I think that a portion of this is due to Google's unusual hierarchy model. Between the 20% time projects and the large number of small, loosely related teams, they're constantly trying new strategies (whether internally or in the market).
When a related idea makes headlines, it makes sense to release both to make google look good ("We're one step ahead of you..."), and to draw traffic to otherwise unnoticed projects.
The reason we don't see this type of behavior in other market leaders is that they don't take Google's "Throw lots at the wall and see what sticks" approach (at least not to the same extreme).
Personally I think that taking an 'innovate constantly and let the market sort it out' approach is both a shrewd use of resources (as long as you let failures die early), and a good way to keep from getting too comfortable/over-adapted to one niche. (Although it's worth noting that not many Google projects likely make money without relying on Adsense).
Tech companies (startups included) are uniquely situated to take an 'evolutionary' approach to business because you can
1) Move fast (and cheaply)
2) Quickly identify failures (good metrics) and
3) Keep a fairly flat hierarchy/network, which enables efficient communication.
While I largely agree, there are downsides to launching so many "project" services. They end up with a lot of half-baked products under the Google brand.
The end result is that I'm wary of investing time in new Google services. As a business owner, its of the utmost importance to me that my vendors are in for the long haul, and outside of its core areas I don't feel that way about Google.
Google Talk is a great example: I would never switch my primary point of contact to a Google service because I don't trust them to maintain it.
Google Talk is based on XMPP, although their implementation of it is supposedly not up to par. I know I can use my gtalk account through pidgin's implementation of XMMP, though.
Gtalk isn't that bad - I know a lot more people who use that than, say, AIM or Yahoo. The client is better than iChat, at least.
What do you use for instant messaging? Time Warner is spinning off AOL. What if AOL finally goes under? Yahoo probably won't go under, but what if they need to make drastic cost cuts and decide to cut off the YIM service?
Probably better off running your own XMPP server and rolling your own client. I mean, you can never tell if any of these other chumps will stay around for the long haul! /s
I'm a fool, I meant Google Voice instead of Google Talk, the service they built out of GrandCentral. I don't trust Google to stay interested in the Voice product long enough to change my primary phone number.
Good idea about running our own XMPP server, thanks. If we start interacting with our clients more via chat that would definitely be the way to go.
FWIW, for instant messaging I primarily use Skype, although I have had an AIM account for 10+ years.
When a related idea makes headlines, it makes sense to release both to make google look good ("We're one step ahead of you..."), and to draw traffic to otherwise unnoticed projects.
The reason we don't see this type of behavior in other market leaders is that they don't take Google's "Throw lots at the wall and see what sticks" approach (at least not to the same extreme).
Personally I think that taking an 'innovate constantly and let the market sort it out' approach is both a shrewd use of resources (as long as you let failures die early), and a good way to keep from getting too comfortable/over-adapted to one niche. (Although it's worth noting that not many Google projects likely make money without relying on Adsense).
Tech companies (startups included) are uniquely situated to take an 'evolutionary' approach to business because you can
1) Move fast (and cheaply)
2) Quickly identify failures (good metrics) and
3) Keep a fairly flat hierarchy/network, which enables efficient communication.