Accepting the Googolopoly

16Jun08

I realized that industry monopolies tend to be examined primarily from a business perspective. It is definitely the most logical way to frame this kind of issue but when I started to think about it, it shouldn’t be the only way.

Mike Arrignton wonders if the game is up for Google. “This may be the year that things change for the ten-year-old Google. Their days of innocence may be over…” When I thought about it, I realized that although Google has huge market shares, no one seems to despise them in the same way people do other monopolistic enterprises (like, say Microsoft). So it can’t be merely a numbers things, we are taking about human emotions here. Turning on my design thinking cap, I think that it really comes down to a company’s brand and design competencies.

In the case of Google, they are producing products and services that demonstrate a pretty thorough understanding of their user’s needs and desires. Therefore, we (or at least I) don’t view Google as a monopoly because they are practicing design methodology. I may be completely off base here but I think that brands can control their perception in even the most extreme case. While this can’t help win antitrust investigations, it is something that is very important in today’s global brand economy. I wonder what the implications of this phenomenon are?

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