Want to know everything that could possibly go wrong with Google? Well, you can read the risk section of its latest SEC filing, but that’s a snore. Or you can flip through the slides above, which were put together by French consulting firm FaberNovel. They were the ones who gave us the hugely popular slideshow, “Everything you always wanted to know about Google . . . but were afraid to ask”.
This one is titled more morosely, “Why could Google die . . . maybe not now, but tomorrow.” I wouldn’t be picking out caskets just yet, but the slideshow does provide a convenient cheat sheet for most of the major threats that Google faces. It quickly goes through them, including the threat of antitrust and copyright infringement litigation, a massive privacy disaster, hiring and retention issues, disruption from new startups. There is even a nice slide listing Google’s 12 main weaknesses, along with a visual assessment of the probability, timing, and impact of each scenario. Of course, chances are that it doesn’t include the one threat that will get Google in the end. (I don’t know what it is either, but I am a big believer in black swans).
Below are some of the key slides.
Just wanted to point out that in ‘ability to control points of entry’ G1 is shown as a mobile example.
G1… is dubbed ‘Google phone’ for a reason.
Would also like to point out that GPhone, iPhone, etc control only a tiny fraction of a fraction of the mobile market worldwide — thus, there are new gatekeepers in place: Nokia (40% market share worldwide) and operators (telcos are notoriously reluctant to “share” anything). Developing countries will go to Net via mobile, not via PC. And in new, emerging cultures, new companies are also built. Companies that could become big outside the PC-controlled-Net and later come to desktop Net with a strong brand built outside the “traditional Internet”.
And that change is already beginning. In Africa, Asia, …
i realy need to know this this is for my business meetings!
There talking about domain names
how do u add a timer to your slideshow so u dont have to click it every time u want it to change slides???
Good analyze !
Don’t forget Google is also involved in the iPhone
please gmail don’t ever leave me
If you really think about it – How about the fact that there is only 1 source of income for the Big G?
Not true.
- Google search Appliance
- Picasa extended data plans
- Adwords
- Google Apps – The pay per use model for Google apps could prove very successful in the long run. There is a significant potential for up selling new services to these users once they have committed their messaging infrastructure to Googles service. There are currently 3000 users signing up per day. Each paying 50/year/user. As these users data & user needs increase, so does Googles Revenue.
don’t be absurd. Adwords drive more that 95% of teh revenue. Google Apps even if a serious threat to MS will maybe comprise 2-3% of revenue. Picasa? My goodness man.
Goober is right, Crait you’re an idiot.
That’s like saying the change I find wedged in my couch cushions is income.
Hm, every large and successful operation is constantly at risk to be disrupted, out-innovated, or town apart by legal issues etc.
So it is always a good idea to keep risks and threats in check and if AIG and GM would have done that instead of enjoying the ‘we are a big honking piece of untouchable incorporated arrogance’ ride for too long then we wouldn’t have to pick up the pathetic pieces now.
However, Google is one of the bright stars lighting up the darkness of the business universe right now. Nobody wants a Google owns it all scenario but I suggest for now to celebrate their success instead of predicting dooms day. At least until there are other similar smash hits on the horizon.
A request: Kindly publish links to similar analyses of threats to Microsoft, Amazon, Myspace, Facebook and top level Internet Service Providers that are publicly traded stocks.
Agreed. This has been awesome. Would love more analysis like this.
WOW, this is big, game changing news. You mean to tell me a company can possibly fail if it doesn’t innovate? They can also be sued from companies legitimately or not? And if they screw up – such as by leaking personell information of it’s clients – they can be in trouble???
Probably the most convoluted slide design on a powerpoint I’ve seen. Why didn’t they just write a paper?
probably because most of us can understand it as a simply and clearly communicated design of information and not as an obfuscation to the data itself nor the point of the data. you obviously don’t think & understand in visual terms. Please go away.
Even Google is working on a ground that is moving and shaking faster than any other, but they do know of all of the 12 potential weaknesses so I am pretty sure they have truly intelligent people on top of each of these.
Off course big G is somewhat becoming Microsoft of old days, when many feared that world will belong to M, now similar talks are happening about G. M is still here, G will be as well. Somehow I would like to believe – that it’s just starting, warming up sort of…
Google has terrible customer support, and by terrible I mean it’s atrocious. There has never been a company that survived because it didn’t listen to its customers and I highly doubt Google will be an exception.
