How about youGoogle or myGoogle?

"Jump the Shark" is a Hollywood reference to the point where good TV shows go bad. It has nothing to do with horror movies. It comes specifically from the Happy Days episode where Fonzi jumps a caged shark on water skis. That episode, everyone agrees, was the beginning of the end for Happy Days.

That doesn't mean your metaphore doesn't apply. iGoogle could be the beginning of the end for Google, but I doubt it.

So, anyway, how did they get the shark on water skis?

And then get it into a cage!

Ha Ha

ROFLMAO

Maybe Google will copyright and change the G-spot to the ispot, or will those tasks be Apple's Jobs? Onanists and orthodox hedonists everywhere want to know.

I think Mr. Cringley knew what "jump the shark" means. The bit about the horror movie was different. He's just guilty of mixing two metaphors. To the heart of the matter:

1. The bit about China censorship is a complex political issue that really doesn't boil down very well to a relevant point in this argument.

2. One embarrassing bug does not a stagnant company make. Google's software quality still ranks way up there.

3. Google's dominating as a home page, and you're using that as an argument that they're washed up?? That doesn't make sense.

Mr. Cringely, I think this prediction of yours is way off. Perhaps we've reached a point where using the term "jump the shark" has jumped the shark. Your use of it here, in any case, is weakly supported and not convincing.

P.S. The "iGoogle" name is lame, yes. I'll grant you that much! Seeing it made me wonder if Apple had just purchased Google, or vice versa. But Google is still versitile and innovative. I hold out hope they will learn from this and it'll be a minor blip on the radar of their success.

perhaps just Google marketing has gone lame... or snorting too much of a good thing...

why don't they claim the small g? equally lame, but it's effective _branding_

then they could claim a whole series of product lines with the little g - it will require a little bit of real work, say like checking the internet for trademark and copyright conflicts (hey, they could use Google to search for that kinda thing, just like the rest of us *evil grin*)... but then they could have gHomepage, and gPicture, and gMessaging and a whole raft of gProducts :)

even get free advertising with that gSpot thing i keep hearing about :)

btw, the evil grin above had to do with the vision of them searching for "gHomepage" usage on Google and getting a whole bunch of crap ads like "Buy gHomepage on eBay now!", ditto for Amazon etc. :)