I’ve seen some talk about Google’s failures in "social" with respect to things like Buzz, Orkut, and Wave (wave byebye to Wave), and cynicism about the value in investing in Zynga, and in their rumored purchase of Slide.
Folks… Google’s doing this to ensure the success of the Android platform for tablets. Google’s on the verge of having an ecosystem which can rival Apple’s, from a customer continuity perspective. As it is, I hear Android phone owners who’ve switched phones rave about how since all their data’s in the cloud, they can move from phone to phone seamlessly. With the exception of having to deal with the horrid iTunes on Windows, that’s what Apple’s given me with the iPhone and iPod.
The iTunes store is incredibly successful because of how easy it is to make an impulse purchase which then is usable not only on your phone, but also on your iPad… music, video, apps. Small payments I don’t even think about.
Google has Google Checkout. Music‘s on the way. Video? Leverage the Youtube brand and get studios on board to supply content that you can deliver to any platform, including Google TV. They’ve got the e-mail, phone, online docs, and map stuff down. Games completes the picture, folks.
And for those who laugh at Wave’s demise, remember that great companies fail because they try many things. The real failure would be the failure to try, or maybe slightly worse the failure to learn. I’m sure they’ve learned quite a bit.
