So Google’s growth has decreased. It’s still growing though.
So revenues haven’t grown as much as in the past. Google is still making money hand over fist.
Product launches of the last two years weren’t as successful as search? Google seems to be having issues staying relevant?
Well, first thing: What is as successful as search? What has impacted us more than the vast sea of data that is the internet and which Google has made available and taught us to maneuver? It actually doesn’t matter whether Eric Schmidt stepped down voluntarily, if it was planned all along or if he was canned: Google is more powerful than ever, we just haven’t seen the latest it can do!
You see (and this is secondly), if and when Google decides to join the social graph competition space with whatever product, it will be not their one shot.
Google has the data and the technology to form a new vision, one that will hold true for the next 10 years. Not that “make all information available” is all been-there-done-that, but it’s time to put some evolutionary spin on “don’t be evil” and instead be the motor for improving society. You heard that right. Putting solar panels on the roof of the Googleplex and electrical outlets in the parking lot is peanuts.
And it will all come together due to Google’s core competency: collecting data and making sense of it. In the next two years Google will combine street view data, powermeter data, behavioral data and mobile data and present solutions that will make this a better planet. Maybe even faster, Obama did announce his plans to fund movements that will push the needle forward, although he may not have had Google in mind. It is obvious that the tech pundits focus mainly on new web tools and how Buzz and Wave and other products haven’t taken off or created revenue. Fine, although I somehow think with search, Gmail, Gmaps, YouTube, Chrome and Android things aren’t looking all that bad in terms of saturation. Not everything making money as much as search? Just wait, once YouTube has that figured out Google will be making money hand over two fists.
I am actually putting a lot of faith in Google to change the status quo in terms of mobility, energy and the environment. Just because nobody else seems to give enough of a damn to realize that a shift takes creativity, ingenuity and a boatload of investment.