Google: Web Search Market Share Increasing, Again
July 16, 2008
Silicon.com ran Stephen Shankland’s essay “Google’s Search Share Continues to Creep Up.” You can read the full text here. In the flurry of news about Google-Viacom, Google-Microsoft-Yahoo, and Google everywhere, I missed this point:
Its share increased from 68.29 per cent in May to 69.17 per cent in June, the analyst firm said. Over the same period, Yahoo! dropped from 19.95 per cent to 19.62 per cent and Microsoft dropped from 5.89 per cent to 5.46 per cent.
In my little world, a company under such intense media scrutiny and in the midst of legal hassles on a number of fronts, this is interesting. In fact, I can’t recall reading about a company increasing market share while coming under attack from many different quarters, in different countries, and in different technical areas.
I looked up the term monopoly to refresh my memory. The Wiktionary provided this memory nudge to me:
A situation in which solely one company exclusively provides a particular product or service, dominating that market and generally exerting powerful control over it; An exclusive control over the trade or manufacture of a commodity; A company dominating a market in one of the above manners.
If one is a stickler, the loop hole is exclusively. Google is not the only provider of no-charge Web search. I can choose to use Live.com, Yahoo.com, Baidu.com (or have one of my interns tackle Chinese for me), and hundreds of other services which I list here.
In Google Version 2.0, which you can learn more about here, I don’t spend much time discussing Google’s domination of Web search. I accept that hegemony as the status quo. After all, Google’s been grinding forward for 10 years without significant opposition except from Baidu.com and Yandex.com and maybe a couple of other companies operating outside of the ken of US pundits. In North America, despite lots of hand waving and public relations, no vendor has been able to focus the technical effort on search to leap frog Google. As a result, Google has had time to improve its operation and increase its lead as Mr. Shankland points out.
The real challenge that Google presents is that its Web search and ad business is so dominant that getting a better or clearer view of the company is very difficult. In my research, I have learned that Google has an application platform. Search and advertising are just two very successful applications running on the Google infrastructure. This means that Google could enter other markets at low incremental cost.
The company is moving into other markets now, but taking baby steps and following an unorthodox approach. Much has been made of the departure of Google executives who have cashed out or grown tired of the idiosyncrasies of life at the GOOG. Some of the recent information I have gathered suggests that Google is adapting to its work force changes. Those adaptations are likely to make it even more difficult to predict what Google will do next. Consider that:
- Google is hiring smart, young engineers and giving them freedom to make decisions as long as there are data to back up those decisions. This approach increases risk to a certain degree and it also makes surprises more likely.
- Google’s innovation process of pushing out products and services has slowed, which reflects more management discipline. Nevertheless, if a beta generates a positive result, Google flows resources to that service in response to clicks. The addition of “voting” to search results is a current example of this Darwinian behavior.
- Google is concatenating its services in roll up patent applications. Google is becoming more seamless which reduces complexity to some degree and allows faster response to market conditions.
Google’s not the exclusive provider yet. But unless the competition gets into gear, only lawyers and Google’s own management missteps will prevent Google’s extending its reach.
Stephen Arnold, July 16, 2008
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