Categories: Articles

What Happened To Google?

What happened on Wall Street today? What happened to Google? I was out getting groceries yesterday and I saw the cover story of Barrons Magazine. I just laughed it off until I got home and caught all of the news – both online and on TV.
We’ve been dealing with click fraud and pending competitors in the search space since long before Google became a household name. Back in the day, I was one of the prime people at one of the first meta search engines and we even introduced pay per click in our organic results long before AdWords. In fact, the only other people doing pay per click back then was GoTo.com (which became Overture and then Yahoo! Search Marketing) and that was done on a pure auction-based system.
Click fraud is a reality. I remember us uncovering a click fraud scam in Asia where people were being paid to sit and click search ads all day and night.
As I watch the news about Google on TV and scan the online news of the world, I can’t help but think that “this too will pass.” People are buying AdWords, Google is the destination of search choice and the company is on the cusp of some interesting new developments.
Stocks will go up. Stock will go down. I don’t foresee anyone no longer using Google to search because of an article in Barrons or some stock warnings from Wall Street.
That being said, was it not something similar that brought the last bursting of the bubble?
Let’s call on level heads to take a real look at all of these businesses – regardless of whether or not they’re web-based. I recently watched the documentary Enron – The Smartest Guys In The Room (it’s a good flick) and empires crumble faster than you might suspect.
My hopes are that one day of pounding on Wall Street is not enough to keep a Google down.
Related links:
– Barrons Magazine – In The Drink – Cover Story.
– Business Telegraph – In the Drink – Magazine attack sends search engine share price falling.
– Reuters Business Challenge – Update 2 -Google loses status as premium-priced Web stock.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.