When Larry Page became CEO, I set out my hopes for how Google might evolve its role in the Internet marketplace under his leadership. In particular, I was hoping that Larry would be:
Supporting independent third party services instead of either trying to acquire them or competing head on with them. Figure out how to succeed by making others succeed.
While the purchase of Zagat is a rounding error for Google it still shows that Google is going in the exact opposite direction. As I tweeted yesterday: this acquisition continues the march from “organizing the world’s information” to “owning” it.
I guess at the end of the day it is hard to help yourself when you have massive profits and a powerful infrastructure that you can point at will at a new target. Nonetheless, this now represents an opportunity for one ore more disruptive startups and some very patient investors to build businesses based on Google’s original vision which is as needed today as it was 10 years ago.
