Google is Scary

As what I’m about to write seems critical of Google, I feel like David going against Goliath and I’m not going to win. How can I possibly say anything wrong about Google- they’re champions of the Web, right? Is it just me or is there anyone else out there that’s getting an uneasy feeling about Google? The company is starting to scare me with their size and what’s going on. Are they completely taking over the Web?

Starting from the beginning, it must be said they’ve done some astonishing things. Google started quite modestly in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California. Two years later, they incorporated and PC magazine dubbed Google the ‘search engine of choice’ in the Top 100 Web Sites for 1998. In 2003, they acquired Pyra Labs, the creators of Blogger, and in 2004 they went public with an IPO opening price per share of $85 (it is now trading at over $520). Not bad for the first 6 years.

By 2005, Google was branching out and being more than just a search engine company with the purchase of Android as part of its mobile strategy. And they have progressively absorbed a staggering number of key companies, most notably:

• Grand Central, the start of Google Voice, DoubleClick, an online advertising company in 2007
• Postini for Gmail in 2007
• Omnisio for YouTube in 2008
• Terascent for Adsense and AppJet (EtherPad) for Google Wave, Google Docs in 2009

So far, they have acquired over 70 companies and CEO Eric Schmidt forecasted Google would acquire one company per month in 2010. They are in fact tracking a deal every 2 weeks and in August there were 5 social networking/ gaming companies purchased. Their targets are video, mobile and social networking companies. They certainly have the cash- Google has about $30 Billion to make all of this happen.

Whether you’re surfing the web with your pc or your cell, you touch Google in some way. Market research firm Gartner Inc. has predicted that by 2014, Android will be the most popular smartphone platform in the United States[1]. And when you touch Google for search, video, mobile or social networking, someone’s paying for something. Almost all (about 99 percent) of its revenue currently comes from advertising, including YouTube, plus partner sites through its AdSense product.

The best quote I heard so far on this comes directly from Google’s VP Andy Rubin, who said “now that we have a way to get things on cell phones, we can start putting things on cell phones that people want to buy”. This is scary - I don’t think we can count that high.

The really scary part is that we’re drinking it all up. This is major Kool-Aid!

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[1] Editorial comment- I’d put a bit of a damper on this with all the Apple aficionados and iTouch, iPhone and iPad.