For most of this year, Google has been holding back on its M&A activity. But its recent acquisitions of On2 Technologies in August and reCAPTCHA a week ago signal that Google is regaining its appetite for acquisitions. CEO Eric Schmidt told Reuters today that he wants to buy at least one small startup a month primarily because it is a great way to hire the best talent.
So what type of startups is Google likely to buy? One way to figure that out is to look at what kinds of startups its bought in the past. The Google acquisition and investment map below was created by the folks at MeetTheBoss (they’ve made similar visualizations for Amazon and eBay). There are a few deals missing like last week’s reCaptcha acquisition (see CrunchBase for a more complete list), but the subway-map visualization above gives the broad outlines of Google’s acquisition path.
The longest lines with the most stops (each stop represents a deal) are technology (dark violet) and web services (green). Startups which fall somewhere on those two lines seem to have a stronger chance of getting picked up by Google, at least historically. Other shorter, but overlapping lines, include advertising (pink), search (salmon), mapping (violet), social (red), video (dark red). Which lines does Google need to extend?
(Click on the map below to enlarge).
Image links to the wrong place, should be: http://cache0.t...tions-small.png
ty. other one is too small.
i did not notice Orkut in the red social time line? they do not own a premium social channel that users are gravitatiing too. their patent 360 cpc ad practice does not bode well with mobile. users aren’t clicking the ads. the only way they will be able to compete on search, social and mobile is to acquire location based talent.
As always, Google understands the importance of small companies and their innovative products. Unlike Microsoft which usually tries to compete everybody with its own products by crushing competition . I think that in the next 5 years – Apple and Google will be the biggest companies, surpassing Microsoft.
Really? I can’t tell the difference between the two. Google has only really broadened its product offering beyond search by acquisitions. MSFT has also expanded beyond its core businesses through buying smaller companies. What’s the difference? Oh right… you’re biased. That’s why Google and Apple are somehow ‘better’ companies.
99% of revenue from google comes from ads.
bigger than microsoft? lmao
I thought they bought Blogger?
Yeah, Pyra Labs.
It’s on the map.
One startup per month?!
Great news for startups with x-Googlers on their board!
Urchin is not on the map
Ok… one more time, since this isn’t the first time you guys have shown this map.
This map makes absolutely no sense unless there’s some kind of key to what A-E and 1-8 actually stand for.
Or could it be that it stands for absolutely nothing, and somebody out there likes making pretty maps?
Rocky’s comment above is 100% correct. This is a pretty illustration which offers no insights into Google’s M&A strategy – on a historical or predictive basis. The only thing this “map” really illustrates is that Erick and most TC readers are easy to fool with pretty looking charts.
Props to MeetTheBoss for putting out this garbage and getting a link on TC. They’re the smart ones I guess.
so everything is in Zone 1?
kiss <<<<<<<<<<
Any predictions? Mobile? Advertising? GM’s Opel?
Where is Writely on the Map??
I don’t understand this subway map bullshit. I could almost extract some information from the legend if I could suppress my irrational rage at the damn map.
I guess it does make a good personality test. Show people the map and see how they react.
I don’t get why people have issues with the map. It makes perfect sense, and clearly shows where google have been investing since 2001. Good work, keep it up!
In the Advertizing line, Google hadn’t acquired ZAO Begun (an ad network in Russia similar to AdSense). Its plans were ruined by Russian antimonopoly committee.
Google hasn’t acquired On2 Technologies yet and ISN’T going to get the shareholder votes to acquire On2.
That’s amazing: “great way to hire the best talent.” Incredibly expensive, but it shows that they value people. I wonder how this talent usually does in Google.
It’d be funny if they were a big corp, scared of the garage startups, and want to hire the best talent to prevent competition regardless of if the talent would flourish at Google.
But it is early, and that may just be hair brained …
http://www.trad...spx?symbol=goog