Seven Google products that failed miserably.

Even big brands fail horribly and chances are you don’t even know it cause you’re too busy enjoying their success stories. In this post, we’ll take a look at 7 Google products which failed horribly.


                             

• Google Notebook: This online app lets users write notes and save text, images and links inside a Web browser. In September 2011, Google decided to discontinue Notebook and focus its efforts on Google Docs, which offered comparable features.

• Google Buzz: Launched in February 2010, this social network and messaging product were integrated into Gmail and let users share status updates, photos, videos and links. But Google got flack for upgrading Gmail users to the service without their consent and for its poor privacy settings. Buzz was killed a year and a half later.

• Google Lively: Think of Lively as the company’s answer to the simplified virtual experience Second Life. This customizable online world lets up to 20 users occupy a room and chat with one another via avatars and cartoon text bubbles. But Lively was anything but and lasted just seven months before it was discontinued in December 2008.

• Google Catalogs: Catalog was a mobile app that compiled digital versions of traditional retail catalogues from merchants like Macy’s, Brooks Brothers and Sephora so users could read them all in one place. Google pulled the plugin 2013, just two years after launch.

• Google Wave: The online collaboration tool used a Gmail-like appearance that displayed strands of messages — including texts, links and photos — called “waves.” Indeed, Wave was so experimental that even some employees didn’t quite get it. It came as no surprise when Wave flopped with consumers, and Google stopped developing for it a year later.

• Dodgeball: Dodgeball was a social network based on the location where users texted their position to the service and were notified of nearby friends and venues. Acquired in 2005, Google shut down Dodgeball four years later and replaced it with Google Latitude, an addon feature to Google Maps that worked similarly.

• Google Video: Before it bought YouTube in 2006, Google tried competing with its own service for uploading videos. But Google’s effort never caught on the way YouTube did, so it acquired the service instead. Google Video died a slow, quiet death in 2012.

Common ‘GROWTH STRATEGIES’ every strategist should know.

·       Red ocean strategy - Competing in existing markets where you try and beat the competition in a fight for the existing customer demand.

·       Blue ocean strategy - Create uncontested market spaces making the competition irrelevant as you create and capture new demand.

·       Beachhead strategy - Strategies and tactics used to gain traction or a sustainable position in a new market.

·       Ambush marketing - Advertisers work to connect their product with a particular event in the minds of potential customers, without having to pay for the event.

·       Guerrilla marketing - The use of small incremental attacks by using unconventional methods against a larger opposition.

·       Mobile defence - By moving resources and creating new strategies and tactics the intended goal is to create a moving target that is difficult to attack by the opposition.

·       Frontal attack: Specifically designed to engage the opposition with a head on frontal assault.

·       Encirclement strategy: To find niches in the marketing space rather than compete against the competition, more of an indirect assault on the opposition’s market share.

·       Leapfrog strategy: Achieved through technological advancements or creating new segments that have not been developed as of yet.

A quick glance at various digital lending models

•        Over 90% of households in India have access to banking services and digital lending may increase 10-15 times to arrive at INR 6-7 Lakh crore. Let’s have a look at various digital lending models in India:

 

•        P2P lending: Digital platforms that connects the borrows with the lenders offering an often-quick turnaround time for low-cost loans.

 

•        Crowdfunding: Platforms that allow the investees to raise credit from an open group of investors by simply letting the investees to present their business case and attract investments.

•      PoS Lending: Financing of online purchases by making use of conventional data like bank statements and unconventional data like transaction history.

•         Supply Chain Financing: In partnership with NBFCs, targeting merchants using online medium for selling their goods and services by leveraging the merchant data.

 

•        Invoice financing: To fulfil the short-term liquidity requirements, working capital credit is offered to the MSMEs, based on their unpaid customer invoices.

 

•        Pay later loans: Digital credit like that of a credit card in which small loans are offered with an option to make the payment later.

 

•        Mobile lending: Loans given via smartphones to the customers by analysing the creditworthiness using data values including call patterns, e-money usage, etc.

 

•        Digital Mortgage: Mortgage purchases via a digital channel of the traditional mortgage loan process, comparatively reducing the overall turnaround time.

What is IKEA’s Success Mantra ?

• ·       Everyone needs furniture and IKEA found a way to produce this stuff in a way that's affordable to customers and can be scaled globally.
• ·       Flat pack furniture ships with great efficiency and its cost to produce relative to real wood is much lower.
• ·       The trade-off, is that the customer must assemble it somehow, which they enjoy. And people trade convenience for affordability all the time.
• ·       They're also combining affordability with pleasing design. Cheap and nice is rare and this creates excitement and enthusiasm, which drives sales.

• ·       Their ads are unconventional, they frequently feature people from LGBTQ community and it appeals to them.
• ·       IKEA is an elaborate combination of shell corporations, non-profits, licensees, licensors and other clever dodges to escape taxations.
• ·       Except for little things like foodstuffs, they design the products, manufacture most of them, handle distribution and do the retail, a classic example of vertical integration.
• ·       They keep the bulk of their margins, and don’t split the pie with different brands or distributors, like other distributors and retailers.

Softbank's Dilemma

Has SoftBank’s good days gone?

                     

•        The most sought after VC firm among the startups isn’t having a great time as of now.

•        In the beginning of this year the firm had an operating loss exceeding $13 billion and Alibaba founder Jack Ma left the firm.

•        Half of its assets are invested in 7 companies including OYO, Uber, DiDi which are worst affected by the pandemic.

•        Uber recently fired 3700 employees which shows the gravity of situation.

•        SoftBank expected the fund's top 7 positions to increase in value to $130B over 10 yrs, but things didn’t go as they had planned.

•        The group said it would sell $41B in assets to buy back stock & reduce debt. It has spent $2.3B in the past 2 months buying back its own share.

•        It is also in talks to sell a majority of its stake in T-mobile to Deutsche Telekom AG. It is trying the best to raise liquidity.

•        It will further raise $11.7B using Alibaba Group stock to fund buybacks of its own shares.

•        Do you think Masayoshi Son will bounce back considering his track record?

How “Asian Paints” Challenges the Conventional Thinking

• Formed by four friends in 1942, has a history longer than Modern India.

• By the start of new millennium, the Indian public had changed with more money and less time.

• Customers might think little about paint but they placed a high value on the effect paint brought to their homes.

• Ads with the tagline ‘Har ghar kuch kehta hai’ signified the change.

• A new helpline was launched which brought the public closer to the brand.

• Introduction of a ‘Home Solutions’ service completed the company’s move to a premium brand.

• Buyers of Asian Paints’ premium products swap money for solutions, not just paint.

• Asian Paints raised staff salaries and is going ahead with annual increments to boost their morale amid the coronavirus pandemic.

• There has been no layoff and share prices of Asian Paints gained over 2% to ₹1,554 on May 15 after the announcement despite the poor performance of market in general.