I have to apologize for the delay, this article was ready three weeks ago but I never found the time to reread it and publish it. Well, here goes..
First thing in the morning, open Gmail and check out the latest email that I haven’t received on my blackberry.
As soon as I get to the office check my Google Calendar so that I can be always up to date with my appointments.
Oh, and of course, throughout the entire day whenever I have to search for something on the web or for a particular place in London Google and GoogleMaps are there ready to rescue me from the perplexingly intricate labyrinth the web is.
Alas, the so much discussed paypal-killer-to-be is here, GoogleCheckout. I must admit I’m thrilled at the news and I can’t wait to get my hands on the application…
GoogleCheckout sounds like the natural evolution in the path Google has chosen for its rise. A path started with AdSense.
After months spent waiting and speculating about this piece of software the moment has come, I can try GoogleCheckout. I was so ready for a PayPal-ish software that at the first ride my nose got so out of joint that it was almost impossible to straighten.
After half an hour spent fiddling with the profile setup and configuration I finally have an opinion on the software. Good, incredibly good, most usable as per Google tradition; but not the PayPal killer we were all waiting for.
In fact, in my opinion the new service is not going to hound EBay’s creature in any way. It is, on the other hand, going to clash directly with Amazon’s “1 Click Checkoutâ€.
The two service are incredibly similar, save for the fact that the former is going to bring together a huge quantity of online shops whereas the latter finds itself alone in this battle.
With the huge advantage of being the biggest online merchant in the world, of course.
Google seems to be ready and set for a big battle, and it has the potential and the competence to win, or so it would seem. I think the skirmish will be fought on the integration of third party sellers inside the existing systems.
Both websites do this in different ways.
Amazon already supports third party sellers within its service. Amazon’s approach gives the seller a visibility on the market that otherwise it’d never have had. However such a huge advantage doesn’t come free. The seller is in fact stripped of its brand hence becoming completely unrecognizable outside the amazon website.
Google has chosen a different approach. Banking on its big name and credibility asks the online shops to adapt themselves to its GoogleCheckout system to be able to provide to the lot of them a “1 Click Checkout†feature. Which, I must admin, it what makes Amazon one of the best (and easiest) places to shop on the net.
After all this, I have to bring my train of thoughts to a standstill to try and reach some sort of conclusion.
I’m not able to, don’t get me wrong, the service is great. But there’s something that is not quite right, a gut feeling, something’s screaming in the back of my mind.
This is one of the last steps for Google. They’re now able to collect information not only on our web searches and general fancies in terms of websites but also on our shopping. They’re the perfect web-marketing machine.
They already know all about the GoogleCheckout sellers’ customers, who in most cases have also a Google account. They’re just the natural choice to handle an eventual marketing campaign for an online shop.
Regrettably nowadays our public-self is often defined by what we buy and not by who we are or what we say. We’re not people until we start spending money, and, as soon as we do, we lose the status of persons to become consumers, end users, the market.
All we can do is hope that Google will live up to its motto “Don’t be evilâ€. Or perhaps, because of google strenuous tries not to be evil, our concepts of good and evil on the web will be turned upside-down.
