Recession Is The Competitor Google Needs?

from the economically-different dept

Rob Hof points us to an interesting idea proposed by Andy Beal: that while competition from Microsoft and Yahoo wasn't putting very much pressure on Google to keep innovating in ways to keep users happy, the worldwide financial recession is serving that purpose instead. Financial crises can certainly drive companies to be more innovative, though it's certainly not a pleasant experience. Of course, innovating through a recession is also a lot trickier than innovating against a competitor in good times. It takes some different skills than innovating against competitors. They do both involve focusing on customer needs, but those needs change in the down times. The challenge for Google (or, well, anyone) is recognizing that shift in consumer needs and making sure that any changes are designed to serve those new needs, rather than just the old ones.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: competiton, recession
Companies: google


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous, 27 Jan 2009 @ 3:35am

    Prime example of shit no one cares about

    this story has been up for how long now, and I still got first post?
    sad.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    PJ Brunet, 27 Jan 2009 @ 11:07am

    Interesting that 30% revenues come from Adsense. I think this shows the combined strength of independent webmasters.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Gene Cavanaugh, 27 Jan 2009 @ 4:01pm

    Innovating through a recession

    "Innovating", in the sense of building defenses against competitors, involves making litigation expensive - it does not necessarily involve invention, or anything useful to the public.
    Innovating through a recession, on the other hand, means making consumers desire your product - totally different! It does involve invention, it does involve things useful to the public.
    The two things are not only different, they are diametrically opposed. That's WHY I specialize in small entities - I make litigation inexpensive, so all that is left is invention.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.