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Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

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londons_explore·

>Google doesn't exactly have a reputation for entering new markets and dominating them, either...

Mobile OS's (Android)

Online Video (Youtube)

Online Maps (Google Maps)

Webmail (Gmail)

None recently, granted.

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Google photos was launched in 2015 and hit a billion users in 2019 [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Photos

Yeah but all those are not IRL activities, so there is a small chance that they mess that up. They are really not good with real people.

I mean, looking at a map used to be an IRL activity.

Mapquest was already successful before Google maps.

So isn't that a perfect example of Google entering a new market and dominating it?

Google Maps is very much real life. And it was very easy to mess up. Big usability achievement.

In fact I think it's underrated. It truly changed my world. Earlier I was always nervous when driving and frequently speeding. It's so liberating to be able to call a friend and say "uh I'll be 8 minutes late, sorry".

Don't for get calendar and docs

I feel like MS Word (offline) still has a majority marketshare for general documenting, and calendars outlook also has a big chunk of the market.

Depends on where you draw the boundaries in markets certainly...

Weren't they all acquisitions?

Gmail wasn't.

Gmail was internal. Maps was mostly built by a couple acquisitions, but it wasn't anything like Youtube, where the acquired companies were big established players in the space.

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