Who Will Google Buy Next?

Androsynth writes "Kuro5hin is running an article entitled Who Will Google Buy Next?, which features a list of all Google's previous buyouts and some interesting suggestions for the future." A Google-buyout betting pool seems in order.

Comments

Yay!

[Andrevan]

I wrote the article for K5. Hope you like it!

Re:Yay!

[softends]

K5 and /. simultaneously? I worship the ground you walk on. Let me buy you a drink.

Certain things caught my eye

[ilyanep]

Dodgeball - Google acquired this two-person cell phone social networking company in May 2005. The company was looking for investors, and Google apparently fit the bill. So far, nothing has happened with this company, but it will probably have something to do with Google Mobile.

Google Mobile? So are they making cell phones or something? I'm confused.

Buzznet - Yahoo! beat Google to the punch by acquiring Flickr, one of my candidates in the first draft of this article. Like Flickr, Buzznet is a photo hosting and sharing service that features unique tagging features. It is possible to browse by tag and see all sorts of interesting stuff. Buzznet would probably jibe with Picasa's Hello photo posting service, perhaps include some sort of photo-Blogger, and integrate well with Orkut.

I think this would do very well and could be a competitor to Imageshack.us. I also think they would integrate it w/ Picasa probably and Blogger.

Monster - Monster is the most popular job search site. Some bloggers have tossed this idea around, touting various forms of integration with other Google services. They also mention that Yahoo! owns HotJobs. However, one wonders whether Google is interested in this market at all.

Hmm...that'd be interesting to see

Anyone seen Epic? Epic is a mock 'history' presentation on Google from the POV of 2015. It's quite interesting and while the idea of this is creepy it'd be cool at the same time.

My Money Is On:

[aluminumcube]

Skype.

I think VoIP is about to hit a tipping point and Google can cash in on it quick by acquiring Skype. Get rid of the stupid name, bring on some Google quality branding and user experience and people will be bidding on eBay for accounts just like Okurit and gMail. The Google brand and marketing power can bring Skype the thing that any network needs to succeed- users.

It would be a very inexpensive acquisition for Google and it would add a sort of voice infastructure into the entire Google range of products.

Re:My Money Is On:

[BJH]

It's based on the name of the Google engineer who wrote it.

MySpace

[Moderator]

Makes sense, the cash cow that is MySpace is crashing under its own load. Imagine Google purchasing it, cleaning up the code, replacing the flash ads with small text based ones, and integrating it with Gmail. A personals site is really the only thing all of the other portals have that Google does not.

world media

[nostriluu]

You forgot Keyhole. I think they read Snow Crash.

It seems like they are imagining a free (to the user) all-knowledge-and-communication-anywhere brought to you by anonymous infrastructure. The problem with their scheme is its all based on advertising. Bleagh.

Who Google Will Buy

[keyshawn632]

Tivo.

Well, why not ?
Google could unleashing searching on the DVR's. This would allow users to just input a search term and have it record all episodes that the term returned in results. Who needs the TV guides or tvtome anymore ?
I'm not the only who predicts it -
[flash video] http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/

Re:Who Google Will Buy

[register_ax]

Yeah, given http://groups-beta.google.com/ ==> Blogger.com http://images.google.com/ ==> Picasa http://maps.google.com/ ==> Keyhole and as you say http://video.google.com/ ==> Tivo Maybe we could also see: http://scholar.google.com/ ==> CiteSeer http://print.google.com/ ==> University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, The New York Public Library, and Oxford University now ... and speculating at the next buyout ... the Library of Congress http://news.google.com/ ==> News Corporation http://www.google.com/ig ==> Yahoo I don't know, there's probably more, but it's nearing 4 so I better go to bed.

Re:Who Google Will Buy

[register_ax]

Yeah, given

http://groups-beta.google.com/ ==> Blogger.com
http://images.google.com/ ==> Picasa
http://maps.google.com/ ==> Keyhole

and as you say

http://video.google.com/ ==> Tivo

Maybe we could also see:

http://scholar.google.com/ ==> CiteSeer
http://print.google.com/ ==> University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, The New York Public Library, and Oxford University now ... and speculating at the next buyout ... the Library of Congress
http://news.google.com/ ==> News Corporation
http://www.google.com/ig ==> Yahoo

I don't know, there's probably more, but it's nearing 4 so I better go to bed.

Re:I wonder...

[Bongo Bill]

More efficient businesses succeed. That's all there is to it. An inefficient can only compete on price by taking a loss - and generally they tend to offer inferior service. That loss would have to be pretty big to make people choose an inferior service based on price.

But, there are some circumstances where larger businesses are not necessarily inefficient, and the Internet is one of these.

But if you're looking for an example of smaller businesses succeeding, then opening up the local yellow pages (or, God forbid, going outside) will give you plenty.

My prediction: a credit card company

[it0]

Think about it, get a google card, they inspect your buying habits like email with gmail. Hit you with targeted advertisements and also provide you with cheaper alternatives (froogle)on goods you have bought.

Yes it's a diabolical though, but hey there not evil ;)