inter:digital strategies

There are rumors flying around the web about the possibility of a new Google service - Google Finance.
This was first noticed by Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal on the basis of some curious findings in his referral logs.

If they are planning a new Beta product, we certainly hope that they do a better job of launching it than the last couple big launches. Just recently, the launch of Google Page Creator had a very promising start - but only about 6 hours of it. We tend to assume that Google has a very strong infrastructure, since it is managing core services such as Google Search (the very basic tool!) with incredible efficiency. Although I understand that a Beta service is not expected to run perfectly, it would be nice if they could plan at least a sufficient infrastructure for it not to crash immediately.

Gary Price, formerly of Search Engine Watch, opined that this
may be intentional on Google’s part - a way of keeping the buzz going after the initial launch. This may be true. Regardless, it has a lot of potential to backfire on them if they keep it up! After Google Earth, Google Analytics, and now Google Page Creator, a fourth crashed Beta could be a weakness. The invitation system they used to launch Gmail seemed very effective - and although many people had a long wait before being able to get started, nobody ever had the frustration of a product which just wasn’t working.

Of course, maybe what they really wanted to do with Page Creator was run a load test.