Jeremy Zawodny has a very frank assessment of how Yahoo! Finance lost out to the newly-released Google Finance. The saddest part is how Yahoo! could have easily made the same innovations.
Virtually all of the new/innovative/cool features in Google Finance are things we talked about YEARS ago. Many of them I’d lobbied for repeatedly. Some were even prototyped.
Who’s gonna get “credit” for all that now?
The first thing on the list of innovations is a pretty obvious one: a ticker search that doesn’t suck. That’s probably my biggest beef with Y! Finance and it’s such an obvious addition. So, why didn’t it happen?
Well, we all have these things. It may be an idea for a whole product or a feature. Ideas are just about worthless. Sometimes I’ve tried to wait for a project to be perfect. When I realized I was going down that road with onBLOCK, that’s when I knew it was time to release.
Of course, there is a downside to releasing before you’re ready. Google has seen it happen with several of their products and the first day is tainted with instability. But if what you’ve got is good–and you’re willing to listen to what people say–it will make it past any negative first impression.
There is this everlasting debate of ideas vs. execution. I think execution is everything. I can’t say how many things I thought of that others have done well and I am sure you are the same.
There are 3 types of people to me: Thinkers, Wishers & Doers. I would hope to be the third kind.
night,
noah