Jeremiah Owyang discusses how web tools and social media enable companies to connect with customers

Personas of the Top Web Companies

July 08th, 2007 | Category: Web Industry

Every company has a culture and a market reputation. I’ve got friends at each of these companies (many have been on my Web Strategy show) and I’ve had a chance to talk to them about their culture. It’s amazing how culture can really impact how a website will look.

Here’s my very gross generalizations of these top four web companies:

Alert Ready Dog
Google

Old Tired
AOL

Fat Dog
MSN

Dog Chasing Tail
Yahoo

Nothing tells a story better that pictures, feel free to leave your interpretations in the comments.

Images used within Creative Commons license, excellent photos attributed to:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanstayte/156511942/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33359957@N00/38913140/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samson_snow/284376930/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mekin/281791343/

11 Comments so far

  1. Damon Billian July 8th, 2007 8:17 am

    The Yahoo! one struck me as the funniest. Why: Yahoo has a great property, has purchased some awesome companies (Flickr, del.icio.us) & they don’t seem to be able to figure out how to integrate them with the brand (I believe some of my earlier comments on your blog reflected some of these concerns). In addition, I am still mystified as to why Yahoo hasn’t made more of a play in the social networking/social media space.

    AOL: No comment;-)

    Google: Always looking out for the next opportunity. Alert & attentive. Their decision to purchase Feedburner was a wise one…

    MSN: Possibly ready to attack. Despite Google’s strength recently, Microsoft is still a global giant to be reckoned with.

  2. Amie Gillingham July 8th, 2007 8:50 am

    I have nothing more profound to say other than that was frakkin’ brilliant! Tongue in cheek, insightful, and nary a LOLcat in sight.

  3. jeremiah_owyang July 8th, 2007 9:34 am

    Thanks Arnie!

  4. jeremiah_owyang July 8th, 2007 9:35 am

    There’s a few other reasons why I picked those questions

    Damon is close.

  5. Moksh Juneja July 8th, 2007 12:08 pm

    Thanks God! for making dogs!

    What a analogy! - Apt! Completely Apt!

    Google - Completely Alert Watch Dog types. AOL is lazy too, they just launched in India. MSN is feasting on their success, they need to get up and exercise. Yahoo is running behind their own behind, tom-tomming and basking in the glory.

  6. jeremiah_owyang July 8th, 2007 1:13 pm

    Moksh

    Great interpretation! Bravo!

  7. Matt July 8th, 2007 1:16 pm

    That’s great, awesome interpretation.

  8. Daksh July 8th, 2007 10:54 pm

    Google - As Moksh said alert to Youtubes, Bloggers. Always on the button.

    AOL - Sleeping giant the day it wakes up it would create waves but god knows when :)

    Yahoo- Bit your own tail, cut the tree on which you’re sitting so confused, so unsure.

  9. jeremiah_owyang July 9th, 2007 6:33 am

    What about MSN Daksh?

  10. daksh July 9th, 2007 6:36 pm

    Thinking jeremiah :)

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