[espeed]

Seth Godin warned Google about this 5 years ago...

"But I can give you a warning. This is a key moment of the life cycle of the company. As the stakes keep getting higher and higher and the opportunities keep getting bigger and bigger and the number of smart people keeps increasing, so does the competition, so does the stakes, so does the opportunity to pay a $200 fine. And what I want to do today is really place a steak in the ground about a key conceptual underpinning that I want to sell you on and then try to outline why I think Google has succeeded to date and how repeating that could really help you moving forward.

People care about Google. What happened is you made an audacious promise to people. You changed the way the interacted all day long when they are supposed to be working, all day long when they are surfing, you changed their interaction. And that interaction made them care about your brand. And that means you have a platform to do some spectacular things. But if you blow it just a few times in a row they won't care about your brand any more."

Google Tech Talk: "All Marketers Are Liars" (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909078385965257294)

[rrrazdan]

I hadn't thought about Google in this sense. The way I remember the net is a big bad mess of ugly websites and then Google came along and they changed search. And they changed Email. They changed advertising. Think of how many more ugly flash ads there would have been without Google. And yes that built affection for the brand. Taking risks is awesome. Shipping crappy products not so much.