On the Web, If You're Not Growing, You're Dying

Often, perception of a site or service's momentum can be self-fulfilling.

Even over the last two years of my writing on this blog, the companies I cover have changed, as what used to be relevant has become less so, and new hotshots have come to take their place. But while some niche services are on their way to becoming household names, others that could have done so are fading, when compared to their peaks of 1, 2 or even 5 years ago.

One tool showing the decline of brands relative to one another is Google Trends, which measures how frequently a keyword is searched for as a percentage of the total searches on the Web.

Using Google Trends, you can see the near-death of older Web 1.0 brands, like Netscape, Lycos and Alta Vista, the plateauing of early Web 2.0 brands, like MySpace, and the deflating balloon of weakened brands, such as Technorati, Digg and Microsoft.


Netscape's Downfall... In Graph Form.

And Lycos Follows Suit.
A little more than a week ago, Google Trends made news by introducing the ability to track data on Web sites, but the service's core element helps shed some light on the fact that the interest level in Technorati has been slashed in half in just the last 12 months, that MySpace peaked a year ago, as did Digg.


The Technorati Monster Is Starving.

And Digg Is In a Rut.

MySpace Is Floating in Space.
Meanwhile, as both Google and Yahoo! have continued an upward trajectory of world interest, Microsoft has seen steady decline every year, starting in 2004, when the data was first tracked.


The Only Thing More Depressing is MSFT Stock.
At one time, it was fun to point out that the Technorati monster had escaped, that Technorati wasn't up to challenging Google Blog Search, or to debate whether Digg's relevance was going to decrease with its move away from solely having a tech focus. But Google Trends lays out on the table the tougher news - nobody cares, and the number of people actively looking for news on Digg or Technorati is going down, while many, many other services are rapidly growing.

While the entire market of Web measurements is questionable, from Alexa to Compete.com and all sorts of competitors in between, it'd be interesting to see Google get even more aggressive with their trends, showing the velocity of a term's decline or ascension. Maybe that'd get the point across a little better for those saying their damaged brands aren't in trouble.

And lest you think Google Trends is all bad news, it's not. Take a look at hotter stories, like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook or Google itself to see what an up and to the right arrow looks like. But if these brands aren't careful, like some of those listed above, they too could stagnate and fall. And once you slow, you're really just preparing for the inevitable drop.

TechCrunch Reports AOL Completes Netscape's Demise

It's silly how one can get nostalgic over a software application, but Netscape Navigator, in its original incarnation represented to many, including myself, the first days of massive Web adoption. Netscape was the first huge Internet IPO, and the first real solid challenge to Microsoft's monopoly, after Apple had made its share of missteps. Now, as TechCrunch reports, the browser is officially left to die.

While I had used Mosaic prior to Navigator, I dutifully downloaded all the beta versions of Netscape on my Mac my freshman year of college. My roommates didn't understand why I kept Navigator 0.93, 1.1 and 1.12 on my hard drive. Some part of me wanted them for history, I guess. But as we all know, it was Netscape who became history. Internet Explorer dealt them a body blow, and Microsoft squeezed their life from them. Then AOL's acquisition of Netscape made things unbearable.

The browser stagnated, and Apple had grown closer to Microsoft, as Steve Jobs told an annoyed Macworld crowd that Internet Explorer would be the Mac's default browser. Mac IE 5 was actually pretty good too! Meanwhile, Navigator skipped version 5 altogether, and rolled out a clunker, moving from Netscape 4 to Netscape 6, but it was too late. And by then, we'd all moved on - to IE, to FireFox, and eventually, to Safari. Now, Netscape is but a blip in Silicon Valley history, one that helped kick off the first Web bubble, preparing the way for future tech giants like Yahoo! and Google, and reinvigorating the economy.

A quick search of my Mail archives shows the importance of Netscape.

As I wrote in February of 1996 in a letter home, my freshman year, called "Bad tech day":

"About dinnertime, my computer went totally nuts. To make a long story short, my entire sytem folder was thrown away, including all extensions, preferences, and the like.The final result may still not be final, but there are some key things missing. ALL mail from Eudora which I had saved since October is GONE. All mailboxes. All adresses. All nicknames. All Bookmarks for Netscape, which I was proud of. Gone."

Later, from March of 1996 in another letter home, called "Checks and balances":

"Here's something annoying. I have a Macintosh. Non-Power PC, with a 68030 processor... This means I don't have a Java-supporting Netscape browser, to view live sports scores, and I can't download RealAudio 2.0, which I also need. Ahh. The life of the underprivileged."

