Google hasn't gone all goofy after all
Google has a plan, says its VP of Search Products & User Experience.
In a keynote speech this morning at the 12th annual Cyberposium at the Harvard School of Business, Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of search products and user experience, addressed various media headlines that suggest that the company's recent product announcements and purchases are all over the map. Not so, says Mayer. In the course of an hour, she laid out four areas that Google has deemed to be important--more content, easier computing, personalization, and better search--then demonstrated how various Google products currently fit into each bucket:
More content
--includes Google Book Search, Blogger, YouTube, and Google Earth
Easier computing
--Municipal Wi-Fi, the Google Pack download, Gmail, Google Bookmarks, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets
Personalization
--Google personalized home page, Google Gadgets, and Google Desktop
Better search
--Google Notebook and Google Custom Search
Of course, when someone lays it out for you, it looks pretty obvious, but until now the four buckets were kind of a mystery. Mayer hinted that more products are being designed or sought for each category and also suggested that more integration among existing products might be possible. Stay tuned.