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Google, a giant in the field of software industry started with a search engine, and today they have extended their empire beyond a software engine. However, with an extensive desire to be in the lead of the ongoing technological race, Google can these days be found to be involved in arenas which can ultimately lead to its downfall. Some of the reasons why this may happen are as follows.

Reason 1: Google Chrome Open Source OS – Flexibility and Lack of Standard

Although Google claims its Chrome OS to be speedy, highly secured and web-centric, the latest beta version of the OS is nothing else than a Browser on Steroids. Although a lot of users are falling for the Open Source these days, Chrome OS doesn’t offer the full flexibility and a working environment for any user to work on. If it’s just the web browser that one can find in an OS, it isn’t worth a download.

When one shifts to a new OS, he/she expects better platform and better applications to play around. But with an OS that is just limited to a browser, it simply can’t help one from going back to the previous OS. Considering the Open Source OS, Linux is still better as it is less resource hungry and provides better flexibility and work environment for many tasks.

On the other hand, any Open Source product is sure to have many versions. Chrome cannot escape, and this kills the credibility of the OS for application developers. Thus Chrome OS’s Open Source Nature, which Google believes as strength might turn to become its main enemy in the long run. It has happened for Linux and Unix, it can very well happen to Chrome.

Reason 2:  GoogleMail Vulnerability The worldwide used Gmail has been long been in its stage of the Beta version, and the Google team yet seems to ignore the  loophole associated with the Gmail.

The ignored part of the Gmail that allows hackers to send emails in the name of Google Team can be a serious threat to user’s privacy. One can easily attach a Trojan file in the mail and create havoc at receiver’s end.

Also, the Gmail vulnerability disables the Google Developers team to set up a quality process that helps its users to avoid spam mails in their Inbox.

Reason 3: Google’s Entry into Smartphone Market

Source: mobilephonereviews.org

Google has entered Smartphone market to fight Apple, and they have chosen to provide a common platform for the industry with Android OS. This was an awesome step from Google. But where Google fails is its active entry into SmartPhone Hardware with Nexus One. This not only makes it as Apple’s competitor but also competitor of Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and others. It is in a way becoming the enemy of its own partners.

Many industry observers feel that current priority for the Phone manufacturers is to beat Apple, and they will continue using Android even after Nexus One. This notion will soon go away if Nexus One beats iPhone. So Google will fail either way.

The other major risk for Google is draining huge resource for Open Source product like Android, which cannot bring good revenue for the company in future. Android might become like MySQL, Open Office or Linux. They can be big but their return is extremely low.

Reason 4: Lost Focus on Search — Google makes its user helpless

Although Google search engine is highly powerful compared to other search engines, the list of search results that is displayed after hitting the “Enter” can end up a novice user totally confused. Moreover the search results are based on page rank. And page rank may not be the appropriate way to define a site’s popularity and it’s not sure that the user finds his required data at the first site displayed in the list of search results.

Google has been focusing on many areas now and the biggest victim has been its main strength Search. Google has not innovated well in search for long time.

Google used Page Rank for ranking sites for long, and that developed SEO as an industry around Google. But the company is now trying to kill Page Rank after the SEO industry overplayed with it. It is killing Page Rank but what after Page Rank? Google has no answer.

Google tried bringing social effect to Google Search result where you can omit the results you don’t want to see and can increase rank of favorite sites. I am sure Google collected those data and tried using in overall search rankings. But it seems to be failed.

Now the search engine giant has come to Twitter for Real Time Search, but it has forgotten that it needs more innovation in search than using Twitter stream. If page rank can be played, Twitter stream can also be. Google does not seem to have alternatives, and it is busy working for Cloud, Android or Chrome.

Reason 5: Google doesn’t value Customer Support

Customers are the king of modern business. Any organization, today, needs to undoubtedly focus on strategies to keep its customer base happy. In that respect, customer support plays a vital role. However, in case of Google, the customer support seems to avoid this dimension of embracing its valuable visitors to its web page. Consider the Google Reader Support.

Notice the lines that say “we will not necessarily respond to your message”. This clearly reflects the Google’s attitude of avoiding its valuable users.

