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November 07, 2005

Keep an eye on Google

The front page of yesterday’s New York Times carried a must-read article, “Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies,” which explores the far-reaching potential of Google not only to affect Internet usage, but commerce as well. (You can read it for yourself, at least for the next several days, at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/technology/06google.html)

Writes Times reporter Steve Lohr, “Google, the reigning giant of Web search, could extend its economic reach in the next few years as more people get high-speed Internet service and cellphones become full-fledged search tools, according to analysts. And ever-smarter software, they say, will cull and organize larger and larger digital storehouses of news, images, real estate listings and traffic reports, delivering results that are more like the advice of a trusted human expert.”

Mr. Lohr quotes David B. Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School, “Google is the realization of everything that we thought the Internet was going to be about but really wasn’t until Google.”

Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” The company already offers a broad range of services, including, of course, search functions for news, video, shopping and local information. Because of Google’s very deep pockets and seemingly limitless ambitions, the company could also become a major force in such fields as telecommunications, retailing and the media.

Unless you’re lucky enough to be a stockholder, why should you care about what Google does? Because the company is not only making a lot of potential competitors nervous, it’s increasing Internet users’ expectations about speed, access and control. And every time people’s expectations change about external communication (including the Web), they apply those heightened expectations to internal communication as well.

Already, when we talk to employees, we hear the following feedback:

  • “Why can’t I tailor company communication to my needs?”
  • “I want to be able to search for information quickly, easily, intuitively.”
  • “Communication from the company should be as timely, candid and comprehensive as what I find in external media.”

As Google expands its reach, expectations will rise even higher. Will you be ready?

Posted by Alison Davis at November 7, 2005 09:05 AM