Google Spawns Googlettes
As is often the case with Google, the first hint of a major new development was a quiet announcement on its site -- in this case, the jobs section. The ad for Director of Product Management, Googlette, leads immediately to the question -- what the hell is a Googlette?
According to the ad, a Googlette is "a start-up within a start-up" and that there will be "a wide array of them". The Director of Product Management will "define Google's innovation engine and grow the leaders of our next generation of businesses."
In an absence of any press release or comment (as yet) from Google, here's what I surmise:
- This venture – rather, these ventures – have grown directly out of "Google labs", which has spawned many new, exciting ideas. Google wants to manage some of these innovations as separate projects, recognising they may require as much nurturing as Google itself did when starting out four or five years ago.
- This is Google sticking to New Economy-style thinking, which so many companies rushed to emulate in the late 1990s, then quickly abandoned after the dot-com meltdown. Not Google, which understands that its toughest competition in the future may come from within its own offices.
Thus, instead of trying to quash or control emerging ideas and/or personalities, Google encourages them. It offers to create a support network for potential leaders, in exchange for loyalty and an ongoing network relationship. Thus, Google's vision's of the future is one where it is the "queen bee", with many satellite companies hovering around it, at once feeding it and gaining support from it.
- Google is reacting to external competition, which is fast toughening. Witness the recent frenzy of mergers and acquisitions in internet search and advertising. Even Bill Gates is developing a search engine designed to rival Google's. Realising that the best form of defence is attack, Google's strategy is to start working on the next generation of technologies to change the web landscape.