December 17, 2007 | Monday
What will Google do in 2008?
By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in News |Search Engines |Google |Microsoft
It’s that time of year, when retrospectives abound and predictions for the next twelve months get rolling. For search and media junkies, all eyes are on Google in a fun game of “Just what will they do next?” We got a glimpse late last week, and the possibilities promise a most interesting year.
On Friday, Google announced the launch of Knol, seen by many as a potentially game-changing threat to Wikipedia. (Yes, Google noticed - as we all have - just how many top search results point to Wikipedia.)
Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it....At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads. Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors...Anyone will be free to write. For many topics, there will likely be competing knols on the same subject.
Knols will include strong community tools. People will be able to submit comments, questions, edits, additional content, and so on. Anyone will be able to rate a knol or write a review of it. Knols will also include references and links to additional information.
If you’re thinking this also sounds a lot like marketing guru Seth Godin‘s brainchild Squidoo, you are right. (Godin’s response is refreshing and ever so slightly naughty.) Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, for one, does not think this is a threat to his site. He told The Search author John Battelle via email:
Sounds more like Yahoo Answers than Wikipedia to me. It is not a collaborative tool, it is a competitive tool...Very different from a wiki, and not likely to generate much of quality.
When Battelle asked if Wales was surprised by Google’s move, he replied:
I am surprised it took them so long.
One easy prediction to make, as the New York Times just has, is that Google will gun for Microsoft in 2008. Well, of course.
Techcrunch digs a little deeper to ask who Google will buy or emulate next year, and comes up with Amazon (for emulation) and Reuters (as a very long shot acquisition), amongst others.
The most likely purchase for Google in 2008, according to Duncan Riley, is white label social network provider Ning.
As we saw with the announcement of Google Knol, Google is all about facilitating the creative desires of users, as does Ning. Google already offers its own free web hosting with Pages and blogs with Blogger, social networking sites fills the list out nicely. Ning would also mean that Google wouldn’t acquire a company that seriously competes with most of its partners in Open Social; instead of being a major social network owner, Google would simply become the biggest provider of social networks.
Perhaps. But it is doubtful that Ning co-founder Marc Andreessen (who also co-founded Netscape once upon a time) has much incentive to sell, as he already has plenty of millions from his past life. More to the point, it might just be cheaper for Google to build their own white label social network provider.
Here are my (admittedly rather easily made) predictions for 2008. Google will:
- not show any mercy to competitors in its efforts to remain top of the pile
- remain dogged by privacy complaints and the China challenge
- have much more trouble with staff retention and hiring stellar talent than anticipated (thanks for that, Facebook)
All that’s left is to watch this space...and Google’s share price.
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