According to Google, mobile telephony.

And do you believe that mobile telephony will give it the ability to continue with this performance? I have my doubts.

I thing google really need to branch into a lot more new markets. Up until now they have relied on a steady growth of new users, they must be close to saturation now. True there are new users coming online all the time, but when you compare the growth now, to say 5 years ago there is a sharp difference.

I agree the mobile web is the way to go. Google need to pretty much replicate on the mobile web what they have done on www.

Mack.

[edited by: mack at 5:53 pm (utc) on Oct. 19, 2007]

I don't think that telephony will be an easy ride. Long term, it might well be. Short term, the technology is way ahead of the average user - remember wap was going to take over in 1999?

I keep hearing that Google needs to diversify, then I visit Google labs and stop worrying. Plus with those profits, they'll be buying successful businesses and expanding them - unlike M$, who have announced they will buy 20 small businesses per year [blog.wired.com], presumably to stifle innovation.

Wap was just one of those things that never quite happened. Today mobile web is well within the scope of the average user. Most opperators have one button web access so it really is pretty simple.

I don't think we are quite there yet, but things are heading in the right direction.

Also mobile companies are certainly doing all they can to promote the web as a mobile tool to their customers.

Mack.

An October 12 Forrester Report suggests that the amount of money spent on search marketing alone will triple over the next five years, and search marketing is only one piece of an expanding pie.

Sure, but the amounts being spent now are very small; we have yet to see evidence of advertisers moving to mobile in a big way, and we don't the extent that consumers will bear the costs of the gimmickry heading their way.

And there's a slow down coming (I daren't say recession).

Yes, mobile will be seriously big - but how soon?

I'll bet Google finds a few dollars down the back of other sofas before mobile delivers.

Google will be by far, the most valuable company in the world in the next 3-10 years. There is so much data flowing into that company that they can enter virtually any market with a head start on the knowledge end and buy access, relationships or technology if/when needed.

Imagine if a company owned 50% of the land in the world, well, Google will be the equivalent of that in the digital world. Unless something massive changes and businesses and individuals stop feeding all that data into the mother ship.

Barring some massive disruption, which gets harder and harder every day as Google gets more entrenched in everything, you could probably take all of your investments, buy Google stock and do better than almost any other investment vehicle over the long haul.