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June 30, 2006

Before you checkout the Checkout, Google recently updated it's feed reader, Google Reader. And it truly rocks. Truly. It's now way better than what Bloglines has to offer. Initially when they hastily introduced Reader, the code was broken and it didn't even work on Firefox. While they fixed those issues over a period of 6 months their recent release is probably the biggest. And they fixed the biggest issue of subscription interface. It's now easy too unsubscribe from one or more than one feed.

On the other hand, Checkout seems to be the Paypal killer(like the way media terms it). I don't think Paypal can be killed as easily as they think. It can be treated as competition to paypal. Hotmail's Sabeer Bhatia tried out a much more advanced concept of unified shopping cart, which was called Arzoo. For some reason, it didn't do magic in the market and he took it easy after that.

1:39 PM | Google

Comments (9)


It is still not clear as to what exactly Checkout would do in the future? Everybody sort of has an idea, and curious to know more about this.

This is a great marketing technique by Google fellas.

My prediction is that Google will provide an integrated portfolio managment system with Checkout, finance, mail, news, and calendar - a complete personal portal for an individual.

I am also thinking there will be consolidation phase. There are so many sites that do this now. Major players like google, yahoo and msn will try to dominate this market.

Posted by: salsalme | June 30, 2006 5:09 PM


I think Windows Live is a lot better than Google reader. Interface is clean and customizable. Plus I can hear and view podcasts without actually having to make a trip to the blog.

Posted by: Jacky | June 30, 2006 5:47 PM


Paypal is a different beast altogether... On the surface Google Checkout just looks like a universal checkout shopping cart (like Yahoo univ. Shopping cart).
Paypal is much more than that... particularly person to person transactions without any item being sold. And with paypals 200% hold on eBay - it would take a lot to complete..let alone kill it...

Posted by: Ram | July 1, 2006 12:55 AM


>> Initially when they hastily introduced Reader, the code was broken and it didn't even work on Firefox.
Google Reader worked in my Firefox from day one. It worked for several[1] other people [2]. Google Reader might have responded poorly for you due to high traffic during the launch time.

[1] http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/10/08/google-reader-beautiful-needs-work/
[2] http://google.weblogsinc.com/2005/10/07/review-google-reader/#c779254

Posted by: Saravanan | July 1, 2006 5:47 AM


i use reader with google's personalized homepage.. thats really good.

Posted by: karthik | July 3, 2006 1:54 AM


By the way, Ebay announced that they are not going to accept Google Checkout. I am sure this decisio is temmporary. Nobody can resist Google (Resistence is futile). As somebody said, "If Internet were a religion, Googld is God"

Posted by: Twisted DNA | July 7, 2006 1:18 PM


What a bad name.. Google checkout.
The name itself sounds like a flop.
Couldnt they find a better name.

I tested Google reader before. it was just crap. I mean what is the use of using ajax and all the dhtml thingies if it is not doing what is supposed to do, in a simple form? I will test th enew interface

Posted by: judge dredd | July 8, 2006 1:22 AM


google reader is still crap. they havent understood people dont want scroll-your-lens type rss reading. there should be a way of reading RSS like email, deleting posts u have read so that the same message is nto fetched over and over again. It should be visible how many new items are there in each feed, how many you hav read so far and how many left.

Posted by: judge dredd | July 8, 2006 1:28 AM



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