Learning from Google’s Failed Projects and Experiments
Google’s revenue model is a ‘hidden business model’ where the users enjoy free services, but third parties such as businesses get to pay. According to Statistica, Google’s revenue amounted to 256.7 billion U.S. dollars, largely from constantly increasing advertising revenue, year-over-year. This includes revenue from Google search, ads on YouTube, and the Google network.
Starting in Q4 FY 2020, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, began separating its business into three reportable segments: Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets. In a quest for the next breakthrough product, it invests much into research and development (R&D) under its Other Bets segment.
The Fail Fast Culture
Many have said Google’s fail-fast culture has helped to accelerate its innovation and transformation programs. The 80/20 innovation rule has also been widely adopted by several organizations to encourage sustainable growth, for example. This forward-thinking strategy means that you spend 20% of your budget investing in products for future revenue generation.
As of 2021, Alphabet spent 31.56 billion U.S. dollars on R&D across its many properties — Statistica.
How Has Google Fared?
One thing is sure, Google has left a trail of dead products and services along its path. See for yourself on killedbygoogle.com and gcemetery.co Between services, apps, and hardware, it will be a whopping two hundred and seventy-three (273) by August 2023. Would you consider this sort of record to be a failure by Google?
By the way, here are 6 popular failed products I find quite interesting — I still mourn their death:
1. Picasa — Killed almost 7 years ago, it was an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos. It was nearly 13 years old.
2. Google Goggles — Killed about 4 years ago, it was used for searches based on pictures taken by handheld devices. It was almost 8 years old.
3. Google URL Shortener — Killed over 3 years ago, Google URL Shortener, also known as goo.gl, was a URL shortening service. It was over 9 years old.
4. Google+ — Killed over 3 years ago, Google+ was an Internet-based social network. It was designed to rival Facebook. It was almost 8 years old.
5. Google Hangouts — Turning to ashes in 2 months, Google Hangouts was a cross-platform instant messaging service. It will be over 9 years old.
6. YouTube Originals — Getting KO’d in 3 months, YouTube Originals was a variety of original content including scripted series, educational videos, and music and celebrity programming. It will be over 6 years old.
Google vs Apple vs Microsoft
Check out killedby.tech and find out how Google’s 274 dropped products by 2025 compared to a total of 437 killed majorly by these three tech giants. Some dropped in months.
It will be interesting to find out how Google decides what and when to pull the plug.
Possible reasons would include an unreasonable increasing budget on projects, length of time spent with no break-even in sight, vision re-alignment, and poor product market fit.
A Better Growth Strategy?
While Google spends tonnes on R&D, its aggressive acquisition strategy is equally worth highlighting. One of its most successful products, YouTube, was an acquisition made in 2006. Also, Fitbit and Waze were acquired in 2007
You can find a list of Google’s acquisitions here.
If you could, which of Google’s products, services, or hardware would you love to bring back? What part of Google’s approach to growth and innovation would you recommend?
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