DEFINITELY!

    Google is responsible for a lot more than they get credit for... kinda sad, really.

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  4. But tbh, if google wasnt here, another company or companies would do the same tasks.

    Inbox's were already increasing on hosting accounts, and so were public (yet slower). It would only be a matter of time before yahoo or microsoft increased to say 500mb, then to compete they would goto 1gb, etc... upto 2gb or even more.

    "* our search engines would be cluttered, would mix ads with organic results and wouldn't care about the users."
    Again as with inboxes, it would only be a matter of time before Yahoo or MSN updated their technology and improved searching.

    "
    * we would pay for software like Picasa, Keyhole (now Google Earth), Sketchup.
    "
    How do you know these companies wouldnt make the service free after some time in business? They may have reviewed their product and saw that advertising would surfice their revenue, seeing as though free products sell more, thats more money from advertising.

    "
    * our homepage would be a
    portal, or about:blank.
    "

    IGoogle?

    "* we wouldn't look for a search bar in every site."

    "powered by Yahoo Search".

    "
    * many startups would not exist without Google AdSense, so there would be less innovation.
    "
    True in someways, but if they were real business people, they would find other ways of paying for the startup, or startup differently.

    "* we would think beta software is just for the testers and it's dangerous."
    Beta software is for testers though, thats why its called BETA, not for wide public use but testing. And beta software can be dangerous, can crash your browser, computer, etc...

    "* technology news would be less exciting."
    Yahoo Portal?


    Google is a great company and has opened up a brand new look on the web, although im sure that if Google wasnt around, other companies would take its place in aspects of the company.

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  5. Yahoo's homepage in 1998, when Google was launched:



    IGoogle is not a portal in a traditional sense. This is a portal:

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  6. Dear blog readers! Perhaps, you didn't know, but most Google "innovative" features, including snippets, link counting known as PR, lightweighted search page, existed in Russian search engines Rambler and Yandex. Pitifully, they were not worldwide SE. And virtually unlimited inboxes were also introduced before Google. And I firmly believe that there were a lot of other examples of technological advances "invented" by Google, which actually existed BG.

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  7. Firefox wouldn't bring much revenue to Mozilla and not be nearly be half as successfull

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  8. Why should Opera be Shareware if Google didn't exists?

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  9. Read this article.

    Opera has renegotiated their search as revenue contract with Google to the point where they no longer need banner ads to support the Opera browser. In browser searches will default to Google search where Opera will be reimbursed with a higher AdWords revenue share than before.

    From Opera "Revenue in the long term is expected to increase as the ad-free browser is expected to significantly expand Opera’s market share and the contract with Google provides more search revenue per user".

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  10. I agree with all that was said and I could easily list a few more that couldl be added to the list in the future...

    Anyone who does not understand any of the points on the list... Sorry but you just dont understand the fundamentals of business or the internet...

    Google is the best thing to happen to our generation... The only company to actually move things along at the speed with which they should have always moved...

    Traditional comapnies have been lazy... with zero innovation for years, as long as the money keeps rolling in they dont care...

    Well now they have to!!

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  11. If Google didn't exist, the name "Google" would be nothing more than the surname of the old newspaper comic strip character, Barney Google. Am I the only one old enough to remember?

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  12. First off:

    "
    Anyone who does not understand any of the points on the list... Sorry but you just dont understand the fundamentals of business or the internet...
    "
    Hahaha... Im sorry, but come on...

    As for:

    "IGoogle is not a portal in a traditional sense. This is a portal:"
    Lets delve into the world of wikipedia:

    From Wikipedia.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_portal):

    "Web portals are sites on the World Wide Web that typically provide personalized capabilities to their visitors. They are designed to use distributed applications, different numbers and types of middleware and hardware to provide services from a number of different sources."

    IGoogle?

    Examples of Web Portals:

    http://go.com/
    http://excite.com/

    What a shock, these all look like IGoogle, could this be because IGoogle is a portal!?!?!?!?!?


    ----------

    And...

    "Firefox wouldn't bring much revenue to Mozilla and not be nearly be half as successfull"

    Firefox was already growing before Google started leaching onto it so it made sure its search engine was at the front of the program. I got it before Google started advertising it, and word of mouth was already spreading.

    ------------

    "Traditional comapnies have been lazy... with zero innovation for years, as long as the money keeps rolling in they dont care..."

    Right, yeh, ok...

    "Well now they have to!!"

