Recently Google announced that they are binning their google reader. As the news went out, the world went into a fury. B2B customers who were practically running their businesses based on Google reader estimate millions in loses. B2C customers are more worried about the millions of news feeds that they had painstakingly saved.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/03/end-google-reader
This act of Google is like a reaffirmation to people on how important originality of thought is. Basing businesses on Google, Facebook or any other company is not entirely wrong, because this can simply be viewed as a Supply Chain where one business caters to the needs of the second. However what is important to note here is that in a typical supplier-buyer relationship, there are contractual agreements to safeguard the interests of both parties. However lately, within the new web-world, such contracts have taken a back seat. Clearly there is no incentive for Google or for Facebook or others to continue providing any of their service, and they are likely to shed off their dying service the moment it stops making money for them, leaving other parasitic businesses gasping for breath.
More importantly what worried me about this behavior from Google was their indifference to their own customers. This is little less known behavior, because even though there are no contracts between customers and businesses, businesses usually pay a lot of attention to fulfilling their customer's requirements. Having said this, it seems that google well knows that its customers are linked to it via multitudes of product propositions, and so binning one will not create a major loss for the giant. It is also an amazing realisation that humans adapt very fast, and so it is quite likely that people will find new ways to get to their favorite reads and will stay with Google.
The worst hit, though, are the parasitic businesses, who have not just lost their business engine, but also have lost their customers.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/03/end-google-reader
This act of Google is like a reaffirmation to people on how important originality of thought is. Basing businesses on Google, Facebook or any other company is not entirely wrong, because this can simply be viewed as a Supply Chain where one business caters to the needs of the second. However what is important to note here is that in a typical supplier-buyer relationship, there are contractual agreements to safeguard the interests of both parties. However lately, within the new web-world, such contracts have taken a back seat. Clearly there is no incentive for Google or for Facebook or others to continue providing any of their service, and they are likely to shed off their dying service the moment it stops making money for them, leaving other parasitic businesses gasping for breath.
More importantly what worried me about this behavior from Google was their indifference to their own customers. This is little less known behavior, because even though there are no contracts between customers and businesses, businesses usually pay a lot of attention to fulfilling their customer's requirements. Having said this, it seems that google well knows that its customers are linked to it via multitudes of product propositions, and so binning one will not create a major loss for the giant. It is also an amazing realisation that humans adapt very fast, and so it is quite likely that people will find new ways to get to their favorite reads and will stay with Google.
The worst hit, though, are the parasitic businesses, who have not just lost their business engine, but also have lost their customers.
