This is part 1 in a two part series about the future of Google. Read part 2 – Why Google Loses

Google has been a part of most of our lives for the past decade.  The search engine was originally launched as part of a 1998 paper by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page out of the computer science department at Stanford University.  For those of you interested, it is an approachable read and details plenty about the foundational structure of the search giant today.

In that paper are three key reasons why Google will continue to dominate market (and revenue) share in the search market.

1.  An Unwavering Commitment To User Experience (UX)

I don’t know if this actually exists, but I feel like there should be a banner up on the wall of every Google office.  This banner would say something like:

“Does this improve user experience?”

(And going with the second point below, can you prove it? More on that later…) Google possesses an intuitive perception for users that gives us products we don’t even know that we need.  Sort of like Steve Jobs giving us the iPad, but for $750 dollars less!  For example, GMail was the first email with search functionality, a huge boost in UX.  That seems like such a no-brainer now, but someone had to think of it first. And odds are over the last decade, Google was the one driving or guiding changes in the Web’s UX.

At its foundation, Google wants to build a better internet.  I think their thinking goes beyond just Google properties.  But there also has to be a realization at some level that 60-70% of people who search on the web do so with Google.  So any boost for the web, could/should/will have a boost for Google.  Although on the surface, these motives appear to be

2.  Data Driven Decision Making

Data driven decision making is a huge advantage for a business with Google’s data resources.  Seemingly every decision can be split tested and the results derived in a compact time frame.  Split testing, for those of you that are not aware, is when half of users are shown one version of a page and the other half of users are shown a different version of a page.  The behaviors of the users to perform some business objective are recorded and compared.  The ‘winning’ page version is implemented and often split tested again.  This is a process of continuous improvement.

Not every person is built to work in this environment.  Douglas Bowman, who joined Google in 2006 as Visual Design Lead after successful stints at Blogger and Wired, left three years later to join Twitter.  He wrote about his reasoning for a in March, 2009:

I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.

So on to Twitter!  Douglas has since tackled two refreshes of Twitter’s homepage.  It is clear that is a better environment for him.  But does that mean that Google’s environment is wrong?  Not at all, it just means that Google has instilled a culture of data-first.  The analytical, left brainers are at the top of the Google food chain.  In fact, I am not even sure if they let the right-brainers eat in the Mountain View Cafeteria!

3.  Continual Pursuit For Improvement

In 2007, Udi Manber, Google’s VP of engineer told an audience at Supernova that:

20 to 25% of the queries we see today, we have never seen before

How do you improve your business when 25% of the time that a customer comes to you, they are looking for something that no one else has ever looked for?  To start with, you build a back-end that is adaptable and scalable.  But you must always be willing to improve upon your processes to ensure that your quality advantage is maintained.  This stands in stark contrast to most people’s view of a website from outside of the Web Industry.  General perception is that webpages are built in the following format:

1. Become aware that you need a webpage
2. Find and pay someone to build this webpage
3. Reap profits
4. Hit the golf course

In reality, every web project I have worked on has required upkeep and Kaizen.  (Kaizen is a Japanese term first popularized amongst the auto manufacturers meaning a continual pursuit of improvement in processes, read up on it on WikiPedia).  A web-page’s launch date is just its birth.  It still has a whole life and development before it reaches a state of fourishment.  Part of this development is certainly the customer development model popularized by Steven Gary Blank and more recently advocated by Eric Reis. The basic idea is to get feedback early (and often) from your customers.  And one could argue that every Google Search Result Page is an up-to-the-second result of customer feedback as Google Searchers vote with their clicks and links as to who is the best result for a specific search query.  The search results are continually improving themselves

Google has an unbridled and unequaled pursuit of improvement, but can they continue to tweak their algorithm and stay ahead of the pack?  Or will their size and growth eventually lead to a ‘David’ upstart coming (think pre-2000 Google) coming in and taking down ‘Goliath’ (same era MicroSoft)?  Where will the Google Killer come from?

Bonus:  Vision For The Future

For any of you that caught Thomas Goetz insightful look into the life of Sergey Brin in Wired you can see that Sergey is not satisfied with the current state of search.  In fact, Google’s co-founder is looking for ways to separate signal from noise in the vast expanse of Google’s data.  Sergey and I actually have something in common (and no, its not billions of dollars).  Sergey is genetically predisposed to Parkinson’s Disease.  My Grandfather, passed with the same disease, so this is an issue that is front and center in my life as well.  Goetz’s article touches on this nerve in Sergey’s life.  The difference between Sergey and I, is that the Google Guy has the financial and data resources at his disposal to make a dent in Parkinson’s.

The signal ‘key’ to a cure may already be hidden somewhere in the noise of Google’s Data Warehouses.  Imagine if people could somehow self select as “Parkinson’s Positive”.  Now how would that data set compare to the general population?  Could we find something in their search queries that could guide future research in new directions?  Imagine that “Positive” people who searched for “blueberry recipes” lived 5 years longer on average.  Could the cure, or prevention, be that straightforward?  Perhaps not, but for the first time in the history of humanity we have access to a pool of data that we can begin to query.  And Sergey is leading the charge.

So what do you think?  Do you disagree with these reasons?  Do you have a reason for Google’s success of your own?  Let me know in the comments below.  And make sure you read Part 2 – Why Google Loses to see both sides of this argument.

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