You just follow same steps for Yahoo. It asks you to give your phone number and they call you to solve the problems. Yahoo has one of the finest Customer Service, and I see this as one of their strength which might bring the company back to their lost glory once again.

Remember Korean and Japanese Automobile Companies Hyundai and Toyota captured good percentage of World Market with excellent after sales service. Now they are the brand of trust for middle class population across the globe.

Reason 6: Becoming Enemy of Marketers: Google AdSense are sometimes suddenly Halted

Google Adsense is one of the attractive features for any bloggers and webmasters. However it is sometimes annoying to see that your Google Ads are halted even though when you have followed Google AdSense Policies, and all your revenue via the Ads are lost. Although Google has its policies to block the ads, there are cases where the Ads are blocked for no particular reasons which ultimately disables the bloggers/site owners to receive the Dollars.

Google’s biggest inventions in monetization of internet traffic were its products, Adwords and Adsense. They became anonymous with the internet advertising and even today very few people look for alternatives for monetization of their web traffic or for running online ad campaigns.

Google has been harsh to its users in last one year and many people lost their Adsense accounts. The company says it has deactivated the users with less activity or users who violated the Adsense policies. This reminds me of Digg, who went on banning users for violating terms and established itself as marketers enemy. Every effort Digg made to ensure non-spam content in the site ended up making it a niche site. Facebook and Twitter took the charm from it.

Google might be the next victim of becoming too rude to its users.

Reason 7: Weak in Social Media and Increasing Attack from Facebook

When Google bought Orkut, it almost took over the World. It is still the biggest Social Network in Brazil, it has lost first spot in other priority markets like India, Pakistan and Iran. Facebook has already overtaken Orkut in India and the gap is increasing.

Orkut remained the same for long time while Facebook innovated in different ways like opening up its APIs for inbuilt

Source: watblog.com

application developers, adding photo tagging, bringing micro-blogging type status messaging etc.

Google views Web Design with the spectacles of Engineering. But that’s not just the arena where Web Designing is limited to. Douglas Bowman, in one of his posts, says he quitted his position as Visual Web Design Lead in Google because of the limited miniscule vision that Google had of the Web Designing tools.

Even though Google is making strides in various avenues, this austerity drive of it to keep its products as simple as possible can eventually drag it to the drain.

Google has failed to make good design for Orkut, its look just sucks. Orkut has been adding Facebook features lately but it again seems to be without any vision and plan. Most changes are poorly made, poorly designed and are brought has wrong time.

Reason 8: Facebook Connect and Gateway to Internet

One day when I tried to logging in to Digg, it gave me facility to log in through Facebook. I was surprised as Facebook was a competitor of Digg. But soon I found many other sites doing the same. People wanted one log in to the online world, and Facebook thought of becoming one.

Source: blog.taragana.com

Google identified Orkut’s failure and saw Facebook becoming people’s entry to Web, it brought Google Connect. This was aimed at fighting Facebook Connect, which already has many good share of internet traffic flowing. Google Connect is coming up good, but it is nowhere close to Facebook Connect. Analysts believe that Google Connect is behind Twitter Connect too.

Reason 9: Less Awareness in China

China, the next Techno-Giant has its own search engine “Baidu”. China, which has the highest population of the world, lacks awareness of the Google Search Engine. If Google aims to be ahead in the race of search engine, it must seriously start working on making Google more attractive to the loyal Baidu Chinese users. Since China is a gigantic market due to its huge population, Google’s inability to tap on this could eventually back fire it.

Reason 10: Data Privacy

this in turn has made us dependent. We may not know but unconsciously we are sending whole lot of private and

Source: Online WSJ

personal data, to Google’s server, which is only anonymized after 9 months. This warehouse of data leaves the privacy of Google users at vulnerable state.

Moreover, it is not sure if Google really doesn’t peep into Gmail’s contents. Although it claims that to display ads in Gmail, it never uses humans, it is not sure if such contents are not used for other purposes. This controversial corridor seen in Gmail could eventually push it from its current position.

Google CEO Eric says they will abide by law in terms of Privacy, and makes his point clear that Google will do anything with users’ data if it is not illegal. This is frightening, and such attitude can easily make the most loved company, Google, to one of the most hated entity in the World.

Post-Image Credit: directtrafficmedia.co.uk