Last week, Google announced better-than-expected earnings for Q3 2009. Predictably, its stock rose 3.76%.
Yet in our worship of the search giant, we overlook that 11 years after its founding, Google remains a one trick pony. As Jonathan Last recently observed,
Its home-grown products, such as Orkut, Knols, Lively, and Google Checkout (knockoffs of Facebook, Wikipedia, Second Life, and PayPal, respectively), have been failures. Google’s biggest successes have come from acquisitions. For instance, Google bought YouTube after its own attempt at video on the web, Google Video, crashed and burned. And did the same with Blogger after its blog platform, Pyra Labs, failed. Even the “successful” acquisitions Google has made—Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Docs, and Blogger were all purchases, too—have taken up resources without creating significant revenue.
Indeed, Google’s latest—the much-heralded Google Wave—has been a flop, and the market share of its much-publicized Chrome browser is a rounding error. Despite restless ambitions and an ever-growing footprint, the company remains stunningly, unhealthily dependent on a single revenue source: advertising.
“Yet even here,” Last continues, its results are mixed.
Those text ads are dynamite, but Google couldn’t master the banner ad business and eventually resorted to simply buying DoubleClick, the industry leader. Eager to extend their tentacles into other ad mediums, Google started selling print ads, TV ads, and radio ads. The print and audio divisions performed so badly that they’ve already been shut down. The TV division is still limping along lamely.
By contrast, Microsoft owes its success not only to Windows, but also to Office.
“And here’s another reality check,” adds Chris Thompson. “Plenty of tech firms are still head and shoulders above Google, at least in terms of revenue.” Apple’s at #71 on the Fortune 500, Intel’s at #61, and Dell is swaggering around at #33.
We may live in a Google world, but that world fades when we unplug from the Internet.
Apropos this year’s Earth Hour, Google answers the question every PR agency wants to know: How can I get Google to do something for my organization or project?
“We welcome your ideas on how we can become more socially and environmentally responsible. Although we can’t guarantee either a placement on the Google homepage or even a response to every query, we do read every e-mail we receive and welcome your ideas of organizations that you believe we should feature. If you’d like to submit a proposal, please send it to us at proposals@google.com.”
They changed it today, for Veterans’ Day. But as the LA Times reported last month, they didn’t do so last year:
The company defended its decision to let Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day pass without a special logo, saying it was trying to be respectful.
“Google’s special logos tend to be lighthearted and often scientific in nature,” spokeswoman Sunny Gettinger said in an e-mailed statement. “We do not believe we can convey the appropriate somber tone through this medium to mark holidays like Memorial Day.”
Google has altered its logo more than 140 times since 1999, according to a gallery on the company’s Web site.
The choices sometimes reflect Google’s corporate fascinations. For example, the company is so enthralled with space exploration that it recently agreed to sponsor a $30-million contest to land unmanned rovers on the moon.
That passion has been reflected in logos that commemorate some of America’s crowning achievements in space exploration, including lunar landings and Mars missions, and the birthday of noted American astronomer Percival Lowell.
Still, outrage increases in some corners of the Web for each year Google fails to honor Memorial Day.
In May, the Web site www.zombietime.com started a Memorial Day logo contest to “show Google that it’s not so hard” to make respectful ones. It has received about 250 entries, including ones that replace the second “o” with a Purple Heart medal and the “l” with the flagpole in the Iwo Jima flag-raising.
“I have no problem with Google commemorating obscure holidays or some of the trivial anniversaries that they note,” the site’s owner, who declined to give his name, said via e-mail, “just so long as they also make special logos for the more significant holidays.”
Addendum (3/25/2008): James Joyner reports, pace Kathryn Jean Lopez, that Google changed its logo for Easter.
Addendum (3/28/2008): Michael Arrington reports on Google’s change today in support of Earth Hour.
Addendum (9/22/2008): KLO continues her diatribe.
Addendum (4/28/2009): Looks like Google keeps an archive of its holiday logos.
Posted by Jonathan Rick in 
Before entering the digital space…
I flacked for the American Conservative Union and the Cato Institute, and reported for Time magazine and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.