There has been much discussion of late on where Google is going next. Which market will they enter? Who will become a competitor in the online world against Google, and who will just fall to the wayside. They bought YouTube. They own Blogger. Now they have Spreadsheets and Documents. Think Excel and Word, all oneline. They seem to be racking up (pun intended) all sorts of online applications. And people (Microsoft) are on pins and needles to see what PC-based-moved-to-Web application will come next.
I’ll tell you what they are going to do. They are going to eliminate your ISP. That’s right. Google and Earthlink are building a free, wireless for San Francisco. It won’t cost a penny to the city. As a matter of fact, they are paying the city money via leasing the top of lamposts and whatnot. And what do they get in return? You will get by with its AdWords. With Earthlink, you can pay an extra twenty bones per month to get a better wireless service.
So, goodbye Comcast, Cox, AT&T, and Verizon. Google is going to take your customers. I can’t wait until it’s unrolled across the nation. And specifically, wherever I’m living.
They won’t get you buy owning the online applications. They’ll own the online, so to speak.
I’m skeptical. While I would love to have free high-speed Internet access, I just don’t see how the economics can work out. All I can think of are the failed late-90s free ISPs like FreeWWWeb, Juno, and NetZero. They all tried to generate revenue from ads and/or e-commerce homepages, but the only survivors eventually went to a paid subscription model. How Google’s venture will be different escapes me.
Incidentally, the dark gray text is really hard to read…