What should Google Do?

Lots of stuff on the webz about what Google (i.e. Larry Page) should do to get Google's mojo back - much of it mutually contradictory of course, or requiring too many things at once. From a strategic perspective however, the oldies are still goodies - Fundamentals, Focus and Future, via the simple action of following the money:

Fundamentals - secure the next 3 years

1. Get the core search back to the quality it was a few years ago - this is the golden goose, the bread and butter, etc etc - if this drops away then everything else is moot. Sorry, Matt Cutts, if you believe your algorithms tell you it is better than ever before, then your algorithms are wrong. If I were looking to make Google search social, a good start would be letting people sharing spam-site killing data for filters. Crap search = fewer users, fewer users = fewer Ads seen, fewer Ads = less revenues, less revenues = misery.

2. Stop f*cking around with people's privacy. In the Silicon Valley bubble, privacy may be over - but to a lot of other people out there (and their governments) it isn't. To reduce the risk of being seen as creepy, evil guys that governments want to take a very close look at, rein in the this tendency. People can walk away very fast now decent competition is emerging (see above Ads - to - Misery tale), and grumpy Governments can tie up a lot of time, cost and ultimately market access.

Those are the big things, the "A" class "Must Do's". Then there are the "B" Class things - are we going to throw more resource at them or cut our losses. The main ones are:

Focus - stop doing all the things you do, especially look at rationalising, and - er - firing:

3. Mobile - in or out? The Android value chain is as fragmented now as Olde Planet Mobile's ever was, so the value will be sucked up in the holes - and Apple will take the high ground, high rollers and high margins. Yes, the potential value is huge, but not as it is currently structured. Either take the whole market by the horns - ie get very serious, probably a major unit in its own right or even a spinout, or exit as anything more than a software house.

4. The GoogleCloud - can Google guarantee 5 '9's reliability? If not, its a pipe dream and it will fail to make money, and its probably consuming lot of resources - real time core value services do. In 5 '9's, deliver a hybrid strategy that works with partners' on-deck tools (like Mozilla for example, or even Microsoft), and exit anything bigger than cool tools for people with time on their hands (ie no need to be on the hook for real time delivery )

5. GooTube - Is it making money yet? Will it be at average unit profitability in the next 18 months? If not, kill it (or sell it to a Bigger Fool) - it's had enough time.

6. Chrome OS - Why?

7. Chrome Browser - Why? If its not at 20% market share by end 2011, kill.

8. As for the rest - the "C" class stuff - its a good time for the good old Star/Question mark/Dogs etc analysis, and anything not getting a "star" or "question mark with traction" rating gets shot straight away.

Future - where are the next things?

9. "New Search" - Yup, competition is emerging, the likely outcome in 5 years is a big No 1, smaller Nos 2 and 3, and then a small tail of niche operations. For the way to stay No. 1 for the next 5 years, see points 1 and 2 above. Prepare for the reality. "Social Search" is hyped to the nines, but if it can't make money in the medium term it will die, as did all the DotCom darlings. Traffic is not the same as money, and certainly not the same as profit. If anybody understands the economics of transaction messaging it's Google - get some smart people in a room, get them to work out what you have to believe for Facebook to make real money, and if you don't believe it, ignore them and tell all the remaining staff why it will die so they don't leave (and they will tell the press, never fear ). If you do believe it, then you have found where the leverage is, so hopefully the next Google product in the space is not the sort of things that only True Geeks can love.

10. The Next Big Thing - probably not going to be one big thing, stories like Google's original one are extremely rare. Search is Google's "big thing", the key therefore is to continuously innovate in Search.

Simples