Do 1 thing, and do it well.

Gruber points to a Siegler article showing Google’s search market share climbing just over 5 percentage points over the past 2 years. What’s struck me most about the article wasn’t Google’s steady climb, rather it was Microsoft’s falling search numbers and the footnote of the data table.

The Microsoft’s share dropped 4 points in just over a year – and the caveat is a new live.com search site: club.live.com. For those counting, that makes 3 Microsoft search sites.

Site 1: MSN.com – the Yahoo look alike

 

Site 2: Live.com – the Google look alike

 

Site 3: club.live.com – the “hey guys! we made search into a game somehow!” site

 

Hey Microsoft, want to be a yahoo clone w/ your msn.com portal thing? then do it, and be the best at it (or – buy it already)! Want to be a google clone with your live.com site? then do it, and be the best at it! Want to be an online games clone (or whatever that’s supposed to be?) with your club.live.com, then do it!

Read any “how to start a business slash make a product successful” book, and you’ll find one rule: Do one thing and do it well, don’t over extend yourself.

3 thoughts on “Do 1 thing, and do it well.

  1. I just wanted help you out and let you know that your “SIMILAR POSTS” links only link to the current page and don’t actually take you to the story they mention.

    Also, when I did a search for this particular story in your search box, because the links didn’t work , it only showed up on the 5th page of the search results. (using “do 1 thing” and then “do 1 thing and do it well”).

    Thought that might be useful. Otherwise great article and I agree, Microsoft is always trying to be the everything-to-everybody-all-the-time company and it’s just really getting old.

  2. @glitch

    ha! sure enough, thanks for the shout. I’ll fix the sidebar pronto.

    re: search, looks like i’ll have to work on refining search too.

    thanks for the comment!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *