Google Chaos

Fortune has an interesting article about the chaos at Google (which they hope is organized).  The fact of the matter, though, is that Google has really only had one serious success (search ads) and seems to be wandering in the wilderness a bit right now hoping to stumble upon their Next Big Thing.

If you look at the company today, it doesn't even appear that they're seriously continuing to innovate in the search arena for which they are well known.  Instead, they have a plethora of beta products and as is pointed out in the article (and is something Larry Page recognizes), they do a poor job of letting the public know what they are seriously working on versus which have been released just as an experiment.

Now, these aren't survival concerns for the company. They churn out cash right now as if it grows on trees.  But to be successful in the future, I believe they need to be a bit more organized about their growth and be sure that they are continuing to innovate in their core area of success.  To that end, I think one of the perhaps overlooked advances they are working on is the AdWords style advertising model being created for local radio across the country.  I think that holds great promise, though it will be interesting to see how they establish proper content controls (radio ads appear on a regulated medium as opposed to web ads which still enjoy a largely regulation-free environment).

Certainly something interesting to watch.

Tags: Google, Larry Page, AdWords, AdSense, radio ads, Fortune, chaos