The Biz of Coding

Is Google Doing a Yahoo? Makings of the Google Portal

by Ujwal Tickoo on April 21st, 2006

Google (GOOG) seems to be moving slowly but certainly toward becoming a Portal.

In my previous post on the launch of Google Finance I had stated that Google Finance seemed to be more or less a copy of Yahoo’s top finance portal (which is now testing new stream quotes) and also said:

I expect the top visited sites at MSN, AOL and Yahoo to get duplicated by Google in the near future with 11 new features to mention in Press Releases.

Here is a screen shot of Google’s personalized page which seems to be trying to do a Portal Act!

I had also posted on Google’s hints about going after Social Search which has been a Yahoo interest area. Google’s recent Calendar launch is again a copy of a service that Yahoo offers — of course with some differences.

 Google Desktop is basically Google’s Portal as of now invisible on the Web on the Desktop!

Google seems to be sensitive to the rebuttal that its copying Yahoo. It is therefore keeping its portalization efforts a low key and terming it as personalization. Tara Calishain in her blog states:

Google itself is starting to offer portal content. Google’s ability to personalize pages goes far beyond weather and horoscopes. At the same time, Google’s not promoting this feature too much on its front page. You’ll have to go looking for it…Start your portalizing at http://www.google.com/ig. (If you have a Google account, you can log in, but you don’t have to.) You’ll see that you’ll already have some personalized content on the front page.

My concern is that though Google will have its own perspective — duplicating Yahoo may not be the most innovative direction it should take.

POSTED IN: Google Finance, Google Search