Poll: Google's Game Changer

Google's Chrome is said to be a lot of things -- Web browser, sure, but also data-capturer, Microsoft-toppler, and cool new way to get Google products. But one thing it surely is: a game changer. Without a browser, Google relies on the good will and must code within the specs of the most important Internet software that exists today -- and until now has been produced by others. A Google browser puts the company in a new position.

This week, we asked Portfolio.com readers what they thought of this move. It turns out, Google's debut of the Chrome drew a fairly distributed array of reactions. The largest group of respondents, 41 percent, were behind a Google success ("Hooray for Google, I hope they win."). The next largest group of respondents couldn't care less, 27 percent -- leaving some of us to wonder why they even bothered to take the poll at all then ("I don't care what Google does.").

The most Googlesque response option we offered, "I think it's gone evil," in a nod to Google's own "Do No Evil" motto, logged 18 percent of the vote, while the rest of the poll-takers noted that "This is the wrong direction for them" (8 percent) and "They're in over their heads" (6 percent).

So it's hard to say just what direction the browser will take, but we do know this: Google evokes a lot of different emotions, and that can only be good for the company. Jury's still out on whether that's good for us!

I think it's gone evil.		18%
Hooray for Google, I hope they win.		41%
They're in over their heads.		6%
This is the wrong direction for them.		8%
I don't care what Google does.		27%