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Google hegemony, n.: the degree to which a specific person dominates the results of a Google search on their own name. But has Google itself become hegemonic?
Describing the Yahoo-Google face off, Havoc recently put it, “Google is trying to be Yahoo and Yahoo is trying to be Google”, in their race to be the one-stop shop for everything online. Although Yahoo did significantly better in regards operating profits and service reliability, Google is stealing all the limelight. Anything the company does, it rakes in oodles of publicity, for e.g. the latest integration of Google Maps with Keyhole technology that lets you view the satellite image of your address (White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, DC). It is all about user experience. Google keeps adding newer services to its already wide selection of tools. They are a portal without wanting to be called one. They recently dropped a bombshell by constantly expanding GMail storage and adding unlimited video storage (video blogs soon?). With the control of so much information in the near future, are they fast becoming the Microsoft of the 21st century (rather the 00’ decade since things change rapidly). Dan Gilmour rightly warns us by pointing out that “Google is aiming to be everyone’s storehouse of data and knowledge. Who’ll own it, or at least control it, over the long term?” Havoc and I agreed that Google has far too many products at the beta level for a long time now and its credibility will take a hit if it doesn’t move to alpha RC1 (release candidate) soon.
Will Google send us an updated privacy notice by saying that it is rethinking its “Don’t do Evil” policy in the future?
by Patrix | on Monday, April 11th, 2005 at 5:00 pm | 
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April 11th, 2005 at 5:30 pm reply
everyone shud move to alpha.
April 11th, 2005 at 7:28 pm reply
Alpha - Ha!Ha!! you actually are cracking a PJ…what has the world come to?
April 11th, 2005 at 9:09 pm reply
Alpha comes before Beta. So Google is already past alpha. Google refers to all its services that it does not earn revenue from as Beta. So you shouldnt read too much into it.
April 12th, 2005 at 1:38 am reply
ah.. I guess I have also been google hegemonic :p :).. though I dunno how..
(search for “twilight fairy” shows my blog as the top result instead of the collectible by the same name)
April 12th, 2005 at 9:36 am reply
Google’s Hegemony
I think everyone wins in this situation:…
April 12th, 2005 at 11:07 am reply
Anon - Thanks for clearing that up…so I guess Alpha’s PJ falls flat then.
Twilight Fairy - Well, what can I say…you are more popular than the collectible :)
April 12th, 2005 at 10:33 pm reply
>> Havoc and I agreed that Google has far too many products at the beta level for a long time now and its credibility will take a hit if it doesn’t move to alpha soon.
alpha: implies product is largely untested, use at your own risk, may crash very frequently.
beta: product is largely tested, may have occasional instability, but is stable enough to be released to consumers.
So software doesnt move from beta to alpha.
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:53 pm reply
Whether the service is labelled beta or RC0 etc is irrelevant as long as the service works and earns them revenue