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Comment on When Excite nearly bought Google

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Douglas Adams would have enjoyed that story. Success and the wonder of hindsight needs naysayers to dismiss things, whether it is those great authors and their rejection letters or something like this.

The thinking - 'it is too good' - actually persists with dating websites where hooking someone up with someone is a nightmare - it means no more subscription revenue. Maybe it is time for Google to do a dating website with some 'don't be evil' thinking behind it.

Google's early success was probably due to a) having a better product and b) word of mouth. I certainly remember sharing the tip with colleagues in the days before they had the text-only adverts. If I remember correctly they did not know how to monetize it then. But again, they might have known all along but pretended otherwise for the purposes of the legend.

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