Mark Evans

Google: Is There Life Beyond Search and AdSense?

Hey, I’m just as Google-obsessed as the next guy. After all, it’s impossible not to be fascinated by a company with the world’s dominant search engine, an ad business that tosses off billions of dollars in profits, and a willingness to give its R&D people the freedom to launch pretty much anything what they want.

But for all the Google strategic initiatives and news - most recently, a potential Second Life-like service, presentations, a Facebook-killer strategy, plans to build an undersea cable across the Pacific Ocean - what is Google other than a company with two killer apps: search and AdSense?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome one-two punch that has pumped its market cap to $174-billion and made Sergey Brin and Larry Page among the top-five richest people in the world. But beyond search and AdSense, has Google really - and I mean really - succeeded at anything else?

GMail’s been successful as a rival to Yahoo and Hotmail; Blogger has become one of the leading blogging platforms, Google Reader has stormed on to the RSS stage, YouTube could become a killer app if consumers are willing to pay for online video, while Google Earth is downright cool. Google Docs, meanwhile, has a solid following but it’s far more interesting as a potential rival to Microsoft Office, while Picasa, Froogle, Google Blog Search and GTalk are nothing to write home about.

Aside from perhaps YouTube, all of the services above play modest supporting roles to search and AdSense. For all the stuff coming out of the GooglePlex, Google is really no different from a business perspective than it was two or three years ago. As long as the online advertising market sees strong growth and Google can leverage its ability to sell relevant advertising, the golden goose (search and AdSense) will continue to lay very profitable eggs.

But when you think about it, Google is not unlike Microsoft. Huh? Well, Google has search and AdSense while Microsoft has Windows and Office. Not that there’s anything wrong with having two dominant products that generate billions in sales and profits.

Microsoft has spent years trying to expand beyond Windows and Office, pursuing areas such as cable, Internet access, game consoles, portals and search. Yet, Microsoft is still a two-trick pony. Google has been strategically aggressive as well with the launch of new online services, acquisitions, a push into the advertising market (radio, newspapers) and lots of activity in the wireless market (wither the GPhone?)

All of this activity is good and necessary for large companies such as Microsoft and Google to stay vibrant and maintain their growth. That said, it’s a huge challenge finding another killer, high-growth business. Truth be told, it could be that Google’s ongoing success will consist of many, many sources driving AdSense as opposed to one killer idea.

More: Hugh MacLeod has some thoughts Microsoft, capped off by his belief Microsoft has to stop letting other people tell its story. MakeUseof offers up a nice list of “10 Google Services That Get No Love”.