If anybody (such as Facebook) is able to put a dent in that revenue, a lot of their leverage will disappear. Don't forget - they are publicly traded now too, which limits their flexibility. Investors want immediate profits and share price increases, not investments towards the future. Facebook has no such constraints.
Good point. Survival of the fittest and all. However, this must be why G just paid to develop the new US electric grid, and about 60+ new Green sources of electricity for it... They see the day coming when adwords won't pay all the bills and have diversified into being the electric company. So far they've broken ground on more Gigawatts than all of the UK.
So if you assume they will have an income stream from that... At least enough to stay dominate in search by default, then it can't all come tumbling down. At worst it will be another stalemate like Yahoo and Google had for years.
Unarmed Gunman said:
Android is nice. I don't really see how it fits with their core business, but I'm far from an expert.
Estimates are currently that by the year 2012, more people will get online PRIMARILY on their cellphones than at home. That will easily make Android the new Windows. So basically They're edging Microsoft out of the sweetspot from which they can push Chrome browser instead of IE.
Unarmed Gunman said:
Chrome OS is a pipe dream. Apple has 5% market share and they are HUGE. There is nothing to indicate that people would start switching to a Google OS, and the only way that might influence their revenue at all would be to have an OS that comes stock with Google search. Big deal - most of those users already use Google search. The reality is, most of Google's revenue comes from two sources, ads on search, and ads on content.
You're right in that it won't be a fiscal boom for G like it was for MS, but the fact is that Chrome OS is NO pipe dream. If you've ever used any existing cloud OS (I use Ghost for now) you'll see the raw promise of no one ever owning an operating system again... Nor being tied to licenses or physical equipment. Basically the desktop becomes a dumb terminal, and you access exactly what you want from EVERYWHERE, including your phone & office console. Heck, your TV too.
This nail in the coffin of microsoft will happen BIG and FAST, and will pretty much leave google in a very large percentage of the world's machinery. Apple, Blackberry, everyone will lose much of their current marketshare to google on that day... It's just too convenient to not adopt.
-And I bet G can find a way to put some ads in there somehow!
Unarmed Gunman said:
The Open Graph allows Facebook to gather the data on it's users - you don't have to have any data to give them. They just want you to implement the Open Graph on your site.
Interesting... Had no idea it was that big. I guess I'll have to go read about Open Graph now... Try it out when I can. I'm much more of a farmer than a marketer so yeah, I'd certainly go with facebook ads on my site if they pay me more than adsense. Three's a
lot they could fuck up though so I'm not holding my breath.
I'd love, in fact, to get Google Adsense off my site because I rely soley on Google Search Engine to send my traffic. Zuck has a real chance here with Open Graph, because I know I'm not alone in that feeling.
SO, what we're essentially talking about here is a near future (2012?) where we all still get traffic from G search, but monetize with and sell through FB. This might mean G Search won't have the budget it does now and eventually decline in quality. It will stick around though.
BUT, we'll also use Goog for our phone service, our home and work OSs, and they'll soon be the power company we all send checks off to each month. Of course there will still be an adsense but if Open Graph does exactly what you say, adsense will be for hitting people outside of their browsing only. The rest of the time FB will be the monetizer of choice.
Poor Bill. The only real loser appears to be Microsoft in all of this. No one is buying their damn phones.
