Brian G. writes “Is Google considering the purchase of Napster? When does Google run out of money or stretch their resources (people, technology, users, etc.) too thin?
It seems to me some focus is needed here and hopefully some strong competition from other companies. Eventually the new ideas may run thin if no alternatives to Google’s variety of tools are developed.”
Competition?
“It seems to me some focus is needed here and hopefully some strong competition from other companies. Eventually the new ideas may run thin if no alternatives to Google’s variety of tools are developed.”
Doesn’t seem to me there’s much danger of that. Yahoo! is much stronger in the social-software space than Google (and has more visitors overall). MSN/Windows Live is certainly not sitting there doing nothing, not by a long shot. And I wouldn’t count out Ask Jeeves; they didn’t hire Gary Price to participate in a long slow decline.
Actually, considering that Yahoo! owns MusicMatch (giving it two strong music-download/stream brands) and Microsoft’s strengths in the music/download arena, for Google to get involved would increase competition, not reduce it. It isn’t all about search; as Google apparently recognizes, search is one important aspect of well-rounded web offerings, but not the only one.
I see the state of competitive models as being unusually healthy these days.
Re:Competition?
“Doesn’t seem to me there’s much danger of that. Yahoo! is much stronger in the social-software space than Google (and has more visitors overall). MSN/Windows Live is certainly not sitting there doing nothing, not by a long shot. And I wouldn’t count out Ask Jeeves; they didn’t hire Gary Price to participate in a long slow decline.”
I just read something recently (that I can’t find) where someone was predicting the downfall of google because of the way they approach the web when compared to how Yahoo does it, where Yahoo is more “social” and Google is more “data”.
I think you’re right, there’s pleanty of competition out there, but the trouble is when people write about it they seem to take the position that there is going to be only one “winner” and everyone else will vanish. As if the world is looking to get rid of every search engine but one. There’s pleanty of people doing lots of neat stuff out there, it just happens many of them now get hired by Google.
Re:Competition?
One thing for sure about Google: the money isn’t going to run out soon. Until their stock price tumbles, they may well find it cheaper to buy good ideas with their over-valued stock than to build new ideas themselves, just like in the good old days of the Internet bubble.
Still, with the number of smart people they have and their ability to pour engineering resources into new ideas, I wouldn’t count them out. It is, however, a lot harder to maintain innovation and quality as the company gets bigger and bigger (a former colleague of mine was recently hired, and complained about how slow the process was, since Sergei himself still has to sign off on every hire).
I would agree with Blake that it’s unlikely that this will be a winner-take-all race. Companies will find their audiences and shares of markets. There’s not one TV network or one auto-maker or one magazine publisher. Why should there end up as only one search engine?