Google Reality Check - Part 2

The Google reality check continues to gain steam. The New York Times recently published an article  title, "In the Race With Google, It's Consistency vs. 'Wow'," comparing Google's product development approach with Yahoo's product development approach. The article points out that Google's approach is to throw out something with some sizzle and watch most of it fizzle hoping every once it a while they will get luckly and repeat their initial search engine success.

Here are some highlights form the article:

• Google is 3rd behind Yahoo and MapQuest in Maps
• After 2 years, Gmail is a distint 4th behind AOL, Yahoo, and MSN Hotmail. (it's 'OK' cause it is only a b-e-t-a')
• Google Talk had 44,000 users in June (less than the total UU for Pluggd this month)
• Orkut has 280K users compared to MySpace's 90m+, Friendster's 20m+, even piczo is kicking Google's ass here

Even Segey admitted that their helter skelter approach to product development isn't working, admitting that, “It’s getting hard to follow all the different products.”

Click on chart below for the gory details:

This story is beginning to get traction with some of the blogosphere's heavy hitters. Mike Arrington on TechCrunch recently posted on this topic, and suggested, "they roll some heads and figure out a real product strategy."

GigaOm has received some clarification from ComScore that indicates only 44,000 people out of the 1,000,000 who have downloaded GTalk use it. I think it is fair to point out that Gtalk also has an Ajax web client built into Gmail. Of course, Gmail doesn't have that many users either, so it probably doesn't matter much.