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Comment by ok_craig | Hacker News Reader

Lesson: don't put to much stock into a product that can be replaced by a few lines of code on a search result page.

A counter-point to your argument. While I know Google offers calculator functions, and unit of measurement conversions, I usually don't know the exact format to use which will key the special functions. Typically searching Google for "percentage calculator" or something similar takes you to a site with a clear UI and instruction. Often times this is quicker than randomly entering searches into Google, hoping that my wording will spawn that special function.

So while yes, it's scary/crazy to launch a web app that is so easily clonable for Google, the "general use" nature of Google means that they'll never have these functions as prominent features. This leaves room for simple web apps who do a better job (or at least have a simple UI that is understandable).

the "general use" nature of Google means that they'll never have these functions as prominent features.

Hmm. Why not? Why can't Google continuing builder richer and richer search results, results which become smarter and smarter in matching what users are looking for? The potential level of customisability for a search result/user to a search query is infinite. At higher levels you move beyond the crude "search" metaphor to what Google is really working towards: full brain-augmentation. Not a tool the mind must learn to use, but a tool built to work with the mind, a tool in fact that is tailored perfectly for each and every mind.

It may be trivial, but by my estimation the domain "online-stopwatch.com" gets somewhere in the region of 50k-100k visitors per day as a first-order approximation. It wouldn't surprise me to learn they were making between $300-$500 daily in ad revenue, or somewhere on the order of $100k - $200k per year.

sounds like they have cornered the online stopwatch market...

All joking aside it must be really hard work to keep your ranking at #1 when competitors (and google) can easily replicate your functionality.

It's also probably a product that didn't take too many lines.

Depends if it was built by a hacker or a company with product managers.

That's exactly my point. What if it wasn't a few lines of code, but something with a hefty investment in, then Google comes in with their own and just puts them top of the list because they can. Users don't get the choice because Google prioritise their own.

if it takes you hefty investment, it would also take google hefty investment to replicate your product. Sure you lose the google juice, but you could say the same for any product, and back when microsoft did it, they got sued.

If you provide the best product, even better than what google can provide, it won't matter that google put theirs at the top of their search results. e.g. G+ and facebook - no matter how hard google is promoting G+, it still hasn't gotten the traction of facebook.

> That's exactly my point. What if it wasn't a few lines of code, but something with a hefty investment in, then Google comes in with their own and just puts them top of the list because they can. Users don't get the choice because Google prioritise their own.

Even with the google thing that does the function at the top, users have the choice. If it was a "I'm Feeling Lucky" style redirect (but always to a Google service with no search results page) whenever the query fit a format that keyed a Google-provided service, then the user wouldn't have the choice, but giving you a thing that provides what you think you want as well as links to other pages that might either do what you want or have the information you want doesn't deny you the choice of using those other pages instead of Google's tool.

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