What should Google invest in the next 5-10 years?

Scope: 

What is the goal here: Revenue, Users, Costs?  - Users, usage is the primary goal, Revenue models can be built on top of it.

Is there any reason for Google to look at new areas? – Wants to diversify to minimize risk, The current ad revenue may reach consistent growth soon. Want to look at higher growth opportunities.

About Google

Products: Search, Youtube, Maps, Phone, OS, browser, Drive, Photos, Office suites

Revenue: Ads

+ Strong tech background 

+ High user base

+ Have a history of creating successful, consumer products

+ Understand user trends far more than any other company, via its ecosystem of search, emails, maps, OS, Phone, browser, Photos

- Not much successful with social

- Focused on only tech enabled solutions, not OOPs/ non-tech + tech for items with high repeat usage e.g. food deliveries, ecommerce, premium video streaming

- Fake content (search, Youtube)

Strategies:

1. Move to social approach for existing products – Youtube, Photos 

Will increase users and usage. It also fits strategically to what Google already does.

2. Expansion to Tier 2 & 3 cities/ countries – content, internet

Will expand to new user base. Increasing access to internet in T2/3 cities/ countries will aid growth. Requires partnerships to create content categories to this user segment, Will require advancement in tech to allow streaming in lower bandwidths. 

3. Expand with new lines of business – fintech - international money transfer, food delivery, movie booking – may require an Oops setup as well

This expands to new user segments and user categories. However it requires and oops / compliance setup. Not been Google’s strength historically.

4. Look at premium video streaming, an extension from Youtube

Premium video streaming segment still has a lot of opportunities around content quality, variety with overall high usage. It requires a different kind of expertise in working with production houses, being very good at reviewing content, managing relations. This may not be a natural fit to Google’s strength.

5. Solve new problems, unrelated to what Google is currently doing – Global warming, energy optimization, utilization

There are opportunities around how Google managing its servers, giving its high computing requirements, create energy for them. It will pass it for now one because I am not sure if these are separate investment opportunities which will drive users/ usage

Evaluation criteria: #Users, Effort, Strategic fit

Recommendation:

Net net recommendation is to:

Move to social approach for existing products – Youtube, Photos

This will help drive most usage and more users to current products. Privacy will one of the key concerns to take care of here e.g. not all Photos and videos are public right now. How can we ensure a balance between privacy and social interaction.

Expansion to Tier 2 & 3 cities/ countries – content, internet

This will help expand into untapped geographies. Will likely require and investment in technology capabilities and in internet infrastructure.