You mean for adwords? Becuase that is true, but only for low-level accounts that don’t bring in enough $$ to merit support.
They do not need customer support for search, because they already have your data. So your comment is irrelevant.
If you have a monopoly, you don’t need good customer care. Ref: AT&T, Comcast. Google Apps is more at risk from outages than bad customer care. SaaS only works if the uptime has a lot of nines.
The real problem is that Google is losing its coolness factor – and not because they are dominant. They are like a badly managed gifted programmer: they release stuff that is cool on launch day, but then fail to finish them off properly, instead moving on to the next shiny, often leaving the old one to creak (or withdrawing it, pissing people off even more).
More worrying, they seem to have bought the myth of their own cleverness, which is always a worry.
The search market does allow your users to drift away from you with no penalty. If I start using a search engine that only 10% of people use, that’s not a problem for me. It’s not like eBay, who is hated by its sellers but has them cornered because you can’t sell successfully on a site that only 10% of people shop on.
Every time Google tries a service and then lets it languish, somebody else springs up to fight for the niche – see Google Docs/Zoho, iGoogle/Netvibes, etc etc. Eventually all it will have is Search and Maps, and certainly the search has been creaking too.
It’s not inevitable that Google will fade away, but it is certainly not inconceivable either.
Every company has challenges.
Wow. Really? What a zenmaster thing to say. Next you’ll tell us ‘water is wet’ and ’shit stinks’.
There’s always risk, especially in a new market. Although we Google is dominant, online advertising environment is still new and will most likely look very different 10 to 15 years for now. This means there’s opportunity for others, of course Google has a lot of money and obviously the greatest probability of success.
I think that the comment regarding “85% of their employees have stock options that are underwater” is dated since they reset the options a few weeks ago.
Google has a halo. People, smart motivated good people, want to work for Google. They appear Good. Unlike Zuck and fb. I think that if Google trips up and loses its sheen that could be a body blow.
The big risk is them spending to much money to purchase upstarts. What is going to happen is that the communities focused on specific areas/industries/sports etc are going to become big very big. Say a community/software around IT filled with IT professionals that use the community/software to due their jobs.
Or take a community/software for lawyers to do their job. Or one for coaches or athletes.
You say that has been happening so what nothing has changed. Well, in the near future we will get down to less than a handful for each industry. And they will be huge something like 20 million+ users each.
Google search is trying to be a search for everyone. Try finding a solution to a software bug in Google? Good luck. Or go to a community that has that answer from a live person or the answer has already been answered and the best one is voted to the top.
I can spend an half an hour searching Google or 5 minutes or less through the community. Plus I have my community up in front of me all the time as its focused on my job and it helps me do my job.
Give it about 3 years and we will be at this point. I only know of one company who is doing it and doing it well. They are being berry berry quiet!
these are not very “enlightening” but could be applied to any company
biggest threat to google is its perception as the new “Microsoft” (intrusive and domineering, a monopolist).
2nd biggest threat is Google search quality is deteriorating — results are poor and filled with sponsored results (which I call ’spam’…Google calls this ads).
I’ve been saying this for 4 years about Google and only now is the media starting to question Google…guess the honeymoon is over and the baby needs a diaper change?
It seems to me that stating that you’ve been saying this about google for 4 years isn’t really something to be proud of, considering you’ve been wrong about it for 4 years up to this point. I can honestly say that I don’t know a single person who uses a search engine other than google, and I just don’t really see that changing much any time soon.
I don’t see how he’s been wrong for four years since everything he’s saying has been true for four years. There’s people who’ve talked shit about them since pre-IPO and guess what, they weren’t wrong either, and they’re not wrong now. Way to fanboy. “I can honestly say that I don’t know a single person who uses a search engine other than google…”
Weakest argument ever, and my favorite one to apply history to:
10 years ago: “I can honestly say that I don’t know a single person who uses a search engine other than Yahoo…”
10 years ago: “I can honestly say that I don’t know a single person who uses an ISP other than AOL…”
15 years ago: “I can honestly say that I don’t know a single person who uses a browser other than Netscape…”
Never, ever go by numbers to determine future extinction. The only thing the numbers seem to determine, judging by the above examples, is who will become extinct.
Very interesting, good post with alot of info.
Whoever is the author of this could make a heck of a lot of money selling these analysis to the companies they are profiling.
But, my response, Google has a “innovation at no cost” business model. They make high revenues from ads, then redirect that revenue into 100% development of new ideas and perspectives. In another 10 years, they will own so much of a part of the cloud infrastructure, their advertising power will be the core of it all.
