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Search is not a product for Google since they do not sell it. No matter how much everyone in the world might (including Google) categorize it as such. Products are sold. The only product they sell in relation to their search engine is an advertising platform. That is by definition the product.

discuss

milkytron|10 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe a product is something produced. They produce a search engine, they serve ads on the search engine. Advertisers produce the ads. The ads are a product other than googles unless it is a Google ad.

theoh|10 years ago

Advertising "slots" are google's product, just like physical billboard installations are a product of ClearChannel etc. AdWords is the mechanism Google uses to sell this product.

AznHisoka|10 years ago

Not worth responding to because it's all semantics. You define product as something that must be sold. Others define it differently.

vinceguidry|10 years ago

Search is one of Google's products and not all products are sold directly as a revenue source.

A product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need. That nobody actually pulls out their checkbook and pays for a Google search doesn't mean it's not a product and that there's not a market for search.

azinman2|10 years ago

So what is NBC's product? Ads?

I would guess that's not the common perception.

dchuk|10 years ago

Their product is advertising, their delivery mechanism is television content.

babuskov|10 years ago

Search is a product. In economic terms, it is called: A Loss Leader.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader

Search is sold at $0, to drive customers into the Store where they can see the real product.

alaskamiller|10 years ago

Okay folks, Google's one and only product is TRAFFIC.

Search, Maps, Mail, Android are given away free as their competitive strategy of generating huge volume of traffic.

Google's business model is to charge their customers the possibility to redirect some of that traffic. And because advertising is speculative they can reach high profit ceilings.

It's an old-school dot-com point of view. Own eye balls, monetize clicks.

Facebook went and ate Google's lunch by following their playbook and improved upon it by focusing their product around SOCIAL ACTIONS.

Facebook produces huge volumes of interactions. Every like, every heart, every comment, every follow. By the time Google got around moving the battleship they've already lost.

You want to be the next big thing?

What is that one thing everyone does all the time? Catch that.

zdkl|10 years ago

Don't I pay with my attention to their ads?

Granted I don't hand cash over, but the user is still paying if you really want to stick with "products are paid for" argument

Retra|10 years ago

A product is something that is produced. You don't have to sell it.

brador|10 years ago

Search is not a product, users are. The product they sell is searcher eyeballs. That product is sold to advertisers.

function_seven|10 years ago

Yeah, I've heard that line before, but it's about as useful as insisting that movie theaters' product is overpriced popcorn and soda. The movies just happen to be there to drive traffic.

Yeah, all of that is true, but it misses the point entirely. The product that is 100% responsible for people going to the movie theater is movies. The product that drives everyone to Google is search. The fact that the revenue isn't directly related to the product doesn't make the product not the product.