August 26, 2005
Google's RSS reader
The interesting thing about Google's new desktop search/"sidebar" app is that it is an RSS reader! The first mainstream RSS reader app. It streams Google News, del.icio.us, and my email inbox as RSS streams. And by the way the desktop search app is built in as a plugin. Pretty cool...but Konfabulator was doing it way back in the day.
The question is, how quickly will anyone adopt this silly thing. I think this smells more of "yeah whatever" a la Google News more than "earth-shaking" AdWords. Google is starting to accumulate lots of "so what" ideas. I wonder if there will be another breakthrough -- you do need to fail a lot to find a breakout idea, that much is certain -- but will you find a breakout idea by coming out with a dozen me-too apps like Yahoo IM 2, My Yahoo 2, Yahoo Mail 2? I don't think that's the right place to hunt.
Posted by amol at August 26, 2005 11:09 PM
