What will it take to beat the Google Habit? There's billions of dollars that hang on the answer to that question. My last two columns looked at the nature of habits and how they can lead to an advantage for incumbents by 'locking in' customers or users.
Before we look at some possible answers, it's important to understand how and why previous attempts at breaking habits have fallen short in an area where far more academic work has been done: health care (Verplanken & Wood, 2006 - PDF file).