What Does Google Transition To Manufacturing Hardware From Developing Software Means?



When the word "Google" comes to my mind, it's all about SEO, keywords, AMP and webmaster stuff to me. Similar is the case of all other publishers I reckon and then there are rantings about mere pay from click-based advertising on the internet. I am talking Adsense of course.

I watched the Google livestream this week up to the part of Google Home. I and a friend of mine (who was also my mentor in Journalism) were actually waiting for Google to announce something related to Andromeda but unfortunately that didn't happen. The event was purely related to Hardware aside from stressing on Google Assistant and more.

Namely the hardware products announced at the #MadebyGoogle event were Google Pixel phones, Home, Chromecast Ultra, Google Wifi and Daydream VR. Four out of these Five devices are purely meant to get personal with the customer, Pixel, Google Home, Chromecast and Google Wifi are the gadgets that can help primarily in the very basic of tasks while Daydream VR goes on the entertainment segment.

In a sense Google is trying to get more and more personal with the average daily user. While Microsoft tries to penetrate into the corporate market and "mobile-first, cloud-first" market, Google wants an "AI-First" world which is meant to automate tasks and help in everyday tasks of your life. Simplifying the stuff is the goal, Privacy goodbye though!

While I may have gotten off our actual topic here, I mean to discuss what forced Google to transition over to the hardware side of technology? Is it Facebook slowly gnawing up all the traffic from the interwebs? Are they looking for new revenue sources (this is obvious though)? Does Alphabet have anything to do with this?

The global average of how much time a person spends on Facebook is a whooping 50+ minutes or it's suite of apps. It has a solid returning user base and one which is obviously a lot stronger than Google. Despite the fact that both deal with different audiences and metrics but both have 2 primarily same objectives.
  • Search 
  • Advertising Revenue
Around 2.3 million searches are made on Google every minute which is an amazing stat in essence. But don't forget, 1.5 Billion+ searches are also being made on Facebook each day which doesn't even account a significant portion of the Google Search but still a worrying factor. I would also like to add that the Facebook Search doesn't even work the way the company intended it too yet it just works because of the great number of users. Note the "it just works."

It has been discussed many times in the past how social media drives plays a significant role in driving traffic away from Google and in short, all other search engines. 

From advertiser perspective, we have to make a very difficult choice regarding which network since both networks house an enormous audience. Facebook has been more primarily known for Brand awareness and cheap in-house E-Commerce platform conversions. Google on the other hand can deliver you solid leads for money as long as the advertisement is running on it's network. It is more effective for Kickstarter funding or stuff where you need to get users insanely quickly.

One cannot practically deny that Facebook has also been eating away the potential mobile-revenue from Google. Nowadays the places which have minimal internet connectivity still utilize Facebook and other Social Networks due to their carriers offering it for free in bundles. Internet.org also plays a significant role. Connecting the world through Facebook even if you don't have anything to eat, enlightening isn't it?

Anyways, a significant chunk of mobile traffic has been taken by Facebook here. In essence some portion of the carrier's revenue is also taken here as they could have utilized Facebook in their Data bundles but that is an entirely different case.

Peter Roesler pretty much explains all the above cases in an even better way on Inc. Plus we are all aware of how Facebook has been driving away traffic from Youtube with it's own content and Facebook Live. It is only a matter of time, partnerships and some risky decisions.

Alphabet could be involved here. It is a conspiracy theory but I can say that in order to keep Google up close and personal with the users as well as keeping a good influx of data (as I said, no Privacy) could be beneficial to Alphabet. I am not sure how exactly they would influence Google to transition to hardware, do you the readers have a theory though?

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