Search Trends - Search Engine Marketing

In a recent Fobes article, Rachel Rosmarin cites Forrester research that points out Google's lost revenue saying they're losing out to potential rivals. They talk about the lower traffic volumes on Froogle and high CPC rates on rival shopping sites. They are trying to make the point that Google doesn't dominate every sector of online search. While that may be the case, I think Froogle is still in test mode. Sure, it's been online for a few years, but it's still in beta mode, right? Even in Beta Mode, I'm sure they're generating significant revenue from the adwords ads on the side of the Froogle pages, and will continue to do so.

The reason Google has been so successful is because they don't listen to Forrester or Forbes or anyone else. They do things the Google way, which is a little nerdy, but it's a lot different than everyone else. Whatever they do has a little different twist, And people love the Google way. The media loves anything Google puts out (with the exception of this Forbes article), and most users lvoe everything Google puts out. We're Goo-goo for Google right now that's all there is to it. I'm sure it will fade, but only if Google grows too big for it's nerdy little britches or if one of their competitors is able to capture the attention of the masses by coming out with something unique and innovative enough.

Besides, I'm sure Google's got a team of very smart people working on figuring out the best way to do shopping search without "being evil". Once they figure it out to their liking, then buh-bye--it's off to the races.

Even if they don't ever figure out a way to really Google-ize the whole world, is that such a bad thing? Google is really good at web search and they've been able to carry that momentum over into a lot of other related areas, but maybe they won't dominate every single market they enter. Why is that such a shocker?