Interesting HitWise data points about Google
If you read the press, listen to the friends in the tech industry, you would have an impression that Google is taking over the web in every area. However, the data below from Hitwise shows a different picture.
Look at Gmail. It is an excellent product that has received raving reviews almost everywhere. But it has only 2% of market share in Email services. Yahoo Mail and Hotmail have 42% and 22% respectively.
The same with online maps. Mapquest and Yahoo Map have 56% and 20% market share whereas Google map and Google Earth have 7.5% and 2%.
Outside the echo chamber of the techies, people may not appreciate things like AJAX as much as we do. I tried to get my wife to move from Y!Mail to Gmail but she just would not do it (even I opened a Gmail account for her).
What Google is clearly doing well is search. It has close to half of the market and is good at making money out of eyeballs with their PPC ads.
