Google's Black Hole

Geoff’s recent blog post (and our subsequent discussion) about Google’s new flu tracking capabilities struck a cord with me.

http://geoffreytorrance.blogspot.com/2008/11/google-flu.html

Never mind that I personally find the correlation between CDC data and certain Google searches interesting but not particularly useful. I find lots of things interesting and not particularly useful. But, Google seems to have this market cornered. If you take a journey to Google, you’ll notice all the other Google-related programs you can access: Images, Maps, News, Shopping, Groups, Books, Finance, Blogs, etc. In fact, Google has 42 other products you can access! Since 2001, Google has purchased 50+ companies, many of whom created their now-available programs, and many more of whom have yet to make it to the famed page of products.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

Some of these are well-known and heavily used, like Blogger, Google’s blog-creation tool. One of my personal favorites is Google Earth, which allows you to view satellite images of the house where you grew up or the hotel where you’re staying on an upcoming vacation. Other programs are completely unknown: Knol is a site featuring “authoritative articles about a specific topic.” Sounds like a weak attempt to copy Wikipedia, if you ask me. SketchUp allows you to create, modify and share 3D models. Huh?? Docs looks like Microsoft Word, but isn’t.

Google appears to be playing the buy-up-a-bunch-of-products-and-see-what-sticks game. A fun game, truly. It gives all of us something to talk about. But without promoting their products, most of those that even make it to the website go virtually unnoticed, which means they just linger around indefinitely until something else comes along. I am curious about Google’s motives, when they purchase these small companies only to let their capabilities and existing users languish in the depths of Google-dom. Isn't this a waste of time, energy and mostly, money? Are they hoarding all their purchases in a virtual vault somewhere creating the ultimate mashup of everything? A writer at Slate.com has had similar thoughts. He has dubbed the phenomenon the Google black hole.

http://www.slate.com/id/2197434/

A black hole, indeed.