The Cottage Industry
Of Google-Watching

With the growing ubiquity of Google and the centrality of its technology to the web, media, marketing, etc., an entire cottage industry of Google-watchers has grown up to keep an eye on the tech giant. One of these folks got ahold of an internal Google document that talks about some of Google's plans. Two things struck me about it: the way it is always trying to "increase the scale of innovation," as the paper puts it, or not merely driving innovation, but trying to do so in a much larger way. Secondly, the company seems to finally be listening to the chorus of observers who have registered concern that it's trying to do to much, going off in too many directions, and thus losing focus. It's good to learn that it plans on eliminating 20% of its products. Smart move by an ever-smarter company. If you want to keep up on Google's constant innovation, I'd recommend these sites: here, here and especially here. And while you're on the subject, perhaps you'll want to cruise around this new Google search page dedicated to the federal government, one of many specialized niche search products it's been rolling out lately.