What Should Google 2005 Look Like
What does Google plan for the future?
This is the single biggest question myself and many other Google-watchers are asking these days. Google, the seemingly invulnerable company, has been looking more Jimmy Olsen than Superman these last couple of weeks, getting one upped by Lex Luthor on a weekly basis. Does Google have the plan necessary to fight off the company that never loses?
First read my recap of the past year.
What do we see? Well, by all accounts, Google had its best year ever. In fact, remove MSN’s last six weeks, and Google had a great year, with no real bumps. The problem is, removing MSN would be like removing the fuel from a plane and expecting to fly properly. Microsoft is the eight hundred pound gorilla that Google has never had to stare down, and it has made an excellent showing over just a few weeks. Microsoft’s on a pace that makes Google look slow and confused.
Microsoft also has a better corporate philosophy. Surprised? You should be. Google’s corporate culture was supposed to be a strength. It’s young, brilliant, and savvy. Instead Google is looking more and more elitist. Its geeks-first attitude could alienate typical users as much as John Kerry alienated middle Americans.
If Google is the blue state search engine, then MSN is the red state search engine. The problem is, the internet economy is almost entirely red state. Blue users don’t click on ads. Microsoft’s products appeal to your grandpa, your sister, your postman, the guy who built your car. Google only appeals to the Slashdot crowd. In thirty years, the entire net will be tech-savvy, but for now, Google is ahead of its time.
Microsoft is going to beat Google not by stealing its core, but by building a much bigger core from everyone Google is ignoring. If Google wants to win this thing, it needs to learn to appeal to those people better than Microsoft will. Google needs a lot of things. It needs a portal. It needs original content. It couldn’t hurt to buy Flickr, but it needs to combine its services.
Integration is the first key. If Google can get its services to work together in an efficient way, it can use that as a selling point to grab customers. Picasa needs to work with Blogger, Hello needs to go 2.0 and create a community, Orkut needs to fixed or dumped for something better, Groups needs to work with Blogger. Google has no page that users can go to and see everything they can do with Google and the reason they should stick with Google. Give me one reason someone should stick with Google. I guarantee you the people who don’t read this blog have no idea what you’re talking about.
Information is the second key. People need to know what Google offers. For god’s sake! Buy a commercial! Tell people that Google is great and they have a reason to stick with it. Why doesn’t Google have a real slogan? Why don’t I see bus ads that say, “Google: The World’s Most Accurate Search Engine”? Why isn’t Google making an effort to let the public know what Google is all about? Microsoft plans to spend a ton of money promoting MSN Search. What about Google?
Innovation is the third key. Google needs something, anything, to take the focus from MSN Search. MSN has been hammering away at Google, and Google needs to give people a reason to remember that Google is supposed to be the industry leader. Picasa 2.0 is a start, but Google Desktop Search is where its at. Desktop search is overrated, but it is where the battle is most visibly fought, so Google needs to not be getting its butt kicked. GDS is so far behind MSN Desktop Search, it should be embarrassed. Just update something. Add a feature or two, post a press release, and hear how grateful everyone is that you guys aren’t asleep. MSN has been open and responsive to the blogging community. That vaunted Google “wall of silence” just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Google is at a huge crossroads. Either it starts to become a real corporation, with commercial needs and marketing and an idea of what its customers need, it is in for a very bad 2005. I have faith in Google. I believe they will pull it together, change their hurtful corporate culture, and win this thing. The problem is, Google is more of a religion than fact. I believe in Google; I have faith; and I have no evidence. I have no reason to show how Google will survive this challenge. I only have my faith.
And that is why I read InsideGoogle.
Comment by Jason | December 26, 2004
Nathan, I think you’re right in some senses, and wrong in some senses.
While I don’t disagree that a lot of users (especially the older ones) use MSN more than Google, in the world of academia, where most undergrad students don’t know much about computers, the vast majority use Google. This breaks the tech elite view a little bit, and I think as these students go into the marketplace, Google will pick up a larger share simply through word of mouth.
