A further link consolidates this proposal. “Google does search. Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat.” No chat? Well, in effect, no there aren’t chatrooms as such, but having Blogger™ (introduced on May 10th) and Google Groups is dangerously close.

The corporation proudly states that “Google Groups comprises more than 845 million Usenet messages, which is world's largest collection of messages or equivalent of more than a terabyte of human conversation.”

When you have a conversation, you chat. End of. Incidentally, they have to rely on Yahoo! for messages being posted. Surely not a merger in pipelines I hope. If so, you’ll find me back in reference section of library…

Would you go to a search engine to “search” whether you have an email? Well, no. So what is it we hear about corporation bringing out their own email service? A look at their recent press releases suggests corporation won’t be happy until they have conquered… what? Well, there’s talk of Gmail not being far off, but would you be overly surprised if you saw postman brandishing Google logo on his clothes and mailbag?

And take Froogle (frugal, geddit?) Granted, it is a useful way of searching for products at low prices but where does Froogle stop and eBay begin?

The Google phenomenon is massive. If you want to know about global trends, then Google Zeitgeist is a fantastic yardstick. And with ideas such as this Google Zeitgeist, incredibly useful for sure.

If Google want to expand, that’s fine but then they’re becoming more than just a search engine and they should stop calling themselves one. This diversification would suggest that they are losing touch with their initial mission statement as mentioned above. And it would suggest that pretty soon, I’m going to become more than a little sick of this brand name. Google’s homepage is blank. Or as near as goddammit. Is it going to stay that way?

The irony is definitely there. By diversifying, by trying to attract more and more users, are they going to risk becoming unpopular? Remember just one thing, as they themselves have said. Google’s competition is “just a click away”, and right now my right index finger is beginning to twitch.

© Copyright Holmes Charnley mmiv

The company plans to stake an even larger claim of market this year. "It's almost inevitable," said Mark Prince, 2much.net founder and CEO. "It's something no one else is offering, and IT is reclaiming a foothold in economy in 2004."

Slated for release one year after its predecessor, LiveCamNetwork 2.0 will apparently be more than an upgrade. "The difference will be felt at tips of people's fingers. They thought 1.9 was a smooth, powerful machine. But it's a clunking Frankenstein compared to LiveCamNetwork 2.0," said Prince. "The difference is in approach. We're not just plugging in here and there. Or fine tuning this or that process. The program is being entirely rewritten to be a lean, mean streaming machine."

"Technology is catching up with what our software can do, " said Jones. "LCN 2.0 will leave 1.9 eating dust. Our goals, especially on technological side, are finally attainable."

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