Geez, people like shinny objects… you really think this is an in-depth analysis? it took me 3 minutes to go through the slide, and I do not think there was much more on them. Hopefully these guys can do better if they try (or get paid) hard.
…wow..
isnt this just telling a person with a loaded shotgun where to point at?
So true article. Google’s revenue and profit comes 90%+ 95% from their search engine I think. At least 88%+. Their revenue is not diversified yet. All those beautiful applications like google docs, youtube, blogger doesn’t generate i think any real revenue.
Boring…
Did anyone else notice “Apple search engine”?
More points below:
Google is a extremely young company living in the most dynamic & competitive environment, so why Google can “die” in less than 7 years?
Against Google:
- A new search engine entering the game: imagine a search engine in the [buzz] cloud where you can choose between different page ranks? or implement your own?
- A more ethical adwords/adsense, probably with a keyword market exchange connecting different networks.
- Mobile phones will run independent GNU/Linux (or any other free OS) distributions sooner or later.
- “Extreme” open source activists were late to understand that’s important to enforce a license for web sites (Affero), but will do because if many applications lives in the [buzz] cloud or follow a SaaS model, current licenses has a loophole inside. So Google is overusing the ‘open’ world like in social. Where is the search engine api?
- People ‘genetically’ blind to Ads and alternative ad networks.
- Google doesn’t understand that HTML is not for Spreadsheets and AJAX is a hack. Yes, it’s nice for sharing it with your friends. Sooner or Later a complete UI will win (Silverlight? Flash?). Remember that Google analytics uses flash.
For Google:
- Why nobody could copy adwords/analytics experience? Seems like Yahoo(Overture) and Microsoft can’t do it. There is/was some execution excelence in Google nobody could copy.
- Incredible Research & Development, Microsoft spent a lot of money on R&D but google is ahead in the scientific community, so more disruption is on the Google side.
- Services: Why don’t build a services area for information/reality analysis/mining instead of focus on pennies? I think their information is as or more important to the economy as the government or private statistics.
What was the motive for conducting this study? $$$$$
It is funny that people live in an imagination that they created out of something… is it fear of loosing search engine? Or what? Be creative to make money….
Google needs to focus on developing a new business model around their Docs Services, for Business Enterprises that are willing to use the Cloud
It would be like a Google Office Service which would charge Businesses for a Yearly Subscription Fee.
Google also needs to bury current Dead Wood like Knoll and Googlebase.
New Products or Services should only be released if they can play a big role in either the Search/Ads division or the Google Office one.
I may not be a software engineer but I can develop a business model around this possible Google Office plan.
Thank you for posting this! Its incredible how many people think that google is God. I always try to explain to them the same way Internet Explorer has Firefox and other browsers it will come a point where google will have real competitors. I completely agree that the most possible is the antitrust factor.
I’m sharing this in DP forums! Thank you!
This is a very stunning post, pro and cons its true even google might fall down from its current stage who knows. Did anyone else notice “Apple search engine”?
they might miss one big potential for business marketers is mobile marketing. Its a big world and a world of communication, everything web will go mobile.
The Microsoft anti-Google propaganda campaign continues.
It is open eye view for the new mobile marketing strategy, I agree with “everything web will go mobile”
I have a blind spot for Google Text Ads, if most users develop that, wouldn’t that be a big problem?
I hope they go belly up, and soon.
It makes me sick what they are doing, while pretending all this “We want to make the world a better place, we want to make the users all warm and fuzzy inside” facade.
Google Lovers = Brainwashed Sheep.
The biggest fail of Google in 2008:
Amazon with AWS took leadership in cloud computing facility.
Even IBM joined AWS.
Additionally online advertising revenue is decreasing.
Just ask yourself: do you click on ad-links?
A nice topic for a study from marketing point of view (everybody has an opinion on Google).
From quality of content point of view, not so much. Anyone with consulting experience would smile at “methodology” slide.
Still there are client who _do_ pay big money for this kind of stuff (visualization accounting for 90% of value delivered).
Who paid? It seems pretty free content
Keep dreaming .. all people hates Microsoft but it here from 25 years and will stay so google
That’s a nice analysis, but the bulk of it could really be applied to most any tech company out there.
Google is gonna be around for a long long time…..probably not with as high a share of the search and online advertising markets, but there is lots and lots of $$ to spread around…..