…But were afraid to ask. This is the title of this very interesting 34-slide presentation on Google prepared by FaberNovel, a french consulting firm. It is hard to realize the real nature of this just 10 years old giant given the number of services it has continuously released, updated (and sometimes shut down) or acquired.
This presentation gives a great overview of the company’s overall strategy and the reasons it has become what it is today.
It addresses some key questions about the company’s future, presented in the slide above: how Google won’t be affected by the crisis (not so sure about that if you consider their own stock update: the WSJ has a good article about the upcoming downturn), its relation with Microsoft and its advantages on Facebook, its footprint in the infrastructure and mobile world…
There is an interesting slide about how Google buys traffic through key partnership deals with software or hardware companies (slide 14) Many tend to think Google has free traffic or zero marketing costs which is a wrong assumption since it affects directly its P&L
For regular readers, most of this information will not be a surprise. But it is well organized and structured and gives some good prospective. I just wished the presentation was focusing a little more on the Giant’s weaknesses. A TechCrunch France reader funnily commented that, only the absence of electricty could stop them. What we do know on the web is that giants do not stay strong forever. The question is when will the wind change direction for Google?
When will the wind change? As soon as Google get’s so far away from it’s core business that it begins to forget what that core business is. I believe in diversification, if it has purpose and if you can keep all of the balls in the air at the same time. Remember, there was a time when Yahoo was on top.
re: “only the absence of electricity”
As long as the Columbia flows…
http://www.info...owered_goo.html
the Iowa wind blows…
http://www.data...-windmill-farm/
and errrr the sun shines…
http://arstechn...goes-solar.html
meh…
Interesting Q&A. So, what’s next, Google?
I hope Google wiil fail over privacy.
Today, Google has such an giant footprint on the Web that the Internet has basically become the GoogleNet.
Just one example – Google Analytics:
- tracks you over millions of websites,
- stores every move you make,
- builds a huge profile of your websurfing habits, preferences, what you look at, etc.,
- sends EVERYTHING to Google.
This is just not acceptable.
Or to paraphrase: “Oh, boo hoo hoo, wa wa wa”.
If it’s not acceptable, then, I don’t know, don’t use the Internet?
Good Advice Decyfer. Let him go back in the time to the era of Radio
1) download Firefox
2) install AdBlock Plus
3) add Google Analytics tracking URLs to the list of blocked urls
4) surf the web without GA tracking your visits
true dat
I don’t necessarily agree with the parent poster’s point but I think yours is not a solid argument either. I mean if what you said is the universally accepted solution against GA tracking, then why all the “Oh, boo hoo hoo, wa wa wa” about Microsoft bundling IE with Windows and making it the default web browser? User can still install whatever browser they prefer and configure/tweak Windows to use that as the default browser.
Google Law is coming!
I always have faith in Google in the tech stuffs like mobile phone, internet and stuff. Because what I think is in the future every gadget will eventually link back to the internet and database where Google has the most powerful presence.
Google did something called “brand marketing”, I am writing a book about it btw, here’s something on that:
http://zedomax....w-obama-did-it/
It’s not all those services that Google’s adding on, it’s Google’s homepage that’s making most of the money.
People forget how great Google is at brand marketing, you can forget everything else.
It’s all about “search”, GMail, GoogleMaps, they all have “search” while Yahoo and MSN are struggling because they have too much portal content on the homepage.
This is really useful thank you
http://www.iamlittle.net
Oh I loved this slideshow. One or two things that I wanted to clarify. Blogger with ads? I don’t understand how google monetizes blogger or google docs with ads. In fact I didn’t find any ad in blogger platform and I even removed the blogger top bar from my blog. I generate a decent number of impressions for adsense through it, still, blogger doesn’t share that income (though yes, google gets a fair percentage) but that will be there even if I use a self-hosted blog. Then how does blogger make money exactly. Also they have to pay for my hosting and have to provide storage and transfer facility. It’s confusing.
You don’t have to speak one bit about Cuil search engine. It’s no competitor to google. Recently, SEroundtable published the usage stats of Cuil and it is not promising in any way. I also wrote quite a few lines about why Cuil is not up to any competition. In fact, I don’t believe that they have 120 billion pages indexed. That’s they don’t index my PR4 blog with 600 plus google backlinks. Then how can you believe Cuil has any index? Also, when I search there, I get completely substandard results. So, no. I don’t think Cuil should have a position in this presentation.
Lenin
CuteWriting
What’s the next big thing we are going see from Google.