    They had to anyway, theres this thing called normal company competition, its where one company competes to be better than another. With billions of skilled people on this planet, there cant just be one company in a certain popular market, otherwise that market is low and not worth being in. If you dont have to compete, its ethier a blue moon or you in a market that has very very very very very very very little customers.

    "I could easily list a few more that couldl be added to the list"

    Well go for it then...

    "Google is the best thing to happen to our generation..."

    One of the best things. Teletubies was also a great movement in childrens TV, even tho thomas the tank engine was a classic.

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  13. * our search engines would be cluttered, would mix ads with organic results and wouldn't care about the users.

    HELLOOOOO. Are you kidding? Searching on Google NOW gives you exactly those results. Google is STILL the best search engine, but it gets creepy wanting to know so much about users to better organize information. Google has a few problems: fraud is growing; competitors like Yahoo, eBay, and Microsoft are finally wising up; and lastly advertising is very cyclical...wait and see what growth happens during Crash 2.0. Coming soon....

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  14. Ok how do i put this. It may be true that all the features would have EVENTUALLY been introduced or that they existed somewhere else. Google managed to bring them to the masses. So innovative or not we still owe a lot of thanks to the Google team.

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  15. "Ok how do i put this."

    Hopefully in a comment, then i can read it.

    "It may be true that all the features would have EVENTUALLY been introduced"

    may be = is

    "or that they existed somewhere else."

    Lets list some Google Products:

    - Google Search (Oh, Yahoo did search before)
    - Google Mail (Oh, MSN did hotmail)
    - Google Maps (AutoRoute?)
    - Google Local (Yellow Pages?)
    - Google Images (Again, Yahoo?)
    - Google Groups (Hmm...)
    - Froogle (Kelkoo?)
    - Directory (Yahoo?)
    - Google News (Yahoo, MSN news?)
    - Google Labs (Pure genius)
    - Code (Pure genius)
    - Desktop (Windows XP)
    - Translate (BabelFish)
    - Blogger (Purchased)
    - Picasa (Purchased)
    - Writely (Purchased)

    You'll notice the bottom three have been purchased, Google didnt invent them, yes they pruchased them to spread they name around. But blogs were already on the massive increase. You telling me http://www.blog.com/ was based upon blogger? There were already image programs, yes Piscasa is lovely, but so are alot of other programs, yes its free, but only because Google Sponsers pay loads on click fraud to help Google's revenue. So in a way, even though you personally might not pay for it, inocent companies are paying for it through fraudsters and Google and getting all the cash from it.

    "Google managed to bring them to the masses. So innovative or not we still owe a lot of thanks to the Google team."

    Again, AutoRoute was on many computers, yes expensive, but then again, Windows Live - Free?
    Yellow Pages was also in "the masses".
    Yahoo was in "the masses".
    Babel was in "the masses".

    The list continues...

    --------------------------------------

    Dont get me wrong, I love Google and I have so much respect for them for the things they have done and released, as well as the way they used to go about it.
    Their Labs section is amazing in terms of a developer. I usally try my hand at recreating them privatley to see if my skills match (most of the time they do :P lol.). And yes, they are more opensourced than other big companies like Microsoft who'd probly kill you or lock you in a programmer room if they handed you an API kit.
    And yes, Google (Classic Home, not iGoogle, even though i love the extras and effects on iGoogle - draggable gadgets etc...) homepage is wonderfully clean and tidy and amazingly quick to load (the reason why i have always set it as my homepage). Its a quick, clean start to the internet.

    Overall, if Google didnt exsist, we would still have all our beloved applications, although it might take a couple of months or at the maxium a year longer for them to come.

    Yes Google are very good at releasing products to the masses, although so are alot of companies, to name a few...

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  16. Google a billion-dollar fraud?

    Click fraud a huge problem
    Study finds practice widespread; many cut back online ads

    Internet advertisers paid $800 million for bogus clicks on their marketing messages last year, shaking confidence in the industry and prompting many to reduce spending with Google, Yahoo and other Web sites, according to a study to be released today....

    http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/05/BUGL6JOQPA1.DTL

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  17. * our mail account would still have 2MB or 4MB of storage and we would be happy about that.

    Doubtful. While Gmail did significantly affect the development of other email systems, the reduction in the price of hard disk space also had an affect. Also, even if Gmail hadn't come along (and even now it's only a small player in the market) Yahoo mail and Hotmail would have gone head to head, with an obvious result being more storage space.

