Google is the McDonald’s of the Internet world. The problem is, there is no Burger King or Wendy’s competing against it. Yahoo has been sinking faster than a ship that collided with an iceberg and there is no Leonardo or Kate around to make watching it interesting. Microsoft is as effective in breaking into the online big leagues as Beckham was effective in putting soccer on the map in the United States.
The only thing that will stop the Google-ization of the world is Google! Are they growing too much? Will there be a backlash against them.
Google’s name is cropping up in every player’s conversations: Yahoo (marketing partnership), Wikipedia (created their own version - Knol), Digg (tentative $200million deal), YouTube (bought by Google), Facebook (Google developed OpenSocial), Skype (rumors circulating Google may buy the eBay company), DoubleClick (Google acquired) and the list goes on.
The question becomes at what point will Internet users get tired of Google being involved in everything they do online? In a world where the underdog is always cheered can an upstart steal some of Google’s thunder? A clever marketing campaign and a solid product is all it takes (Microsoft proved that years ago). Microsoft, however, is not perceived as an underdog and therefore will not be able to garner grass roots support to overtake Google.
Fickle young adults (the target market for the majority of online ads) are quick to change their minds. If this target demographic sees Google encroaching on their favorite sites there may be some backlash. YouTube already fell into the hands of Google, MySpace may be safe for the time being, as is Facebook though there is always buzz about Google wanting to acquire or compete. With Wikepedia being in Google’s crosshairs will people begin to get fed up with the Google juggernaut and start actively looking for alternatives?
The heart and soul of Google remains its ad placement alongside search rankings and on its other properties. As consumers begin to wonder about the integrity of those rankings when Google-owned sites appear near the top (Wikipedia currently appears at the top of many rankings, if Knol results start to appear ahead of them people will certainly question those results) there could be some serious backlash.
It is readily apparent that Google will change their search results to maximize their ad revenue. Though sponsored results are clearly marked, Google is a little more clever than that. They changed their web search results to include video and news results on the same page as web page results. Of course YouTube videos are always near the top so it does not take much to connect the dots. It would be interesting to see the percentage of web pages that appear on page 1 of Google results that are either Google owned, Google controlled, or run Google ads.
Since Google completely controls the algorithm that determines which web pages appear in the results and the order they appear in will people begin to question the integrity of those results. A tweak to the formula can easily result in Google owned (completely or partially) websites appearing at the top of those results. Google is headed by some brilliant minds and it is unlikely they will engage in this questionable behavior, however, perception is often just as powerful, if not more powerful than reality.
Right now no one can compete with Google, unless of course Internet users start looking for alternatives if they see Google getting a little too big for its virtual britches.
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