Google: Listen Up. The IPO Harmed You

April 8, 2012

I love inputs from the bleachers. Well, anyone who is anyone knows that Google’s going public in 2004 was the fatal step, the digital equivalent of Adam’s going for the apple. Point your browser thing at “How The IPO Ruined Google.” The idea is that Google has lost its original focus. The company is chasing the social media sector which means Facebook. The author points out some social media goofs by the GOOG. He writes:

How’d Orkut do? Do you remember it? Didn’t think so. Sidewiki? Failed. Friend Connect? Gone. Google Wave didn’t even get past testing. Now we’ve got Google Plus, which is showing some of the worst engagement numbers of any major social media site.

Google, now under the management whiz Larry Page is focusing, or I think that is what he said in his Update memorandum that big bets are needed. So focus is there, right?

Several observations:

First, I think that advice to big companies is a tricky business. Most big companies find outsiders’ inputs more like background information than course corrections.

Second, Google is going to be a tough outfit to change even when one is the CEO. The start up mentality has been smothered under the hard facts that Apple’s business model is performing better than Google’s business model. Facebook chugs along, apparently untroubled by Googzilla’s desire to feast on the haunches of prime zuck. Google has managed to build a one-trick pony but increasingly has to find inspiration for new ideas elsewhere.

Third, Google is not about search. I remember reading that social is the new Google. So search is a subset of social.

Google is, what, 12, 13 years old. If I consider Backrub, Google is 14, maybe 15 years old. Like Lycos and Yahoo, Internet companies face a number of challenges. Chief among them is management. Technology is important, but making the right decision at the right time is part of the magic.

Perhaps the pundits who make suggestions about what Google should may find magic more useful than inputs?

Stephen E Arnold, April 8, 2012

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.