Spend Time With Google

This week's cover story on Google in Time is a must read in understanding the company and its future.

The article says the company focuses on pursuing innovation, and then pushing as hard to make it great before pushing it out into the market, and worrying about the revenue model later. This is a focus that not enough companies have today. They let money and quarterly earnings dictate product development and not vice versa.

I disagree with the premise that Yahoo is Google's greatest enemy. Yahoo is focusing on content and "social search" which is cool today, but will never get as big as behavioral/target marketing or general search, IMHO. If you want to know what I like, ask me, because I differ with my friends on as many things as we agree.

Luckily for Google, the ad revenue model has worked well enough to support all of its ventures, but that well may soon run dry. They may have to turn to subscription services or slow growth as the advertising universe is not unlimited, or another search technology or ad model could slow them down. These things and the company itself are the greatest threats to Google.