Challenges for Google

In the last decade Google has been an amazing engine of innovation. Google made huge strides in the Internet search process, web applications, web tracking and cloud applications. The list is certainly long, if not endless. Its relentless innovation engine continues to move forward unimpeded with Android and visual search engine. On the business side, Google's Adwords model has been an excellent example of trust-based contracts. Though, I'm not yet sure if Gmail e-mail application is transformational or just incremental. Started by two students with classic financial help from venture capitalists, Google has been a quintessential American success story.

It is hard not to fall in love with such a success story. But successful organizations are living organisms and they have a life span. General Motors that used to be on the top of Fortune 500 list is fighting for its survival today. Microsoft, a Wall Street darling of 80's and early 90's now claims to be an underdog. In spite of hefty profits, Microsoft's growth is slacking off and its once famed innovation engine is beginning to show its weaknesses in terms of poor product designs, feature-clutter and risk avoidance. Generally, life span of a successful corporation is about 20 to 30 years. You can look at the Fortune 500 list of 20 years back and do your own analysis.

Google will be shortly reaching its middle age crisis somewhere between 2011 and 2016. How effective Google will be during the second-half of its life will depend upon how well it can manage to resolve that mid-life crisis? It is hard to be successful but it is harder to be successful without being arrogant. The problem with arrogance is that it puts a blinder around our eyes and creates a false sense of righteousness. This is exactly the case with Google. One example is Google's scant respect for copyrights. I think scanning of orphan and out-of-print books by Google was a very commendable idea. The execution betrayed lack of respect for intellectual property rights. Google thought that it would be able to get away until Authers' Guild and Association of American Publishers filed a lawsuit. Google tried to play smart and made a revenue sharing settlement with them without understanding that they did not represent all the unknown copyright owners of out-of-print books. Was it that hard? Was it fair use under the digital millennium copyright act? Was it fair use under the various International laws that protect intellectual property? Same thing Google is doing regarding news content. Though I'm no fan of Rupert Murdoch but I agree with him that news reporting is an expensive business and Internet firms have no right to copy that content for free.

It is very likely that Internet news content will be not be free any more and several of the content creation firms will block Google from searching their websites.

Google will thrive as long as Internet search is valuable. Internet search will be valuable as long as Internet content continues to grow in a haphazard and disorganized manner. Once Internet content is organized semantically using taxonomies, the value of pattern-matching search will decline precipitously. Work is already going on in the area of knowledge representation and organization. Is semantic web 15 to 20 years away? Will that signal the end of Google? We don't know that. Will another technological change similar in scope lead to Google's demise? Yes, it is very likely unless Google decides to take its blinders off.