Is There Any Industry That Doesn't Fear Google?
from the killing-inefficiency-everywhere dept
For a company that "does no evil," there sure are an awful lot of companies that seem pretty scared about what Google might do next. There are the obvious ones, of course, such as ad network firms and software companies (especially web-based ones). Telecoms keep looking over their shoulder on rumors of Google's impending efforts to offer wireless networks. Newspaper firms are still a little questionable on the concept of Google News. Then there's a company like Wal-Mart. Apparently Wal-Mart is scared that Google will help shops discover that someone else has a lower price today than Wal-Mart's everyday low price. Basically, the way to summarize this article is that Google is all about making things a lot more efficient -- and there are plenty of industries that have thrived for years on their ability to exploit information inefficiencies. Google's ability to wipe out information inefficiency can basically kill a lot of business models. Welcome to the age of information.
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Excite@Home Part 2
I can see the Google PhD's getting drunk on their own success and praise -- sounds like that company is rather lacking in the more practical down-to-earth, community college types.
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Summary
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Re: economics
Being a fairly hard-core capitalist, I think that the advent of more equitably accessible information for all can only be a good thing.
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Re: economics
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underwhelmed
it's all about the hype. and you believe it.
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Actually Freakonomics...
Take insurance for instance, it used to be a lot more difficult to compare and contrast various plans between companies (and it still is difficult) but with companies like Progressive and Geico who pride themselves on being able to show you the price difference given the same amount of insurance factors (deductibles, limits of coverage, etc.).
Another example is the field of real estate, information on the web allows a potential buyer (or seller) collect information and facilitate a buy (or sell) of a house/duplex/apartment without the need of an agent (of course, there are inherent problems with this plan). Thus margins for real estate have gone down as well. However, agents still do much better than average Joe, but that gap is becoming smaller.
Just my two cents.
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