Google 2.0: What Does Google Really Want From Us?
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Written By Reprise Media | November 29, 2005 | Share This
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When Amazon announced their Amazon Pages and Amazon Upgrade programs, the web was rife with speculation that this was less a proactive expansion of their core business model than a defensive reaction to Google’s Book Search program, whereby Google’s attempting to build a comprehensive, searchable catalog of all books across all languages.
Many expect that Amazon is positioning itself as the eventual savior to securing publisher rights and author royalties. Of course, this is based on the assumption that Google plans on scanning copyrighted materials and providing the content entirely for free (not exactly true).
Amazon’s program wasn’t universally well received, as several dissenters suggested that editing books into displaced, de-contextualized snippets cheapens the whole art form/product/medium.
It’s unclear whether these critics were suggesting that publishers expect Google to use their Book Search program to sell pieces of books, or if they were just throwing Google under the bus as they chided Amazon for an equally detrimental move towards commoditizing information in this displaced, de-contextualized information age
However, it does raise an interesting question I’ve yet to see within the din of Google backlash:
What does Google want from us?
Can this company continue to sustain itself on an everlasting fountain of ad-revenue? Will they eventually have to start charging their users?
Competitive Stakes
Yahoo is seen as Google’s biggest competitor, but their approach to the market has been vastly different. Yahoo has made dozens of moves to entrench themselves in emerging consumer markets:
- First and foremost, they’ve monetized core services like premium email and video chat.
- They’ve also expanded the scope of their early-hosted shopping mall, to provide ecommerce and web-hosting solutions.
- Yahoo has also taken steps to push search onto emerging platforms. Consider recent news that ISP partner SBC Communications will market a co-branded cell phone, which will not only link to existing user accounts, but will come pre-bundled services like Yahoo Messenger, Mail and Text (the Yahoo Mobile product might as well be an OS).
- They’ve also been in the music distribution business for some time with Launchcast Radio and the Yahoo Music Engine, and they’ve just partnered with TiVo in a move that smacks of Microsoft’s Windows Media Center PC initiative (expensive computers with TiVo-like capabilities).
It’s plain that Yahoo has been a diversified consumer products and services company for years now, pooling revenues from advertising, licensing deals and consumer accounts.
Google on the other hand, has yet to take a single dime out of the pockets of their consumers. Intuition says they’ll follow/lead the pack, as the consumer relationship with search engines evolves (or as search engines become one-stop-shop portals).
What Google Has Done
When asked about Google’s ever expanding product line, Bill Gates recently responded, “What products?”
“There’s search…Google Talk…and Gmail.”
While the comment reeks of arrogance (not to mention a damage-control agenda later exposed by a leaked memo), it is completely accurate. Google hasn’t really productized much. Most of their developments and innovations are completely search-related, and they’ve remained surprisingly true to their
mission statement, refusing to make “any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site.”
Even the developments that could be productized for revenue, remain free of charge. For instance, Google Base is comparable to the Yahoo Paid Inclusion product, by which companies can proactively feed updated content, products and promotions directly to the search engines.
Unlike Yahoo Search Submit Pro, the service will be free. Last year Google expanded to wi-fi, but created the cross-platform dialogue by letting users send search queries to the engine through text-messages. At this point Google Mobile even includes Maps, Local, satellite imagery, and driving directions. All without charging users a cent.
That may be changing…We’ve recently heard rumors about the imminent launch of Google Purchase, a service that would help advertisers replenish Google accounts through a direct link with their bank accounts (Think PayPal with no transfer fees). While we’re on the subject of PayPal, Google has also seemingly been toying with an eBay-like service, recently submitting a patent for a classifieds service called “Google Automat”.
Their entry to the classifieds market is long overdue, would be enabled by their Google Base service, and neatly ties into existing AdWords and AdSense business models of ad-revenue. As for the eBay suggestion, classifieds are no longer limited to the old guard Yellow Pages model. Craigslist and eBay have created personalized, consumer-based classifieds markets with more dynamic inventory across many more advertisers/merchants, and so such a development could signal a natural evolution for Google to move into B2C eCommerce.
Now that I’ve told you what Google has done, up next is What Google Might Do. Look for a post on that (covering video, P2P, publishing, corporate products and more) sometime in the near future.
Randy Schwartz is Director of Strategic Development at Reprise Media.
Topics: Google |