Google can’t sell anything but search
Obviously Google is the king of search, and they are big in other areas too, but the other areas they dominate you’ll find they never actually started. Most of the businesses other than their search related ones have done much really.
Most of their start-ups they have invested in have failed, and they are way behind in market share for email, shopping and their messenger.
Falling behind
- Gmail has a big user base but it’s nothing compared to Yahoo Mail or Hotmail
- Google Checkout is struggling to make any kind of impact compared to Paypal
- Google’s IM client has nothing on ICQ or MSN Messenger Live
- Google video never took off, so they bought Youtube
- Google docs and spreadsheets can’t compete with Microsoft
Acquisitions
- Google Groups
- Blogger
- Picasa
- Google Earth
- Google Maps
- Google Ride Finder
- Google’s spreadsheet and word processor
- Analytics
- And so many more
Even their advertising model was a buyout.
Microsoft has recently acquired aQuantive and ScreenTonic, both are advertising companies, on top of that Microsoft is aggressively pushing their search technology. Last month Microsoft increased their market share my 67% with Google dropping share slightly.
I think in the next few months we’ll see more market share clawed Microsoft’s way, Microsoft have more than one popular service they can leverage whereas Google are still relying on search to bring in their money, if that starts to decline they could be in trouble, not trouble enough to die, but I think you’ll see their revenue drop. Microsoft wants a piece of the online advertising pie and they are defiantly positioning themselves to hit hard.
July 18th, 2007 at 1:28 am
it would seem like that, their trends search and other stuff in their labs is nothing to write home about.
July 19th, 2007 at 7:39 am
The problem with Google is they start up so many things, but never finish them. Most of those startups like gmail are still in beta. But, Google still dominates the advertising and search sectors and also video (with Youtube). I think once gmail is released (if it ever does get released) and the invite only thing is gone, it should become more popular because it really has a lot to offer.
July 19th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Yeah I wouldn’t worry about the Beta status too much, but yeah, their home grown apps like Trends, web alerts, glossary, scholar etc etc arent smash hits, or big business money makers.
July 20th, 2007 at 5:34 am
Interesting take on the whole thing Todd.
They’ve made some great buys and that’s a good thing. But they’ll always be under the threat that Microsoft poses until they expand their businesses into the real world. Microsoft has Windows, Nav and Great Plains, the XBox, and a whole host of offline money makers and market takers. And their stack of cash makes Google’s look pretty small.
Vista, with the default live search enabled in the browser has helped MS a lot. Couple more home runs like that and they’ll gain a lot of ground.
Not to mention, Google has got every little innovative web advertiser out there nipping at their heels right now.
July 20th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Yeah defiantly, their search with advertising is their market hold and their money maker, all of their acquisitions aren’t big money makers, just search and ads, Microsoft have thousands of big income streams so I don’t think they are too scared about the search market, but with their new acquisitions into advertising and their unification of their live search systems I think they are positioning themselves to hit hard in the search arena.
If Google doesn’t feel the pinch, the other boys will like Yahoo, Ask, and all the other smaller engines out there…
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:20 am
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