Comments on: How Important Is It To Google That You Download Their Toolbar?

By: Andrew S

Andrew S — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 10:20:46 +0000

All of the commenters have missed the #1 reason that Google wants you to use their toolbar–it allows them to track users’ entire web activity. This is an extremely valuable data stream that they cannot obtain easily just from their logs.

By: Quinton

Quinton — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 21:09:33 +0000

Well why didn’t he just say that
Y!Q Directly underneath too!

By: Elias Bizannes

Elias Bizannes — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 20:25:17 +0000

Whoops – when I said “which I equate with its role with the desktop computer”, I meant Google’s efforts online are the equivilant to what Microsoft did with the desktop computer.

By: Elias Bizannes

Elias Bizannes — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 20:22:24 +0000

John is just indicating how much importance they place on it for their future strategy.

Google pushing the toolbar, is the equivilant to Microsoft pushing Internet Explorer or Windows - it creates a platform. The toolbar, no matter what browser, makes you think Google is your gateway to the internet. All you need is Google, and Google will find what you want. Acting as the roadmap and gatemaster of the online world is a powerful position, which I equate with its role with the desktop computer.

The toolbar also ensures Google maintains their lead, as the toolbar makes sure no one has to type "yahoo.com", "msn.com" or "ask.com". Why go to another search engine, if the search box is already there?

By: Daniel Ek

Daniel Ek — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 19:02:46 +0000

I’ve posted in my blog about this phenomenon as well. It’s a bit interesting that they seem so eager to get people to use the toolbar that they announce it on their site, which is disturbing. What’s also interesting is that the Sun distribution deal of Google toolbar happened pretty much at the same time. Could it be that Google is actually pushing for new toolbar users to be able to integrate it with Google purchases (Google wallet)? That would answer many questions.

By: Mark Sigal

Mark Sigal — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 04:47:54 +0000

For what it's worth, when the Skype deal went down I wrote a post called 'A different spin on eBay-Skype' that espoused the critical importance of the client application play as a driver in eBay acquiring Skype.

You can literally copy the arguments in that post and apply them to Google.

If interested in such things, here is a link to the post:

http://thenetworkgarden.blogs.com/weblog/2005/09/a_different_spi.html

By: Emil Sotirov

Emil Sotirov — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 17:52:25 +0000

My guess is that John points to the importance of the personal details being collected by Google through the AutoFill feature… but I am not sure.

By: shanan

shanan — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 17:38:17 +0000

They’ve taken the link down for as of 10:30 Monday. Maybe just a test

By: Chris Zaharias

Chris Zaharias — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 14:27:34 +0000

There’s was a chart in the most recent MarketingSherpa SEM survey that showed global toolbar search growth stalling **for the first time ever** back in March or May of this year, at about 11% of all searches.

By: foobar

foobar — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 12:42:10 +0000

I’m sure I’ve seen this before (in the UK). What surprises me most this time round is that I’ve actually got the toolbar installed and Google hasn’t registered that I don’t need to see the ad.