One stumble too many?

Google – a name we all know. I’m sure that the majority of you use one of the internet giant’s services on a near-daily basis. They of course burst into popularity with the now almost ubiquitous search engine, and have since made inroads into many areas of our digital lives. So their annual Google I/O event would usually have technology buffs salivating over what exciting new technologies may be announced. However, this year’s event may not have been so widely anticipated, especially with some of their releases in the last couple of years having a less than pleasing reaction.

A fading edge

Firstly there was Google Wave – an online, real-time collaborative communication/editing tool that was first announced at I/O two years ago. It didn’t seem to me to really bring anything to the table – I couldn’t really see a real-world application for it. But everyone was raving about Wave – initial reactions to the service were positive, with invitations to the beta incredibly popular. However, it soon became evident that there was little to do once the initial hype had passed, and Google failed to come up with a solid use. To this end, Google announced just over a year later that development on the service had ceased due to lack of interest.

Secondly, a little over a year ago, came the infamous Google Buzz. The social networking and messaging tool came under fire almost immediately due to privacy concerns, with the first lawsuit coming just one week after Buzz’s release.

Many users were outraged by some of the default settings, which revealed people they often emailed and automatically posted their current location. While this was probably the main factor in the service’s lack of success, it didn’t appear to have a unique or innovative feature to its name; instead it just seemed to be attempting to rival Facebook. Additionally it seems odd to me that Buzz is mainly integrated with Gmail. Surely if you’re logged into Gmail, your first thought if you wanted to talk about or share something with a contact would surely be to email them?

Innovation lost

So why does it seem that the once seemingly-untouchable Google started to struggle? It cannot be ignored that the company is huge, with over 26000 employees. With a business that large comes an inevitable amount of bureaucracy. That in turn makes it more difficult for new, innovative ideas from non-managerial employees to make it into the world as a Google product.

For example, those ideas that originate in engineers’ twenty per cent time (and Gmail was one of these) would probably never make it past their computers today.

On top of that, it’s possible that this will have a knock-on effect on new applicants to the corporation – budding new software engineers with idea-filled heads may start looking elsewhere in fear of not having their innovations even considered.

More of the same?

But perhaps there is hope for Google to shed their previous failures in the newly announced products at this year’s I/O. Although their Android mobile operating system is successful, it looks like they need another big win to get rid of any negativity. So it’s worth a look at the two main services announced this year – Google Music and Chromebooks – to see if they may provide this boost.

First up is Google Music, an online music streaming service with a bit of a difference. Unlike existing services such as Spotify and Grooveshark, you can only stream music which you have uploaded to Google’s servers. Although the company is in talks with record labels and wishes to release its own music store, at the moment the invitation only beta seems more like just a music storage solution. And while you can cache some songs for offline listening, you cannot re-download any of the songs you put up there, effectively tying you into the service should you lose your local copies of the tracks. From this, I struggle to see why people would switch from their current streaming provider.

The other main announcement this year was Chromebooks – Google’s coined name for netbooks running their Chrome operating system. There don’t seem to be problems with the software itself – it sounds like it does what it’s supposed to do quite well (as long as you can work within its internet only restrictions) – but there doesn’t seem to be a solid reason for people to move to the new platform. Even the hardware might be fighting a losing battle, as netbooks’ popularity has waned.

The main selling point Google seem to be going with is the price, but even with that there doesn’t seem to be much of an advantage. The netbooks range from $350 for the wi-fi version of the Acer Chromebook, to $499 for the 3G enable Samsung Series 5. To compare, you can get an HP Windows 7 netbook with a decent specification for $449. Alternatively, Google is offering a monthly subscription based system, primarily aimed at the business and education sectors, with fees ranging from $20 to $28 per month depending on the model. These do come with a three year contract however, and if you need 3G data, you’re going to need to add $20 a month for an extra 1GB to bolster the paltry 100MB included with the base cost. In perspective, a three year contract with the cheaper netbook and 1.1GB of 3G data a month will cost $1440, which isn’t very cheap.

So it seems that although their new products have some interesting features, the day may not yet quite be saved. With Google trying to be dominant in so many digital markets, perhaps even spreading themselves too thinly, it’s easy to forget the products that made them famous. They may be starting to lose their edge already, a dangerous possibility in such a fast moving sector.