Testament to the success of Google is the common use of the brand name as a verb and, in 2007, the company continued its mission to make information universally accessible through an increasing range of services. Google is digitizing books at the rate of 3000 a day and has been launching a diverse range of services from patent search to local discount coupons, searching for government information, pay-per-action ads and simply providing Google News on mobile devices.
Alongside the growth of disruptive services such as Google Finance, Google Scholar and Google Desktop, the increasingly global adoption of the likes of Google Maps, Google Earth and Blogger has made such services the defacto standards. Much to the concern of the content-owning companies being challenged by Google’s increasing reach, has been the company’s exceptionally successful use of perpetual beta. Unlike many established players who seek to get a new product or service as close to perfect before launch, Google is willing to launch beta versions of its innovations into the market earlier and let users influence and drive configuration. So attractive is this to the company and its customers that some products are in continuous development, are never finished and so are perpetually in beta. Google can do this but, right now, many of the companies whose markets it is disrupting can’t.
2007 developments of note included Google Checkout, which makes it easier to buy products advertised on Google, and the release of OpenSocial to tap into the social networks and introduce more targeted advertising. This is proving successful and has commitments from community sites such as Linked-In and Ning as well as companies including Oracle and Salesforce.com. In the wake of the acquisition of YouTube, which is changing viewing habits around the world, high-profile purchases included the DoubleClick deal at $3.1bn. This is seen as much a defensive move to prevent others becoming a threat as it is a way for Google to grow its revenue by applying targeting capabilities to display ads. However with the deepest pockets in the marketplace, this scale of purchase should not be a surprise. Google is also a successful practitioner of smart M&A where notable acquisitions in 2007 included Postini, GrandCentral Communications and Endoxon.
Going forward, Google is targeting the mobile space. Strategic partnerships with telecom operators, an increasingly high-impact cooperation with Nokia, bidding in an auction for wireless airwaves and plans to develop its own operating system are all indications of some of Google’s intentions: mobile versions of YouTube and Google Maps are fast becoming the standard in this growing marketplace.
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