That said, I do like the ideas you put forward, and I agree that Google does need to start doing these things. As more and more people are turned on to alternates, through one way or another, more new users will pick up Google. I find it hard to imagine that it will die.
Like the Wordpress layout, although there is some aspects of it that are broken.
Comment by Dan | December 26, 2004
Dan, like I said, in 30 years the tech elite (and young people being turned onto the vast internet world, including college students, are part of that emerging tech elite) will be the larger portion of the marketplace. For now, however, MSN’s base is where its at, and Google can’t hope to play it safe for three decades. MSN only needs to win now. It can worry about controlling the conversation years down the line from the comfortable postition of market leader.
Jason, that is by far the most validating comment I have ever received. Thank you.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | December 26, 2004
funny about msn being mentioned as being in sync with the internet, i remember a study that msn had commissioned comparing msn and yahoo messenger use, and it turned out that most of the younger and hipper crowd prefered yahoo while msn seemed to be used by older and staider demographics. can’t find a link to the report but it was sometime in early 2004, methinks.
this is at least a 3-way race: yahoo, ms, google. yahoo is going to give both ms and google a run for their money and it plays the portal game a lot better than msn. amazon and ebay are powerful in the web services arena too. MS can’t monopolize a web user base like it can with windows and office. there are too many entrenched competitors who are large, experienced, wealthy, hungry, and importantly: well-known and valued by users. they are not all going to disappear tomorrow under the weight of ms marketing and innovation, they are going to make ms sing for its supper.
speaking of user loyalty, google has done zero marketing and is the world’s #1 brand for the last 2 years running. i don’t see how that’s possible if it only appeals to the techies or academics or blue-staters as you put it. everyone uses a mix of the well known web brands for their online life, no one company is hogging it all, and no amount of msn marketing and innovation and integration is going to erase google from people’s lives in a few months.
and google makes it a point to stay a moving target, with fingers in many pies, raising the bar to be a follower. e.g., google print’s library deal is not something that can be replicated in a quarter.
$1B in cash also helps for large-capital projects and earnings insurance.
and why portals again? didn’t we try that in the 90s?
though it is true that yahoo’s revival and msn’s emergence should have lighted a fire under google’s ass by now. 2005 should be a very interesting year!
Comment by Ma Baker | December 27, 2004
It’s clear you were snubbed by the mighty G. Give me a break with your crystal gazing..
Comment by John Newcombe | December 27, 2004
Snubbed by the mighty G? I’m not sure I understand. What do you mean?
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | December 27, 2004
I think Jason was being sarcastic. Because this post actually made me consider removing this site from my bookmark.
No offence Nathan but I don’t know what you’re trying to say here. Are you saying that Google needs to burn lots of wads of marketing cash to be more visible? Are you saying that Microsoft’s Windows advantage is Google’s weakness? Or are you saying that Google should become a media company and start generating content?
To me, Google is doing great. It has no threat in the foreseeable future eihter from Yahoo, or Microsoft…as long as it keeps innovating the way it has in the past. Wrote a long post last weak explaning my arguments. Google and the Great Mousetrap Fallacy.
Comment by Manu Sharma | December 27, 2004
I think you’re giving Nathan a pretty rough time of things if you really sit down and consider the points he makes. From how I see it, MS is definitely aiming it’s rifle’s in Google’s direction when it comes to search, etc. Google is going to need to do something to combat that.
I agree that nothing is going to happen in a matter of months to make everyone stop using Google and suddenly flock to MSN or Yahoo! But you have to be blind to not see the level of integration that MS is capable of bringing to the table is something that neither Yahoo! nor Google are even capable of shaking a stick at. That WILL win over users over time.
I say this because I agree strongly with Nathan’s point that Google is ahead of its time. 10-20 years down the road, the population is going to be a lot more tech savvy. But for now, they’re not. If my mom, or :insert generic friend name here: can log into their hotmail account and from there get search results as accurate as Google, or use a product that comes installed on their computer (You don’t really think MS isn’t going to at some point install desktop search by default do you?) and get just as accurate if not better results then Google is going to have no reason to visit Google or Yahoo! … you just need to back off and get perspective.
