How Google Plans to Stay Ahead in Search

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There will be something else after Twitter and Facebook, and we'll find ways to participate.

Does the fact that people are spending more time on Twitter, Facebook, and the like, especially to search for happening events or people, present a challenge for Google?
Google has always had the philosophy that we want to give people access to information and other things they want to do. Google is and always has been a large switch—we send a large amount of traffic to other sites. So these newer services are not that different from what we've seen all along and what we'll see going forward.

You said recently that you worry about where growth for a large company such as Google comes next. Where will that growth come from, and what does that say about what Google will be in five to 10 years?
We are first and foremost a search company. Of course, search changes. Location will become more important, for example. As long as we can be first to invent the new solutions to search, we'll be fine. We're still investing a lot in search and search quality. In our case, growth will come from businesses we're already in.

So you feel you've settled on what Google's markets and opportunities will be, and it's a matter of building those out?
Yes, for the most part. Now, there are [new but related] businesses like display advertising. We are clearly not the leader in display, but we would like to be.

Search has become and still is the most important business on the Internet, but does Google need to look beyond search for growth?
Search is not the only way to organize the world's information and make it accessible. That's why we're doing other things like applications, which help people organize and make sense of information. But companies that don't invest in their core businesses run into trouble. The investment priority always is search first.

Many of Google's customers, advertisers, say they want a strong No. 2 in search. Has Google's commanding position become a negative for the company?
No, I don't think so.

Despite all the antitrust challenges as well?
We realize this is how life works. In many ways, the attention is probably positive. Being in the press, being seen as a change agent, comes with a cost. But it's better than being in a position of having to catch up.

Given so many different businesses like YouTube and Apps, is Google trying to do too much?
I would take issue with the premise of the question. You can criticize our ambition. But if there's a good idea, someone will pursue it. If we have an idea and a way to move it forward, we'll try to do that. A company's purpose is to make a difference, so I don't see why we shouldn't pursue a lot of ideas. What are we supposed to do, do less? I don't know why a company would be expected to do that.

Are some of these other businesses essentially a way for Google to take chances and maybe catch the Next Big Thing without disrupting its core search business?
That's not how we think at Google. We just think these are good ideas that we can contribute to. Look at Google Wave (a recently introduced communications and collaboration service). That could be a new paradigm for communications, so we thought we should give it a try. We provided resources, and we'll see how it does.

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