Paul Greenhalgh

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Last night's talk at MMU by James Hanson of MediaVest raised a number of interesting questions. Using IBM and Yahoo as examples of once all-powerful corporations who now have a vastly reduced market share, he presented a list of possible scenarios that might bring about the demise of the world's favourite search engine.

Political Opposition kills Google

China has already shut Google out but this will not kill them. Although China is widely regarded as next world superpower and Google has given up on them, they have not really dented the Google Empire.

EU lawsuits over content hosting in Italy and France's ongoing struggle with Google Books show that there is not much political love from our continent either. However, this is still a long way from effectively killing Google. Services may be withdrawn but this will not affect the userbase.

Social Media kills Google

Twitter has real time search; Facebook has several million users. However, in my opinion both are limited in scope and Twitter is limited by the quality of its content. While they both have an enormous user-base, you only have to look at Friends Reunited, Friendster and Myspace to see how fickle the social media scene is. I would be surprised if Twitter and Facebook are notable platforms in 2 years time.

Large Technology Firms kill Google

Microsoft is still a massive power and a company with diverse interests but they seen to have come to a grudging acceptance of Google. This might change with the launch of Chrome OS although Chrome OS has more in common with Linux than Windows so Microsoft may not feel that it is a true challenger.

Apple now occupies the helm of mobile internet devices and blocking Google's access to the iPhone could affect Google eventually. I consider this unlikely because although the companies have an uneasy relationship, Apple does not seem so blinkered as to shut off such an integral part of the Internet.

Google kills Google

Google currently has over 200 products online and has declared that they will buy at least one company per month throughout 2010. This suggests that they could spread themselves too thin. However, Google do not have a history of flogging dead horses. If a product is failing, they are unsentimental about resigning it, for example Google Answers.

Google could alternatively make a massive misstep and launch a product that people hate. Buzz is an example of such a product. However, Google was quick to react and resolve the privacy issues. Also at this stage, Google do not seem out of touch with the products they are launching; compare any recent Google offering with Microsoft Songsmith.

There is always the possibility that a new killer app will arrive and will cut out the need for Google Search and so undercut Google's largest revenue stream. However, with other offerings such as Google Apps, the corporation would still be able to operate without search. Additionally, Google would surely spot any killer search app and buy the company at an early stage.

Conclusions

After the presentation, Hanson took questions from the audience and revealed that he personally expected Google to be in an even stronger position in 10 years time. Sadly, although the talk presented a controversial title it was unable to provide any controversial opinions. I look forward to re-reading it with 2020 vision.

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Discussion

Posted by Ned Poulter on Mar 5th, 2010
An interesting summary of last nights talk, although I do have a few things that I'd like to add. You stated above that

"Twitter has real time search; Facebook has several million users."

Which although I agree with the core of this argument that I think it would be entirely unlikely to see these rock Google's foundations.

I agree with you that Twitter's real time search is nothing to Google and, as James said, integration of this onto Google is happening anyway so they need each other in this sense.

However, in my opinion I think that you've played down the potential power of Facebook with the "several million users".

Facebook claim to have over 400 million users worldwide (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics), which I think it is safe to say is more than simply 'several', in the grand scheme of things. I know, I know that some in Asia tower over this but it is worth consideration.

With Facebook now overtaking Yahoo as the second most visited site in the US (http://mashable.com/2010/02/17/facebook-unseats-yahoo/)

...and with average users in the US spending more time on Facebook than Google (http://mashable.com/2010/02/16/facebook-nielsen-stats/). I think that any serious move by Facebook would be of important consideration to Google in these respects.

On this note I do completely agree that social media is a fickle business and the likelihood that this would happen is very rare; or that it would not collapse Facebook from the inside out!

In my opinion I still feel that although Google is running the show, some aspects of the [future] set design are definitely coming from Facebook's end! And although it should have been done a long time ago, I think that in the next 5 years we may well see it establish itself as a pretty powerful ad platform that will mean Google is definitely going to be taking some notes.

I too will look forward at looking back in 2020 and re-reading it...

Ned
Posted by Paul on Mar 5th, 2010
Thanks for your reply. To be fair to James Hanson, he did present Facebook with having a real chance of unsettling Google but I don't believe that this is the case which is why I didn't cover it in much detail.

Despite being the market leader social network for nearly 2 years (http://techcrunch.com/2008/06/12/facebook-no-longer-the-second-largest-social-network/) Facebook still haven't successfully monetized the site - compared to how Google have monetized Search. I also know from personal Facebook use that my friends are relying on the service less than this time a year ago and my own message inbox is dominated by adverts for gigs and club nights - which is all that MySpace seems to be used for now.

On top of the naturally declining interest in the platform, Facebook's desire for expansion seems very limited. Google has expanded and has applied their ethos to many different areas of the online experience. While Facebook constantly refine their platform, they don't appear to have interests beyond the single idea of being a Social Network. If they really wanted to develop themselves, they could improve the communication aspects of the service. The messages section of the site is still inferior to the Gmail interface and doesn't even approach the quality of the Yahoo mail interface which I would consider to be the second best webmail service I've used. Again, I can only speak for myself but I would never consider my Facebook messages as a primary email, certainly not in its current state.

In reply to your comment that US Facebook users are spending more time on the site than on Google I would say that this is unsurprising as Google indexes the rest of the internet. If Google is performing well, you should be using its site to find other sites. This might change if Buzz takes off and again, going back to my personal use of Google products, I spend quite a lot of time on Google Reader, but in my opinion general Google usage should be about getting the information you require quickly and easily! Whatever happens, it's exciting to see how things develop. I am however, certain that Facebook will never overtake Google in terms of revenue.

Paul
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