Here’s an idea. This is a little off topic to what my paper is on but it fits the description, kind of.

Google. An awesome company, come out with great ideas, (a little bit after the competition), but still good ideas. Example: Google Chat, came out after MSN messenger (now known as Windows Live Messenger, but will forever be called MSN) and wasn’t nearly as successful. Another example, Google Buzz, same concept as Twitter and Facebook message status, but not popular.

Why is this so? I’ve pondered and pondered and this is the answer I came up with. The Empire. Google’s empire has to do with single sign on. If you have one Google account you can access any service they provide? But what if you have an email address from another provider or say your own company? You can’t access Google’s services.

This used to be the case with MSN messenger, but not once they created the passport.net feature. Ever since that came out one could use any email address to create a passport.net account and access the MSN messenger service.

In the case of Twitter and Facebook, one can use any email address to access their services. Sure, you have to create an account, but once you do, you can just give everyone your own e-mail account instead of having to give them a new one. Chances are most people already have that e-mail account anyway.

Now, on Google’s side, they do have the best e-mail client I’ve ever used. Gmail makes life very simple and straight forward with the option to customize and complicate things to one’s liking. I would tell everyone to switch over (which I often do). Not to mention an amazing spam filter that keeps the viagra wannabe ads out of my inbox.

So here I pose another question, why don’t people want to switch to a better service?

An answer coming soon…

Social Networking