Instant messaging is incredibly popular and continues to grow in popularity. Some suggest that Google should seriously consider it because the metrics would certainly warrant that consideration.
SearchEngineLowdown picked up on a thread be business writer Bambi Francisco discussing the notion of Google get an instant messaging feature. According to Francisco, the metrics seem pretty strong. While it’s no big secret Google clobbers all opponents on actually searching, she says that users spend 9 times longer on Yahoo than Google and 22% of those Yahoodlums are instant messaging.
She also pointed out that 45% of the time spent on Google was spent in Gmail which is certainly more time than actual searches. She brings up some good points but in all honesty, there’s a couple of things that can be gotten from these few facts.
One is that Google would do well to sink it’s teeth into the IM market. Something like Trillian by Cerulean studios might work well, similar to the approach they’ve used for GoogleNews. If they could integrate a VoIP feature into it on top of all the other standard features, it would be an extraordinarily sharp product. Perhaps even Google could buy Cerulean outright to pick up the all encompassing aspect.
The only real caveat I see at this point is that might not fit entirely into Google’s way of doing things. They’ve not really tapped into broadband service deals, online call and other telecommunications features the other companies have. The only thing they really have right now in that line is Gmail.
The other is that not only Google but any search based company might do well to partner on something like this. MSN, AOL and Yahoo all have IM and it certainly do well for them. For those companies building their business like Ask Jeeves and others, a way to get more competitive may be to partner with another company and get your label up there too.
In many people’s eyes, Google is walking a fine line between being a portal and a pure, all encompassing search engine (which is their goal). Adding something like instant messaging could certainly provide them with a whole new source of revenue, which is the name of the game for any business.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