I really love Google.. everything about Google! They have so many useful applications. I really hope that someday there will be an OS from Google.
have you heard of gOS?
gOS is the pre-alpha, pseudobuntu, unofficial garage-band Google OS distro.
Which was introduced at Walmart.
It doesn’t count.
Google has already made an operating system, called Goobuntu (It is a modification of Ubuntu). But it is only used internally.
Android
Wow..this is something I really never heard of. Google OS? Is it going to be a web base OS? (Or developing towards that?)
I guess they are trying to build something with the concept “mobile personal computer”? Access the internet anywhere with all the customized setting just like how you access the internet at home.
Excellent presentation!
Google will never fail. Because it did something that Yahoo and Microsoft never thought before. It made it’s brand global with lots of useful services in hundreds of local languages. Yahoo and Microsoft couldn’t foresee this. Especially Microsoft missed a great chance. Most of the world is running its famous operating system from PCs to Servers for ages. If it could have integrated its OS with innovative online services, we won’t be talking about Google’s success today.
Google will go down eventually. No one knows when, but it will. Once their innovation slows(it already is slowing) and top talent gets restricted or put on maintenance, they’ll go somewhere else where they can do their pet projects. And now that the stock price has halted, people may start going home at 5pm instead of 2am everyday, as hopes of striking it rich with stock options disappear. Changing the world starts to suck when you realize you are underpaid, overworked and have no life.
The smart guys will leave and start their own company or join the next hot startup that offers hyper super growth.
Sure, because stock everywhere else is flying high! Woohoo! They are LOVING it in the stock markets at the moment
This: “Many tend to think Google has free traffic or zero marketing costs which is a wrong assumption since it affects directly its P&L” is the core information for a lot of people. In my opinion it’s not “many”. It’s the majority of 70 to 90%. Google does have marketing costs. Of course it does.
btw, has anyone else noticed that bill gates now has a linkedin page?
Fairly interesting. The bit about Google buying its traffic is a bit rich though. Put up against other companies Google is remarkable at how little they spend in acquiring users (especially at the time when they had the most explosive growth).
Also no evidence in the presentation that Google gets social media and uses it massively to its advantage, hence the openness.
Interesting presentation. I was not aware of some of the clever forays Google is making in speech recognition. Would be nice if they one day bundled this up as a pay-per-use service with an API.
However, it fails to touch upon the necessity of OpenSore … ahem, OpenSocial … and there’s not even a hint of how they plan to make money with it, nevermind how they deal with the incompatibilities that arise with third-party implementations (e.g. MySpace’s), or, more importantly, why they are motivated to even care about doing so. OpenSocial really seems like a “me too” effort to steal thunder from Facebook. The same could also be said for Android.
yes, there is huge video content out there but is not indexed, searching videos using voice recognition technologies would be a huge step into content discovery.
imagine how many terabytes of text are in those videos, all those terabytes are useful information but cant be indexed and searched today.
slide 24. msft’s os and apps businesses exhibit powerful cross-side network effects (developers affiliate to the platform because it has users, and vice versa). in many that’s more structurally resillient (if less trendy) than goog’s scale and experience advantages in search, where strong cross-side network effects only operate in one direction (i don’t really use google more because it has more SEM advertisers).
also shame it didn’t discuss revenue concentration, internal org challenges, prod development philosophy, etc to present a more balanced picture.
Interesting to see some interesting negative comments targeted at Google. Have you all forgot what Google has done for the world in the way of globalisation? Without Google the internet would not be what it is today. Everyone would still be using MSN getting crap search results or if Bill influenced the algo it would be a pay for ranking system!
Time to open your eyes and thank Google for what they have given us for free!
Great post, I enjoyed the slides a lot. I know competition is good for the marketplace and a garage startup could hypothetically take on anyone, but I really don’t foresee a time when google ceases to rule the internet. They simply dominate too large a portion of the major online services (search, ads, mail, blogging, etc.). They’ve invested so much into infrastructure, it seems like they’ll always be around. It feels like they’ve got investments in everything.
am a hard core fan of google….. thanks for the info. nice article.
One more question: Will consulting firms be touched by the crisis ?
I fear they already are… if they spend their time doing educational slides about Google (nice slides indeed).
I noticed share of adsense in google revenues are going down compared to search revenues or google sites revenues. still adsense is 34% of total revenues.
For last one year everybody is complaining about Adsense income, which may mean two things,
1-google started to take more cut
2-cost per click in adrowds has decreased
if 1. was true then revenues from adsense should have increased but they did not, then 2. must be correct, then:
If cpc on adwords for adsense has decreased it means advertisers do not compete with higher bids on adsense sites, advertisers may not see adsense advertising efficient.
