It has zero to do with anything it has or hasn’t done in China, notwithstanding the protestations of those naive souls who believe Google can force political change merely by denying itself access to billions of Chinese who’d rather have some Google than no Google. The China thing is a PR problem for Google, nothing more.
It’s because Google and, more importantly the perception of Google, is slowly but surely moving from the backbone of the internet to a spam enabling pox on the internet. From a one-stop shop to a semi-glorified ad network. Mix in a little (or a lot, actually) of insider stock sales and you end up with one very big question mark.
Seth Jayson over at the pop-up ad loving Motley Fool has a very thoughtful article about the challenges that face Google as it tries to justify its valuation- both stock price wise and perception wise.
Google’s problems all originate from one fact: Google became the best in the world at something no one will pay for- search. It’s like being the world’s greatest aeroball player, except without the benefit of the ESPNs.
Once it became necessary to actually make a little money, all Google had to work with was a ton of eyeballs. It’s understandable that Google would become an ad network by necessity, though it’s also a little sad to watch it toss out one free thing after another in an effort to acquire and retain eyeballs. Microsoft, for all of its internet-related failures, has a ton of actual products that people buy. The fact that Microsoft, with its half-hearted efforts, is still in the internet game with all the young upstarts tells you all you need to know to separate the real businesses from the disguised ones.
Meanwhile, all the Google stuff that is free to us is costing Google a fortune. It takes a lot of clicking on a lot of ads to pay for all that stuff.
Google has keyword sales that it can combine with the traffic generated by its search dominance, so it is not without advantages. But it’s still a short play in a long game.
And that’s why Google is struggling.
Newsome.Org 