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February 14, 2007
By now you've probably heard about Google's new Checkout Badges. Just in case you haven't heard, Google made a couple of announcements regarding the peddling of it's Checkout service in sponsored search results and AdSense ads:
The Inside AdSense blog announced the addition of Google Checkout to AdSense ads. Luckily, the icon is the old, small version. But instead of being restricted to Google's SERPs, we can now all look forward to seeing them on our sites as well:
But far more striking is the second announcement about the change to the Google Checkout badge on Google's SERPs. Instead of the small icon that you see in the picture above, Google's search results will display this monstrosity:
I wonder if we can look forward to the new Checkout icons in our AdSense panels being switched over to this huge, scary button in the future. What do you think? I think Google is going to far with all of this. Remember "Google Breaks the 10 Commandments"? Remember user trust? In their own stated guidelines, Google says this about ads:
How is that big button in a world of text not a distraction? I guess Google should amend that previous statement to say "unless the distraction can help Google earn even more money". And isn't Google supposedly anti-graphic ad? What else are they going to do to violate their own set of standards (if you can even call them that anymore). Google has gone off the deep end in the pursuit of advertising their inferior products. Google… take note: Checkout is not a good service that deserves to be promoted out the wazoo. I think this is really a sign of the beginning of the end of Google's dominance. And no, not the Checkout thing itself. The attitude behind it. Google started out, and got to the point it is today, by following it's own guidelines. Those guidelines set Google apart from most other companies. They were supposed to be "the company that cared" and "did no evil". But their repeated attempts to shamelessly plug Google services, to the exclusion of other, better services, is just a slap in the face to those founding credos. Shame on you, Google. How many other companies have fallen because they strayed too far from the founding pasture? The grass might look greener on the other side, but it's also full of nightshade (which can kill you). Google… get back to your core before you end up losing everything. There's a saying that I think is so true and so fitting for Google right now: Don't win the battle… but lose the war. I see this Checkout maneuver and similar moves as Google trying to win battles. Checkout vs PayPal. Picasa vs Flickr. Just to name a few. You might be able to win a few battles here and there. It might look good to be able to say "yeah… we won that battle". But in the end, when your user base doesn't trust you and doesn't want to use your service, you'll have lost the war. Those few battles along the way will seem rather insignificant at that point. Don't you think? Google, at what cost do you want to control everything? Is world domination really that great anyway?
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