
Google Rains On StumbleUpon Parade: Launches Direct Competitor - mattjaynes
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/18/google-rains-on-stumbleupon-parade-launches-direct-competitor/
======
pg
Better to rain on the parade than before it. I bet the StumbleUpon guys are
delighted they waited till now to do it instead of launching before the eBay
deal closed.

~~~
amichail
Why would Google launch it before the deal is closed? They would rather
acquire StumbleUpon than release their own competitor.

------
timg
More like StumbleUpon rained on Google's parade by turning down their offer.

------
staunch
It seems like the hardball thing for Google to do would have been to release
the product before the deal, to lower eBay's interest and drive the price
down.

------
startupx
Google is losing its edge. The cracks began to appear when they acquired
YouTube.

------
richcollins
I'm sure they are crying all the way to the bank.

------
nickb
Google's taking pages out of MS's playbook.

------
lupin_sansei
"Om Malik says this is Google lashing out at StumbleUpon and eBay because they
lost the deal. Given the timing, I tend to agree."

Puh-lease.

------
jamiequint
What happened to "do no evil"?

~~~
lupin_sansei
How is competing against somebody evil? The only way you can take customers
from StumbleUpon is to create a better service than StumbleUpon does. It's the
users who decide who wins in the marketplace, not the companies.

"... Google is proactively squashing any chance that the little guy who is
extremely innovative once had. Google is no longer a creative, positive force
on the Internet, but a massive corporation who makes up in muscle what they
lack in creativity. Start-ups beware!"

Again. Google can't squash a competitor, only the users can. If StumbleUpon is
better than Google's Dice thing then it will die the same death as Google Base
and Google Page Creator.

~~~
jamiequint
There's a difference between competing and cloning their service to the detail
as soon as you lose a bidding war. I'm by all means a capitalist, but this
somehow doesn't sit right with me.

