tackling brands is tricky, tackling verbs is even harder
Matt Yglesias asks “Is bing better?” in reference to Microsoft’s new search engine which may or may not become a real competitor to Google. Microsoft often enters these various markets with mixed success – the Zune has gained some ground recently, at least as far as I can tell speaking with friends. I haven’t checked the data. The Xbox remains popular and competitive against rivals Playstation and Nintendo. And, of course, Windows is still the top dog there – for now.
But creating a competitive search engine is tricky. Not only are there already a number of other search engines – like Ask.com and Yahoo! – but even those don’t really compete against Google in any meaningful way. This is largely because Google has transcended mere brand status and has become a verb. Once something becomes a sort of universal noun, that’s bad enough. Kleenex did this in the tissue market, becoming pretty much synonymous with tissue. So whether or not you were using a generic tissue or a Kleenex, you called it a Kleenex. They transcended brand. But it’s so much more potent to achieve verb status, and that’s what Google’s done. You “google” something now – you rarely hear someone say “search.” You never hear anyone say “just ask it” or “just yahoo it” – or at least, I never do. [Read more →]
July 9, 2009 12 Comments
