Is search truly Google's only strength? Just about, according to Hitwise

Well, this is a story that can be twisted and interpreted any number of ways -- so we'll just pick a few, heh. This blog posting over at Hitwise is making the rounds today on the web and it's being picked apart by Google naysayers as well as having some logic injected by famous bloggers such as Om Malik.

On the surface, I can agree with most of this goobledy-gook -- this Google analysis, while surface-level (read: none of the competition is mentioned, if in fact an apples-to-apples comparison can be made), kind of reinforces a few things the Google brass said at its annual press day, which we live blogged here.

Here's what we heard Google say: "we'll respond and create a product based on what our customers want, and we'll figure out how to monetize it later". And: "we'd rather launch a product that's half-baked and improve it as we go then waiting until perfection is achieved" (both quotes paraphrased). I agree with both of these sentiments. First off, while Google's marketshare in some of the products it offers does not look to hot from this analysis, I highly doubt that the goal of Google's launch team is to immediately take share within 48 hours of release.

But, through giving the customers products they want (and, even in Beta, they work great), by tweaking the products as time goes by and by providing a streamlined and speedy interaction (as opposed to some web ad/bloatware by competitors -- hello, Yahoo! Mail), Google will slowly but surely grow its userbase for many of its products. Do they need a marketing lift so that the world knows about some of these products? You bet -- this is an area Google needs to expand beyond the company's trademark (and, let's be honest, oft-copied) viral marketing they have now.