Comment by Matt | December 27, 2004
Matt gets it…
Manu, I’m saying none of those things. I’m saying that Google has a tech-savvy, singleminded approach to the internet. It works fine for you and me, but there’s a whole other world out there. When I’m a grandfather, Google’s audience will be the majority, but there is no doubt that people like you and me (and almost everyone reading this) is the minority today. Microsoft strength is that it appeals to everyone Google does not, and that group is far larger. Google needs to broaden its focus, or risk letting Microsoft run away with the market.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | December 27, 2004
I just want to point out that desktop search is not the only battlefield. There is also mobile search and enterprise search. Already Google has products towards that direction. Google SMS and Google Mobile for mobile search and Google Search Appliance for the enterprise.
The key is mobile search because you have your mobile phone with you all the time. you will be doing search with it more. Also Microsoft dont have a dominance in this market so it cannot bundle it way through.
Besides bundling is not really that effective if applied against free products. Nothing prevents you from going to Google and doing your search there. I have a freind who will still go to Yahoo and do her search there even if Google was already in the browser. So everyone will do what they are use to unless something “prevents” them from doing it.
If you google in your mobile and google in your work, You will google in your desktop
Comment by kaze | January 1, 2005
Why go to yahoo or google if it’s already bundled as part of your taskbar though? You don’t even have to open a web browser and go to a search engine website.
The key here to keep in mind as Nathan and I have both pointed out, people such as those that read this blog are in the minority on this for the most part. If your mom could type a search into her task bar do you think she’s going to fire up a web browser and go to google/yahoo? Shoot, she probably doesn’t even care if the results are as accurate as google/yahoo.
Comment by Matt | January 2, 2005
Yeah, I think my whole red state / blue state theory of the internet is pretty much the way it is. Everyone who reads this blog hates portals. I think that is as close to accurate as a statement can be (probably like 90% of my readers would agree with that). However, portals are among the most popular sites on the net. My home page is about:blank. But for many, many others it is yahoo.com or msn.com. Google ignores those people (and their money), while MSN laughs all the way to the bank.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | January 2, 2005
Hi,
Yes, we need an alternate search engine that is better than google. We are tired of Google, with their irregular updates, sandbox effect, after effects like, disappearing good quality web sites from their data base, frequent jumping of search engine ranking, wrong information about number of pages, un-ethical algorithms, not strictly adhering to the Webmaster Guidelines properly, not deriving what is spamming and punishing the real guilty, instead deleting innocent websites etc. It is a known fact that their employees are running “adwords” campaigns from their office itself, but google is helpless to act on it. And there are many more bad practices in Google which is affecting all the web professionals.
So it is high time to have another better search engine that can really help us to get maximum online presence and business without much trouble. Hope MSN will fill the gap if they think and act seriously.
regards
Vijay Kumar
New Delhi, India.
Comment by Vijay Kumar | July 10, 2005
[…] Forbes has an article about Merril Lynch initiating coverage of Google at “neutral”. Merril Lynch’s uneasiness with the Google stock result, in the short term, from anxiety about the mid-February lockup expiry, but in the long-term, from a corporate culture problem. See, Google’s problem, according to them, is that it focuses on “cool” and innovation, but not on making money. Yup, sounds a lot like what I’ve been saying. Multi-billion dollar corporations are supposed to find ways to make money. Unless Google doesn’t want to… […]
Pingback by » Anxiety About Google Stock » InsideGoogle » part of the Blog News Channel | January 6, 2006
Great conversation. I have learnt new for google.
Thanks.
Comment by Manish | September 29, 2006
[…] In researching how the Microsoft and Google contest might go in the months and years to come, I stumbled on a post by Nathan Weinberg. Its title was ‘What Should Google 2005 Look Like‘. It struck me that over two years later the same questions still apply. In the Desktop Web, Google has clearly established its dominance and such efforts as the MSN/Live Search function are still trailing in the dust. However future success will increasingly be determined in the Mobile Web. […]
Pingback by Will Microsoft Beat Google On The Mobile Battlefield? | StayGoLinks | April 7, 2007