Recently it seems we’ve seen Google’s focus shift away from web technology to what the CEO would describe as “making the world better” as a focus. Though one might object to the claim that a self-driving car is, in fact, a societal advancement, it appears as though the company has made a decided shift away from it flagship product; search. Indeed, the company seems to be saying that they are “done” with the algorithm they use to compile all of the known information in the universe, and are now seeking bigger, better projects. Even Mevil Dewey had to call it a day after some time. The real question, is this simply an effect of Google’s market dominance, or has search algorithm gotten as good as it can get, is yet to be answered. However, the wellspring of new,specialized search engines for specific types of data and the growing use of these tools in the mainstream seem to suggest that Google will continue to dominate for specific types of search (generalized) with small-scale “micro-competitors” taking the niche markets on specific data, such as photos, or video. Economically, Google must do something with the money, which it has scads of, but the decision to focus the cash on more “real world” investments as opposed to ethereal web opportunities represents a shift in ideology from the largest advertising firm in the world. As Google continues to expand, I think we’ll see more of this “mission drift” into an increasing role of major web businesses “irl“.