    * many startups would not exist without Google AdSense, so there would be less innovation.

    Lots of startups don't use AdSense even now, so I don't agree with that. However, they do set themselves up with the hope that Google et al will buy them out, which probably wouldn't have happened without Google.

    * our search engines would be cluttered, would mix ads with organic results and wouldn't care about the users.

    I see little evidence that convinces me that Google cares about their users.

    Your other points I tend to agree with. ;)

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  18. if google doesn't exist,I will be still watching TV and not surfing over the internet :-)

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  19. Saludos a todos, google es para mi en internet como los cubhiertos en la mesa. Todos sabemos que podemos comer con las manos, pero los cubiertos nos permiten: comer mas ordenadamente, no ensuciarnos o ensuciarnos menos, coger los alimentos liquidos(con la cuchara), cortar la carne facilmente, ademas de permitirnos llevar una conversacion o una lectura, donde necesitemos las manos. Ahora uso google calendar con mis compañeros de la universidad cuyos horarios son diferentes a los mios. Es dificil saber o recordar lo que ellos hacen y poder planificar una reunion de grupo...
    Si google no existiera, quien haria nuestras tareas???

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  20. You people disgust me. Yahoo is a dirty booger that no one can find a way to remove on the brilliant face of innovative web design. All those ignorant fools who pointed out contradictions for every sentence in this article are only making themselves seem more foolish. Google obviously cares about users (or “lusers” in the case of phil and all those anonymous people), and all those things that they claim other companies made first, well guess what? Google did them better! This is comparable to what van Leeuwenhoek did to microscopes. Yes, microscopes were already invented, but even with a simple-lens microscope, he could resolve more than most complex microscopes at the time. They say stuff like, “Firefox was already growing.” Well, guess what (again)? Google popularized it! Google didn’t create these things, but it spread them. And whether they like it or not, people don’t say “Yahoo it,” they say “Google it.” Really people, come on. If you don’t like Google, why don’t talk to your moms about it? At least that will make you feel better.

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  21. Here's a post even you Yahooers can understand: "Yahoo bad, Google good."

    If the comman after 'bad' provides too much of a challenge for you, feel free to skip over it.

    Saying Yahoo would have eventually developed those technologies (by itself) that it stole from Google is like saying Native Americans would have learned Arabic by themselves.

    No, no, it's more like saying that the pope is Hindu.

    Get over it guys, ok?

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  22. Hotmail was also purchased by Microsoft... So MSN didn't Hotmail.

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  23. I would'nt agree with all of these
    1. Mail accounts having 1GB - Rediff introduced it some time before google did. But google obviously took over because it has the super search engine in it
    2. Opera became share ware because of competition from firefox... Not because google became popular
    3. If not picasa or sketch up, some linux product would have been made for free and in sometime transported to windows also... It is because picasa is there for linux also, nobody is competitive enough
    4. Our home page would have been the next best search... Yahoo


    But dont take in the wrong sense. I am a strong user of google products and have absolutely loved them.
    Only that google was not the creator of all.

    I would like to add more to the positives list...

    1. If not for Gtalk, jabber clients like Psi would have never come up.
    2. Mailing is now THE most reliable, fastest, easiest way of sending info... thanks to gmail.

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  24. These comments are funny. Ponder upon this, if Einstein had not existed would we understand the theories of relativity or have understood quantum mechanics or have developed the atomic bomb?

    The answer is yes, but what Einstein did is allow us all to get there about 30 years before we would have otherwise. Google is Einstein, it has allowed progress and innovation for the sake of innovation to return thanks to the pay-per-click business model (which they didn't invent).

    Yahoo began with two guys sitting around and manually categorizing new websites. Do you remember the early Yahoo and having to navigate through the categories to hope to find what you were trying to find? It was a piece of crap system then, not just in hindsight.

    Google began with two guys wanting to represent the internet as a series of interconnected nodes and applied Markov's theories to allow an underlying truth to the nature of the internet's structure to become apparent.

    In case you didn't notice, I'm a fan of Google, even after I turned down a job offer there.

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  25. mean internet means google for me
    it is simple to use then others, it is so much cheap (even there is no fee for much services , google makes me internet love,
    ı hope god gives him the rightway, ı am praying for this.

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  26. I'm waiting for the next internet darling. One that give me privacy and spares me of advertisement. Wonder if Google ever heard of 'subscriptions' and why are they so shy about being up-front on how much money the advertisement they shove down my throat against my will really makes them.

