Ted's Take

Read this piece. It’s very insightful.

I remember having a conversation once with the folks at Netscape right after their launch. They swore to me that they weren’t in the portal business and the ad revenue generating business. They were a software company focused on web browsing and some server side computing. I remember saying, “You are one bad quarter away from being in my business. You are one bad quarter away from expanding your manifest destiny to help your consumers and being in competition with the very people you want to partner with.” Time, of course, proved these concerns correct. Netscape used the free browsers to build a web portal that oddly enough AOL then went on to acquire. How ironic.

It’s the same thing for Google. Their business model is centered on getting ad dollars and ad dollars center mostly on content. Hence Google is in the content business.  It may be addressed as something different at this time but at the end of the day, a great franchise like Google will want to extend its franchise across the value chain. And content is a deliverable and an opportunity too great to pass up.

However Microsoft tried getting into the content business without success and if Google is too aggressive and becomes evil, consumers will be weary of Google’s listing honesty and may go elsewhere. They become vulnerable to a next generation start-up that is a pure play and will say, “Look at us. We act the way Google used to act when you liked them!”

I am of the mind set ”Trust and verify.” I will believe Google but will be checking to see if they cross the line and start to act with evil intent.