Rating: +0
Indexing of web sites and charging ppl for advertisements is a bit last century. Even social networking is being used to index web sites that are frequently out of date. Is there another option?
Steve,
It won't be a technology per se. There is nothing so magical that can come to market and bite them hard enough that they couldn't decide to not worry about the not invented here syndrome and simply copy it and do it even better, they have enough resources where technology will never be a threat. Technology is only a viable threat when you don’t have the resources to catch-up in a reasonable time frame, they can not only catch-up but pass. So a better mouse trap technology is not a threat to Google. They would just lock themselves in a room and emerge with an even better mouse trap.
I see two scenarios that that can make a dent into Google’s world. First would be a total melt down of the internet adverting industry. It would have to be similar to the mortgage industry melt down, big and nasty and something that they could not have anticipated and prepared for. That type of ‘bust’ would put Google Adwords upside down, and potentially put Google's top-line revenue (their gift that keeps on giving) in a world of hurt. The melt-down I speak of would couldn’t be a simple blip on the radar screen, it would have to be a total melt-down and resetting of the way the industry works in order to have any affect at all. That said, I think Google has always been working and planning on the eventual reality that their major revenue streams Internet Advertising will one day go away, and their new product portfolio is engineered to be self-sustaining with or without advertising revenue.
There is one other thing that can totally destroy Google, a bad or poorly integrated acquisition. If they pick up a large company with conflicting cultures and do a poor to mediocre job of integration, keep the wrong people, etc. they run the risk of a slow and hidden death of the company. On this front (M&A), this is something they are very good and experienced at; and they have enough checks and balances in place that it would take lots of people, at lots of different levels all having very bad ‘days’ simultaneously to totally screw up an acquisition. Those are the only two that I can see, and both are long shots.
Good Luck,
Peter
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