Has Google Slowed Down ?

Google has been the leader in internet innovation from the day it was formed. Even the worst critics (can you believe it??) of Google would agree that the internet would not be the same without Google. Infact "google" became the synonym for search in dictionaries. People have written manuscripts on Google. Enough articles in newspapers, magazines and journals to fill an entire building. "The Google Story", is one of the bestseller entrepreneur books on the shelf. According to Fortune magazine, Google is the #1 company to work for. Google is known for a lot of other things, and I really don't wanna write another epic on the big 'G'

But as the years go by, and the company grows big, and it buys a lot of other companies, Google has today become titanic of sorts. It has the best of everything!! Now what next?? That's the question in everyone's mind! Google grew so fast, that today we have to ask if it can grow and innovate even further and at the same rate?

Analysis through Google Labs:

In my last post, I looked into Google Labs for their transliteration software. A thing of notice here was that the number of projects that google is showing off has decreased. In 2006, Google has 9 projects, where as till now in 2007 Google has just 1 project. This may be completely incorrect analysis because google has a lot more products now that are out of beta, and new innovation is being done in those and hence don't find mention on the Labs webpage. Also, Google has Labs from different places like Google Labs India. Innovations in Blogger, YouTube, Analytics, Orkut etc, which were google buys are not shown in Google Labs. Even Google's biggest money-making machines, Adsense & AdWords have seen increased revenue and innovation which are not reflected in Labs.

Analysis through Google Trends:

So how do we compare? Lets look at another Google software called Google Trends. A picture speaks a thousand words, so here are the images comparing Google all-time and Google last 12 months: (click to see a larger version or go here and type your own trend)

A pretty steep slope for Google in all-time and decreased in the last 12 months. May be even Google Trends is an incorrect data source for analysis. I mean, who would search for Google on Google right?? You just use the great services from Google and enjoy life, right?

In reality, there could be various ways to look into the data I have presented and its may be a very incomplete picture of the whole thing. But then, as Google grows older obviously the innovations will decrease. I think even Google realizes this and hence they are buying so many companies to remain fresh and innovative.