robscherer.com

iGoogle doesn’t make sense. Why would Google decide to name their personalised homepage iGoogle? My Google makes a lot more sense in a world where “My” is the ubiquitous metaphor websites use to indicate the users’ personal account area.

The “i” is ‘owned’ by Apple and has been used by Apple to identify and brand their products since the first iMac in 1998. Recently we have seen the patent dispute over the iPhone name, which Apple fought vigorously for. While I am not suggesting that Apple should, could or will take legal action against Google, it strikes me as peculiar that Google would blatantly go and name something ‘i’+x.

So, is Google cashing in on the popularity of Apple’s ‘i’ products and hoping that they will get more adoption of their personalised homepage as a result? I don’t see why they would want or need to as they have always led and been innovators (or purchasers) rather than jumping on someone else’s successful bandwagon.

Further, it is well known that Eric Schmidt sits on Apple’s board. What better way to innocuously observe the hunt before going in for the kill.

I think a Google purchase of Apple makes a lot of sense. Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Apple is all about design and the benefit that people get from using well designed products. Imagine the world’s information beautifully organised and elegantly designed.

Google’s and Apple’s (AppleGoo) biggest competitor is Microsoft. Advertising, software and operating systems are the markets. Together as one, AppleGoo would be able to combine and focus their efforts on eliminating the enemy in all markets in which they operate. Apple are currently doing a superb job of developing superior operating systems, music players and software and phones are coming. Google is playing with phones too, is killing Microsoft in search and is developing great web based software to rival Office.

Apple’s market cap is currently about $95 billion. Google has that in the bank.

So, it makes sense to me, how about you? I hope that if this does happen, the first thing Apple does is apply their design to a revised iGoogle logo!