Google Business Model Canvas: Strategy Mastery

Facebook is social media. Google is Search!

Last time, I said Facebook has proven the theory of platform business models right (it states that exponential growth would be possible due to the indirect network effects). Google has proven it even more (and a few years prior to Facebook).

Have you wondered how today’s world (ok, let’s say the internet) would look like without Google? The early homepages for millions of internet users were portal (or tabloid)-type pages, where search was only one of the features often buried among a lot of clutter. Other prominent pages also adopted the portal-style design (here Yahoo 1994, and 1997), or just look at the current AOL.com.

When Google emerged, their pages looked very bare. They focussed only on one value proposition: search results and reduced all search and transaction costs involved (it is said that this was due to the fact that they did not know enough about webpage design but seems it was to their advantage).

Prior to Google, most people had their ISP’s home page as their start page. These are gatekeeper-type pages channeling traffic along lanes of their choice

Portal-type pages are gatekeepers that channel traffic in desired directions through “internet traffic lanes” consisting of a system of links. A good search engine that is not prone to manipulation or bias can still be seen as a gatekeeper but is much less so than a portal-page.

Prior to the internet, buyers had to contact Yellow Pages or search offline for local or small businesses. Economic theory says by reducing search time, cost and efforts, Google unlocked new demand. The free search services provide value to businesses and users by matching them. Advertising then piggy-backs on this service but typically presents search-related results and constitutes most of Google’s revenue (>80%).

“Our mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Google

Our focus will largely be on Google Search and the many tools closely related to it. The main exclusions are Google Cloud (see my article on Amazon Web Services to understand Cloud) and the related Internet of Things gadgets (see my Amazon Alexa personal assistant and IoT article on the topic).