2008: You shouldn't try to build web-based Office alternatives because Google, Adobe, and Zoho are already doing it.

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1998: You shouldn't try to build new search engines because Lycos, Excite, and Altavista are already doing it.

Any argument that proves it was a bad idea to start Google is probably a bad argument.

Ok, but Google didn't just start a search engine to compete with Lycos. They struck oil with a new approach to search.

It's hard to say "any argument that proves it was a bad idea to start Excite" because, you know, Ferraris and hookers and coke and all that. A great idea.

But if you're taking on Microsoft, Google and Adobe, you'd better have an awesome idea, and you probably don't need the "this is a good market" encouragement.

My point is that you're both taking cheap shots.

Google didn't just "strike oil." The idea that they discovered a magical new algorithm that guaranteed their success is an urban legend. The main thing that made Google different from the portals was that they actually cared about doing search well. (When Google was started, their predecessors were trying hard to get people to stop calling them "search engines.") So there is plenty of room for a new startup to have the same sort of advantage over Google etc in web-based apps that Google did over preceding search engines.

My understanding is, Google didn't start as a "search engine that cared about doing search well". It started as a company to capitalize on Page and Brin's doctoral work. Their original plan was to be an arms dealer for other search engines. It was an idea first.

"search engine that cared about doing search well"

That quote is not a quote, is it?

Thomas, I'm done with this thread. I'm sure you mean well (at least, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), but I've noticed before that arguing with you is exactly like arguing with a troll. The defining quality of both being finding oneself always saying "No, what I said was...."

Duly noted.

You said "they struck oil with a new approach to search." I believe nobody, not even other search companies cared about the algorithm. The search engines did not want to buy PageRank (outright, not just license), not even for $1M. Not even during the Dot Com craze. Nobody wanted to improve search, in other words. That's what PG is writing about.

Had Larry and Sergey received $1M, then I would agree that they would have struck it rich, and probably continued their doctorate studies. But instead they decided to build a company around it even though no other company believed they had anything worthwhile to, in the order of increasing significance, 1) purchase, 2) invest in, 3) license, or, most insulting of all, 4) not even pay their own employees to copy (at least not until 4-6 years later.) And yet, they decided to drop out of the best Graduate Computer Science program and try to start a great company because existing portals were not doing search well, and nor did they care. Only a long time later did Yahoo! decide to license Google search (nobody else did) and, only even later did Microsoft and Yahoo! started paying their own employees to clone Google's search tactics (as well as look and feel.)

Nobody reigns forever. Rome falls. The advantages of being small and agile can't be understated.

A bonus people don't realize is that you're not necessarily competing with big companies. You're solving problems where they get the credit and you get money. I'm not in that boat yet, but that's exactly what Paul's been writing about for the past 8 years.

The advantage of being small in a field where 3-5 big companies try to create a web suite is that they have to focus on each other, not on little startups. While they're busy trying to match each other feature for feature in the way that a big company is supposed to do, you can develop a solution and traction, that they would love to buy and release to show the users and media how "smart" and "cutting edge" they are, even though they did not themselves commission the creation of the technology. It also helps them self-affirm and brag that they hire "the best and the brightest."

don't you mean they can't be overstated?

LOL. Yes. Typo attributable to lack of sleep. =)

I have to side with PG design. Most of Google's properties have a mediocre user experience at best. I'm not so sure it's their Achilles heel (at least for search) but it's definitely an area where a startup could crush them.

Your analogy is weak at best, -- office suites aren't really an algorithmic problem ... Google beat out Lycos, Excite and Altavista because it created a better algorithm for indexing and organizing information. Office suites are about features -- lots of them, thus entering the market competitively requires man power not intelligence. Is there room for improvement... certainly. But it is incremental improvement. I just don't think its the type of area where some killer new idea can shake up the entire space.

As always, history will judge whether these ideas are good or bad. Reading about it on a blog is not going to change my mind.

Worse, if it DOES change my mind, what have I gained? Nothing. I'd rather discover it was a bad idea because I tried it and failed, not because someone "told me so".

Nice to see, someone agrees with me :)