Later in March, I sent home a "Top Ten Anagrams for Netscape Communications". I have no idea where I first got it, so apologies to whomever I ripped off:

Top Ten Anagrams for "Netscape Communications"

10.Companies can't consume it
9.I cannot compute sans mice
8.Can't access 'net... I'm on opium
7.Um, options scam can entice
6.Net's uncommon capacities
5.Connect communities, ASAP
4.Mosaic IPO, etc., can stun men
3.Optimum 'net access: An icon
2.Connect it up; amass income

And the number one anagram for "Netscape Communications":
1.Mosaic, minus neat concept

Just think, those e-mails home were from 11 years ago, and we're still talking about Netscape today. While AOL and Microsoft can take away the company and its browser, they can't take away its legacy. Long live Netscape.

After 5 Years of My Yahoo!, Google Reader Is New Start Page

Back in the Web 1.0 days, seemingly every Web site was morphing into a Web portal - a virtual one stop destination for news, stocks, sports, e-mail, weather, or just about anything. Excite did it. Lycos did it. Yahoo! did it. Netscape eventually did it. But while Yahoo! has done a good job at offering new services and trying to give me enough "sticky" applications to keep my attention, I find myself spending more and more time in Google Reader, catching up on the hundreds of RSS feeds I subscribe too. So today, I made the switch, and made Google Reader my start page in Safari, on all my Macs.

Now, instead of seeing a static page which may have some new AP wires, updated stock prices, and occasionally current sports scores, I get the very best the blogosphere has to offer. It's rare now that I will fire up the Web browser and not be presented with a few dozen news items from around the Web.

Now that we are in the Web 2.0 days, the concept of a portal has passed on. Rather than go to a single destination to have them provide me what they believe I want to read, I would rather go to a single destination which delivers me what I want to read, based on my subscriptions. I don't see myself gravitating back to My Yahoo! or iGoogle any time soon, though both are a simple command key combination away in Safari. But today's move is a significant marker in my continually evolving Web consumption.

New TAB Post: Why Not Integrate Safari With Finder?

One of the things I actually like about the Windows platform is the ability to type in a URL in the desktop environment rather than needing to open a Web browser. While that's a byproduct of their illegal bundling practices that aimed to kill Netscape, I occasionally would like to see similar functionality on my Mac OS X boxes.

So far, readers at The Apple Blog believe a move to integrate Safari with Finder, mimicking Microsoft's move, would be a daft one, arguing that malware and feature bloat are two things Microsoft does that Apple should not. But it's worth looking into in my opinion. I could view boomarks and search Google from the Finder, rather than jumping into Safari, and Apple has all the necessary tools.

That's the background behind my most recent contribution to The Apple Blog, titled Why Not Integrate Safari With Finder?. Per agreement with them, I will not be cross-posting the piece, but instead, have provided a link. Enjoy.

Google Could "Pull a Netscape" on Technorati

The hottest topic of discussion on the blogosphere today is Technorati's new revamp. The blog search engine pioneer is branching out and trying to capture what the company calls "the live Web", capturing video, photos, blogs and hot topics. And much as Google's recently announced Hot Trends feature highlights rising topics for discussion, Technorati has long tracked the "Top Tags" or "Top Searches" from their front page, and today's launch takes their story up a notch.

But amid all the positive press, from TechCrunch, Mashable, Robert Scoble and others, is a minority current saying that Technorati, in this age of Google, just might not be relevant any more. In his usual blunt fashion, Steve Rubel says simply, "Blog Search is Dead and Google Killed It".

There is no secret that Google is the search leader. Statistics on my personal blog and elsewhere show that Google and all its derivatives drive 85-90% of search traffic, dwarfing the also-rans, including Yahoo!, MSN, and the rest. Now, it could be argued that Google is to search what Microsoft was to the Operating System.

When Microsoft embedded Internet Explorer into the Windows operating system, it spelled the deathknell for Netscape Navigator. Customers felt the free browser that came standard was "good enough", and the act of downloading or paying for Netscape was too much to take on. Though Microsoft was charged with monopolist practices and nearly broken to pieces, they won and Netscape died.

There's a strong chance Google could be doing the same thing to Web upstarts by adding new search functionality. As Rubel writes, Google's integration of blog search negates the need for dedicated, vertical search like Technorati, IceRocket or Feedster. The Google Blog Search is "good enough" for 90% of the users, leaving only us technogeeks who demand the upper crust of technology innovation. And while Google is expected to "Do No Evil", their adding of free Web-based e-mail significantly challenged Yahoo! and others, their integrated RSS feed reader has removed the need for downloadable feed readers, and the company continues to expand.

Technorati could very much become the next Netscape, evaporated by a big monolith with an unparalleled brand and scads of cash in the bank. So while CEO Dave Sifry asks you to Come check out the refreshed www.technorati.com, it probably isn't going to have a radical change in the company's fortunes for the long term. I love Technorati's widgets. Every single blog post I have lets you see "blog reactions" in Technorati, and the Technorati Authority tag separates the leading blogs from the newbies and also-rans. But Google's blog search functionality is "Good Enough" for me in most cases, and will be for the majority of Web users. I can root for Technorati all day long, but the threat from Google to pound them the way Microsoft did Netscape is very real.