Putting It All Together

Posted: 02.10.2006
By: Derek Coleman

Finding All The Pieces...
We've seen Google as it took its first steps into our fast paced world. We've seen it make leaps and even a few spills. And just like parents to a child, we expect great things from Google. Looking back on its quick growth we see something quite unique about its character.

Google may be the one. The one company that may be the largest factor in resurrecting the tech industry by merely buying up a lot of "Dark Fiber". Imagine if you will, a company that has a goal of becoming the cornerstone of the Internet. The only obstacle standing in its way is the reality that the tech industry has had a downturn and has been that way for some time now. What is the company to do? What does any company do? Start by attracting attention. A lot of attention. But how, you say? Use the revenue generated by a key idea (AdSense and AdWords), and buy the foundations of a good but abandoned idea (The Dark Fiber). This two hit combo alone is a risky but necessary move that many beginning as well as established businesses must make in order to survive in their corresponding markets. But this is just the beginning.

Making The Pieces Fit...
It has been seen all around the web that the fresh new Web 2.0 startups are beginning to realize the benefits of fusing their ideas with other Web 2.0 ideas to create unique clusters of services as well as a similar effect they once enjoyed when first laying the foundations of their respectable ideas and services. The effect of hundreds and thousands of users flocking to see what cool new "features" the web had to offer. Like bees finding the first bunch of flowers after an unusually long winter. Google, being a company with several of its own unique ideas such as Google Talk, Gmail, Maps, and Video have begun to combine some of its own services in ways that are much welcomed by its users. The recent announcement that Google's chat features from Google Talk will be included in Gmail is one that will be seen latter on as the company's maturity in the Web 2.0 arena. Of course if this idea proves successful, which many think it will, we will see more moves like it in the future. But still, this is just the beginning.

Seeing The Bigger Picture...
As Google begins to iron out kinks in some of its services while refining and improving on others, we will see an even more interesting phase in the Web 2.0 and web applications area. We will see new ideas built on top of the more stable and more complete services that allow for less work on the user's part. You can see it happening when looking at the new Yahoo! Podcasts site where people can create media that can reach more people using a lot less overhead and money to do so. I think eventually there will come a time when users will be able to combine all their favorite services into one easily accessible location making them more efficient at what they want and need to do. So, now that we've found the pieces of the puzzle and have put much of the puzzle together, we see that the picture is almost complete. We're close to conquering technology, communication, atrophy, and inefficiency...Or so we think.