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Google Viewer: I'm Not Seeing It
The idea behind the Google Viewer software program was that you could type in a query, press submit, and then sit back and watch as it loaded actual Web pages that it found. Next, Google Viewer displayed the results to you as a slide show. The program, which PC World reported on in 2002, was eventually abandoned.

The idea of sneaking a peak at a Web page before clicking on the link eventually came to fruition--it just didn't require a software download to do it. Today you can preview pages in search results delivered by Ask.com, Powerset, and Yahoo, no application required.

eBay Users Check In, But They Don't (Google) Checkout In June 2007 thousands of eBay loyalists descended on Boston for eBay's annual sellers convention. And in hopes of promoting its new Google Checkout payment system--which would be competing directly with eBay's Paypal subsidiary--Google organized a party to be held during the eBay show, inviting eBay sellers to attend. In addition, the Google party was supposed to be a protest against eBay for barring merchants from using Google Checkout.

When eBay got wind of Google's plan, it promptly cancelled all of its U.S. ads running on the search engine for more than a week. At the time, eBay was the single largest buyer of search ads on Google.

Google cancelled its Boston tea party.

Orkut: The Hoff of Social Networks Actor David Hasselhoff is worshipped in Germany, but his talents are less appreciated here in the United States. The same might be said of the domestically underappreciated Google Orkut. Introduced in 2004, the social networking site is a big hit in Brazil, but in the U.S., Orkut has lagged in popularity behind Facebook and MySpace.

Google Orkut's lack of popularity in the U.S. has been attributed not only to strong competition from the other services, but also to such factors as its early "invite only" policy, a lack of support for blogging tools, and an absence of video features.

All employees at Google are supposed to spend 20 percent of their time working on personal projects of interest. Google says that the policy encourages creativity. And without Google's willingness to take risks and not be afraid of tripping, stumbling, and sometimes falling flat on its face, the company might not be what it is today. Perhaps Google's greatness can be measured by its failures as well as its successes.

Comment: edit@itworldcanada.com

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