It's Google's world, and we're just living in it:

[E]conomists and analysts point out that Google does indeed have network advantages that present formidable obstacles to rivals. The "experience effects," they say, of users and advertisers familiar with Google's services make them less likely to switch. There is, for example, a sizable cottage industry of experts who tailor Web sites to get higher rankings on search engines, which drive user traffic and thus ad revenues. These experts understandably focus their efforts on the market leader, Google -- another network effect, analysts say.

Google enjoys tremendous "network effects," says the article, because of the way that subsidiary technologies are shaped to place nice with Google. Perhaps the only other market force with similar sway today is the federal government, which can bend the tech sector to its will by being such a gigantic consumer of products.

Jul. 9, '08
Google, network science