Thealphamarketer.com always talks about simplifying your visitors experience and eliminating as many steps as possible between what the customer needs to do to accomplish their task.
Google (GOOG) learned this the hard way as their video service forced users to take extra steps that their main competitor in this area, YouTube, didn't make their customers do. What it did was force users to install a piece of software to be able to use their service to upload videos. It really hurt them.
Now they are, for the first time, playing catchup to a competitor. Not only one, but they are only fourth on the list according to a Nielsen/NetRatings Inc. survey. YouTube was first the list followed by Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) MSN and News Corp.'s MySpace.com.
Another thing that they did was to have a long waiting period for the video to appear online for the user uploading it; a huge mistake for the Internet crowd. Users have had to wait 24 hours before it appeared online.
This is somewhat surprising concerning Google, which has thrived on simplicity and ease of use. Someone really screwed up on this in complicating the process.
All of us online marketers need to learn from this. It confirms what we talk about here all the time, that funtionality for the customer, is far more important than any other aspect of online success. The rest being equal, those you make things easiest to use will win the battle. It's really as simple as that.
» U.S. Justice Department Rejects Google's IE 7 Nonsense from TheAlphaMarketer
The U.S. Justice Department has came to the decision, after trying out the search features on Microsoft (MSFT) Internet Explorer 7, that Google's (GOOG) concerning the default settings for the search box do not violate Microsoft's antitrust agreement w... [Read More]
Tracked on: May 19, 2006 10:00 PM | Permalink to Trackback