Even several years ago, before Android was a player and Google’s social induced sprawl had commenced, it was clear that Google was facing an issue of over expansion and property definition.  In the beginning, this growing concern was illustrated by Google Labs.  Labs products, by definition, were inside of Google’s test area.  However, Google had a tendency to leave their products in beta for oddly extended periods of time.  Gmail, which has hardly changed since launch, was in beta for over five years.  A notion was present then that the odd collection of products that Google presented to its users were all, in some way, noteworthy.

There was a while where, outside of search, Google was putting out incredible products.  Gmail and Google Maps are both still dominant today (of course, no one is working on a disruptive email service any more, just services that disrupt email).  But aside from these, Google was building a base of a myriad mediocre pieces.  Picasa worked well enough, and Blogger wasn’t bad either.  In 2006, Google purchased a product named Writely to help create their Google Docs suite.  Writely was an exciting web app early into Web 2.0.  It was rough around the edges, but for a small company and a beta product, it was impressive.  When Google launched Docs, Writely had simply been rebranded with Google’s colors.  Instead of polishing Docs into a fantastic app and a legitimate competitor, they released it in merely a functional state.  

This became a pattern for Google.  They released a plethora of products, and each product was only passable at its release.  In doing this, they continually underwhelmed.  This is not to say that they owed their audience groundbreaking products, but in failing to make a good first impression, they instead make a bad impression overall.  The idea of an Apple “iTV” excites people, despite having no idea how it might work, because Apple has a strong track record.  While there were some weak spots (MobileMe), Apple is known to launch impressive and polished products.

For Google, these bad impressions have built up over time.  Nearly nothing they launch is polished to a useable extent, and lately they’ve been making bizarre moves altogether.  There was Buzz and Wave, both of which are now dead.  Recently, Google launched a music store.  It’s the same as iTunes or Amazon, but branded by Google and released a decade too late.  Even if the product is just as good, it doesn’t matter at this point because there’s no reason for consumers to switch ecosystems.  Even after ending Google Labs, there are still dozens of products to Google’s name that are only ‘good enough’.  No one is rooting against Google Docs as they work to create a cross-platform seamless alternative to Office.  In fact, it’s a product people would be excited to use.  But after years there is still little compelling reason to do so.

Over the past several years Google has done a fine job pulling Android together into something useable.  What initially seemed like a poor imitation of iOS has become a mature platform.  Of course, there’s plenty to say for issues of fragmentation.  This is an issue that Google oddly does not address and should be working diligently to rectify.  On an iOS device or even a Windows Phone 7 device, it’s almost certain that the OS will run smoothly thanks to close integration between software and hardware, or for WP7, due to the various hardware requirements in place for manufactures.  Android handsets and tablets are something of a mess.  While some do stand out, many are a bit sluggish, and it’s hard to know how they will age.  In many ways, much of Android’s success seems to be built upon the sale of cheap handsets.  With WP7 becoming a serious competitor (with a stunning OS and fantastic social integrations) and Apple offering older iPhones at a discount, Google will need to create a more vibrant ecosystem for their mobile OS.

Another venture indicative of Google’s troubles is Chrome OS.  In the fleeting moment that netbooks seemed poised to be a successful new form factor (with longevity), Chrome OS seemed like the answer.  It was a bit ahead of its time, but with some polish, it seemed like it could solve the issue of making everything about a netbook lightweight.  The issue came in looking ahead.  Netbooks are dying in favor of ultrabooks, a form factor with all of the benefits and none of the negatives.  With large screens and solid state memory, as interesting as a cloud based OS sounds, there’s no reason to choose one.  Google made the same mistake in launching Google+.  Rather than making a compelling alternative to Facebook, they simply remade Facebook in Google colors, when instead they should have been making the next Facebook.  Shortly after Google+’s launch, Facebook announced Timeline, effectively beating Google at building the next Facebook.

The solution to this all is for Google to narrow their focus.  They seem to strongly believe that they have to be a cutting edge web company, but there’s no reason for this to be the case.  Android is a strong player, as is Chrome, both of which bolster their hold on Search.  What Google ought to, and hopefully are doing, is working on what will be the next Search.  The answer seems to lie in Siri.  It’s less a matter of natural language, and more of knowing what the user wants.  Now that major sites have established themselves, Google search is somewhat less useful.  Rather than sorting through a page of recipe results, it makes more sense to take the user straight to Allrecipes through an intelligent address bar.  Of course, problems lie within this that require solving - how do you represent and acknowledge all of the other great sources of information?  Regardless, search seems to be becoming a question and answer game.  Google already acknowledges this to an extent.  Search for an illness results in a promoted result for the U.S. National Library of Medicine.  Searching for a definition will present it at the top with links to additional sources.

Beyond all of this is perhaps a different future for Google.  The company is known to have a ‘secret’ lab called Google X.  It’s here that Google works on projects like the self-driving car.  For a company built primarily of brilliant engineers, pivoting to focus on projects such as this seems like a better idea than desperately grasping at social.

Particularly over the past year, Google has made a lot of moves that suggest that their culture has changed.  It’s impossible that these mistakes will be the end of Google.  They’re aware of their flaws and are trying to fill in the missing gaps.  The issue is that they’re playing catch-up again and again rather than making one exciting new thing.  The New York Times reports that Google X is working on augmented reality glasses that will hit the market before the year’s end.  It’s certain then that Google is looking ahead in some ways, it just remains to be seen if they’re the right ones.