Is adsense dying?
This is all revenue based, its the margins that matter!
Just think how much Google has affected our lives and where we would be today with out them…
The graph of the services tying in together brings a really strong and precise point. The fact that Blogger or Blogspot is offering a one-click option for the author to generate revenue through adsense is a good tie-in with adsense.
What I don’t understand though is how gmail, google docs, calendar, and youtube tie in together with the search engine. Gmail can tie in with adsense, but how with Google search?
My original conclusion is that Google wants to convert users of other mail,calendar,etc services to use a “Google” service. The Google brand will affect them so much that they will soon explore and use other Google services, and eventually and probably use them for all their purposes (like I do now)
The point about Cuil is not in its ability to index 120 billion pages or to compete with Google, but the fact that Pagerank is not a barrier to entry. By the way, Pagerank’s patent belongs to Stanford university, not to Google.
As regards the monetization of Blogger, it can be compared with Google Analytics : you are not compelled to monetize, but Google fosters the use of Adsense on these services.
Thx for the comments
I guess I knew more about Google than I thought because I did not see anything new here. I also thought they could have greatly streamlined the content- far too many boxes full of text.
The best slide is the Microsoft slide- they are going to kill the giant and the giant appears to be infighting so much about how to respond that it is not responding at all.
Finally, anyone who really wants to know their business model should focus on the ‘network effect’. This is the crux of everything they are doing. There’s a great book called Linked that explains it…
Many interesting info there..Cool..Go Google Go..
Nothing new, and no real analysis.
In particular, I think the point (1) is traditional consulting bullshit. Find some studies that say this and that are booming markets, then take for granted it will drive the revenue increase. I love Google products, but many of them are less-than-stellar successes in terms of revenue generation…
The slide #24 is also utterly misleading. First, the product ranges of MSFT and GOOG simply do not compare. Second there’s an intellectual fallacy in matching market segments with product segments.
There’s a huge (and well deserved) ‘luckiness’ in Google success, too bad this is not even mentioned.
This being said, the presentation is not bad. For instance, it shows every possible shape you can draw in PowerPoint…
Agreed. Nothing truely informative and new to me either. This presentation essentially lists the stuff Google has been doing, states the obvious and repeats commun knewledge and popular beliefs about Google.
“Everything you always wanted to know about Google…But were afraid to ask” ??? That’s a BS title. It should be titled something like: “How to sell Google to potential shareholders” or “What is Google?”.
Wait a second, why is this embeded with SlideShare instead of Google Docs?
Yeah, I’ve always wanted to know question #5. “How want Google to compete with Facebook?”
hah.
Who is want to come to Facebook? I can invitate!
First!
tornadowillie@hotmail.com
Thx!!1
Once I got to number five I couldn’t go any further… that question is an infinite-loop of Re:Re: reread; my Secretary of Interior Frontal Lobe-ness resigned.
Interesting presentation, I think it will be interesting to see how Google gets involved in the hyper local and hyper mobile targeting.
Thanks for the article
nice shot!
The main source of revenue for Google are online advertising.
Online advertising is declining and younger generations filter out advertisements – they don’t see them.
Additionally there are the Natural Born Clickers a population of 6% that clicks on about 50% of all online advertisements.
Google needs to start running for a new revenue source.
I
Should they really have to diversify? They ownz half the worlds data?
Dont believe in this stupid marketing slide show. Google stock is 250 $ right now and it may go below 200 very soon. Google is ONLY Search and nothing else, thats their biggest drawback, however much you try to analyze, none of the corporates are going to install any Google apps. its mostly used by starbucks junkies. Keep watching ‘Goog’ quote for more..
AS.
“none of the corporates are going to install any Google apps” ? I guess we are all fed up of that kind of offensive and groundless comments, adding no value to the debate : Google licensing revenues have a 455% growth in Q3 2008 vs 2007 and it will account for close to 700 million dollars this year. Too lazy to check a financial report, mr. realist?
while it is possible that GOOG may suffer from imperial overstretch one day, that seems very far off. As the current web leader, their strategy is mostly tied to increase their reach across all information pipelines, from cell phones to ads on dead-tree stuff. They may suffer in absolute terms from the downturn, but in relation to other companies, these guys will remain on top. I’m totally bullish on GOOG’s delivery.
Google missed a big one as AWS took market leadership in Cloud computing facility.
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