Google’s Big Problem: It Ain't What You Think

[Commentary] As it looks at its future, Google needs to realize that it has a “user experience” problem and its simplicity — the elegant search box — isn't enough, especially as it starts to compete with rivals whose entire existence revolves around easy, consumer experiences.

Here are three major challenges Google needs to surmount:

• Make software usable by tens of millions of people on a disparate array of products.
• Overcome its history of only using data to define its future.
• Figure out how to keep people in their playground, rather than helping people find the information they were looking for and sending them elsewhere: a radical new approach to business.

Google, during its first ten years, thrived by helping people go elsewhere on the web. The faster it sent them elsewhere, the sooner those users would return. However, these new platforms Google is trying to build are inherently personal. Unlike the PC-based web browser which tries to help you find things, these new platforms are about bringing information to you. They are about discovery, not search. Google is like an old dog trying to learn new tricks. The good news is that Google isn't that old, and more importantly, the company knows it has a problem and is trying to find ways to fix it.