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What's Next For Google? Trillion-Dollar Company Or Toast?

Posted Nov 06, 2009 11:42am EST by Henry Blodget in Investing, Internet, Media
Related: goog, aapl, msft, vz, dis, qqqq, amzn

Microsoft still has dreams to the contrary, but Google has won the search game.  With an estimated 70 percent market share worldwide and nearly $25 billion of revenue, the company has left the rest of the industry in the dust.

But what's next?  Search growth is slowing, and there's not much more market share to gain.  So unless Google wants to have all the sexiness of a utility, it needs to find another growth engine.

There are three possibilities, says Ken Auletta, author of the new book Googled: The End Of The World As We Know It:

  • YouTube
  • Mobile
  • Internet-based applications (like email)

None of these businesses is as profitable as search, and Google has been trying to build all three for years.

But YouTube's new emphasis on professionally produced content has radically improved the unit's financial performance.

And as evidenced by the advertising blitz accompanying Motorola's new "Droid" phones, the mobile business is finally gaining traction.

Again, neither if these businesses currently have economics that look anything like those of the search business.  But people didn't think much of search economics in the early days, either.

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