Looks like tomorrow’s the day for Google. I’ve gotta say I agree with Nate on this… Gary rocks, and I can’t begin to top him. So I’ll link to him instead. On Gary’s blog you’ll find a compendium of advice for the fledgling public company.
It looks to me that Google is headed the direction advocated by Rob Leathern and Gord Hotchkiss in Gary’s entry. Rather than becoming more of a media company, Google — as evidenced in part by the Picasa acquistion — seems to see itself as more of a tool company. I do wonder whether advertising will continue to play (it probably shouldn’t continue to play) as important a role for the company in the future.
More evidence: Larry Page’s statements in the infamous Playboy interview.
Playboy: With the addition of e-mail, Froogle — your new shopping site — and Google news, plus your search engine, will Google become a portal similar to Yahoo, AOL or MSN? Many Internet companies were founded as portals. It was assumed that the more services you provided the longer people would stay on your website and the more revenue you could generate from advertising and pay services.
Page: We built a business on the opposite message. We want you to come to Google and quickly find what you want. Then we’re happy to send you to the other sites. In fact, that’s the point. The portal strategy tries to own all of the information.
Playboy: Portals attempt to create what they call sticky content to keep a user as long as possible.
Page: <... snip...> Google conscientiously tries to stay away from that. We want to get you out of Google and to the right place as fast as possible. It’s a very different model.
Best of luck to Google and to all its investors. Looking forward, as always, to see what the company cooks up and what the future holds.