May 16th, 2006
Google Notebook - the good, the bad, and the ugly
So Google Notebook has launched. In a previous post, I wondered who needed to worry about this new foray into organizing the world’s information. Based on a first test, probably no one.
Why? Because there’s nothing particularly great about this tool, at least in its initial form. It’s not terrible although I can’t connect to my Notebook at the moment - probably because everyone on the East Coast is banging on Google’s door trying to get a Notebook set up right now. It’s just not great.
It is functional and will probably end up being mildly useful but I see nothing to suggest I will focus my information gathering on this tool rather than OneNote or EverNote. Mike Arrington won’t be switching form del.icio.us anytime soon. Steve Rubel wants better integration with other Google services and hates the fact that Google Notebook requires a plug-in. A few readers and bloggers have pointed out that ClipMarks does everything Google Notebook does and a lot more.
Arrington closes with this thought which I can’t argue with one bit:
My final thought is this: Google Notebook will have some level of success just because it’s associated with Google, and built directly into search results. Like Aim Pages, I do not feel that it is a particularly inspired product, or one that I would give much of a chance if it didn’t have Google backing it up. Del.icio.us would have been a perfect acquisition for Google, right down to the user interface which is very Google-like. For whatever reason they let it go to Yahoo. I suspect that over time they’ll regret that decision.
I also wonder about Google’s dedication to its own projects. For example, what will be the fate of Google Bookmarks now that Google Notepad has launched? Google Labs is littered with half baked and half finished products. I see little or no product vision coming out of Google, sitting fat and arrogant on it its Adsense revenues.
Yup… this is another nice try that falls short. No Gmail "wow" factor here. Move along now.
Marc Orchant has been building, testing, and sometimes breaking hardware and software for 25 years. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
