Ari Levy, Brian Womack and Joseph Galante of Bloomberg News today mark a milestone in coverage of Google, an article on slowing growth in its core search business and calling the company's leaders out on how little else has worked.
As sales gains diminish, some investors are concerned that Google has begun to resemble Microsoft Corp., which generates billions of dollars in cash from its mature flagship business yet has struggled to conquer new markets. Google’s sales increased 9 percent last year after almost doubling in 2005.
While the fact that Google gets almost all of its money from search isn't exactly a secret, I've documented Google PR's remarkable success at generating stories about other topics despite that fact.
The Bloomberg/BW story could mark a turning point, however, when each attempt to grow isn't viewed as the next move by an unstoppable titan but rather as desperation. All growth companies hit that point eventually and it will be very interesting to see how Google responds.
As a side note, the post-Bloomberg BusinessWeek site is really getting to be a pain in the neck to navigate. The editors are not differentiating BW and Bloomberg content and in the process the constantly updated wire reports are making it harder to find the magazine content.
Bloomberg already has a wire, terminals and a website. Why did management buy the magazine if it was just to remake it as extension of what it already has?
Comments