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  27. Jeez, Einstein, Einstein, Einstein. Why the hell does Claude Shannon never get any love?

    He practically invented the use of boolean algebra in digital ciruits, pulled sampling theory and information theory from the head of zeus, and single handedly advanced the invention of microprocessors and the internet by half a century. If it weren't for him we'd arguably still be using Vannevar Bush's mechanical differential analysers.

    All Einstein did was explain why light bends around really heavy objects, and then whinge about how useless quantum mechanics and Wolfgang Pauli were for three decades. Big f'ing deal.

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  28. we would still live the same...definitely it wont be a better life!!!

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  29. Without Google I would still be cleaning my inbox from spam every day :-)

    Dear Adrasteia, Albert Einstein not only helped us to understand light, he also layed the foundation for many devices that are used every day by now.
    Laser? How about a world without laser, or solar-cells? Even GPS couldn's be as accurate as is it without his theories. Completely safe encrypting methods use them.
    Countless medical techniques make use of lasers.
    Just a small sample!

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  30. I wouldn't have liked internet much!!
    And the coders would be scratching down the hairs in search of suitable code!

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  31. "* many startups would not exist without Google AdSense, so there would be less innovation."-That may be but I could sure live without the zillion MFA (made for adsense) sites clogging up the web.

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  32. Google the search engine already no longer exists! Google no longer shows results beyond the first 1000. If you enter "google" into Google you're told there are over a billion matching pages but "Sorry, Google does not serve more than 1000 results for any query" comes up after page 1000. Any "search" engine that only lets you access less than a millionth of the pages found is just an advertising engine and its days are numbered (maybe even at less than a thousand!).

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  33. Waiting for Google to start its own Operating system!

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  34. Oh and this blog wouldn't exist. lol

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  35. We were mining data link from Harris Hilltop at he same time as yahoo then some one invested a million dollars and they took off with ebay when they started and blogger before Google. Ebay is great because they share the wealth as google does I watched many a small company get rich off Ebay And Google but the scripts were there before any of them started. What is your Idea

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  36. If google didn't exist,we would have printed yellowpages with all the website printed... Other than that, small directories always existed

    cheers

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  37. without GOOGLE our life would be difficult :)

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  38. if Google didn't exist, then kids would be use computers to do more than cut and paste, and perhaps some of them might actually learn to find answers outside of the box.

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  39. i think this is a waste of my time reading this.

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  40. If Google didn't exist... another person or company would have brought innovation and became sucessful in this market.

    There is no need to idealize Google. As much as I like and use many of their tools, the company is run by humans and it does have its flaws.

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  41. If google didnt exist, I would switch to yahoo. LOL!

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  42. Google rocks and it changed everything.

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  43. * we would think beta software is just for the testers and it's dangerous. ??
    Do you think different now???

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  44. Google still is in the lead, even though Bing has some good points.

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  45. I think Google is the best and always will be, I like the Android and Chrome and the webtools too! We even have a Google wave.

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  46. Not sure if you all saw this but there is a new service called Google Goggles. It is a search based upon phono taken with your Android!!

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  47. Google has to be the forerunner for a long time to come. I think that they have been trying to recruit the best guys from Stanford, etc to keep the Google "Wave" going so to speak!
    TIA

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  48. Hah can't even remember life before Google anymore. It blows my mind to think of what email was before Gmail

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  49. 'what if google didnt exist?' what kind of question is that? with all do repect, i think we all know the answer to that, ARE YOU INSANE if google didnt exist we would be screawed for example when we turn on the internet what do you see? GOOGLE and if we need to get some infomation of a project where do we go GOOGLE even the computers at the liberary use google so also the liberary will need google too and if there is no google where will we go BING thats right BING and bing sucks alot like they are so needy right now they are making commercals that suck like bing and you know how people go to bing? they go to google and type in bing so pretty much google owns bing. look you get the point all i have to say you shouldnt even say that nevermind a whole WEBSITE! look im pretty young and i just told you the answer if google didnt exist that not even a bunch of 40 year olds that spend all their time infront of a computer cant answer

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  50. Google is awesome !!!
    - me <3

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  51. if google where to close there browsers for 24 hours the country would be in a crap state. goverment offices use google to surf there info

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  52. Also if google didnt exist there wouldnt be droids any more D:

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