harley

Well, you can be assured Google is not going anywhere anytime soon. They're currently doing what any smart corporation does: diversifying. Yep, that's right. They're placing Google as prominently as they can as a necessity of the web users experience. Before they were a search engine, now they are an email provider, shopping directory, major website ad network, and they continue to expand operations far beyond the search world. There are good and bad results to this, for the consumer they tend to be bad, and it happens virtually everytime a corporation has huge reknown for one particular product or service. Microsoft started out in OS development. As soon as they hit it big they began buying up other interests. Hotmail, Quicken, etc, etc, etc. Large companies do this because it has a pyramid effect on their corporation. Ever try to knock a pyramid off balance? It can't be done. Even if you were to knock it over, one of the other points of the pyramid would be on top. Were Google to have major trouble with it's search engine function right now, it would be a killing blow to the company. What if Yahoo were to have trouble with it's search function? They've got 8,000 other services ready to step in and pick up the slack: stock quotes, web hosting, games, personals, etc, etc, etc. If Amazon's book warehouse were to fall on hard times, that'd suck but they would survive - because they've got a dvd warehouse, and electronics, and toys, and games, and shoes, and clothing, and music. Give Google a few years and it'll end up a much more diversified, lower risk company, and unfortunately a more commercialized, less useful search engine.