Disruption is blind: Google’s play to support small business and bury small business
Google’s UK operations have announced a program wherein they will provide basic sites and domain registration for free. While the sites on offer are currently little more than something slightly above a basic blog, the service is offered in conjunction with PayPal, signalling Google’s sights on something larger than a simple brochure destinations for small business.
This is a few interesting things:
- plays nicely into everything gets easier, which is a theory around the incessant race towards simplification any technology goes through
- disrupts big domain services like GoDaddy.com as well as small web shops who service small businesses
- I said a couple weeks back there wasn’t a future for the small run of the mill web shop as all that simple work would be outsourced; we’re starting to see it
- if businesses needed any further signs that they needed to tackle complex problems and make people’s lives easier, this should be the warning shot. The opportunities to make a living as an also-ran are fading
The other interesting thing here is somewhat more abstract, but in a world where Facebook is garnering an increased share of web traffic, Google is making a play to own small business and commerce outside the social platform’s domain. Coupled with Google’s own social efforts recently, as well as recently naming not only Facebook, but Amazon and WebMD as competitors, you get a sense of the company’s desire to diversify outside of revenue derived from search.
Two things to watch for from here:
- How long it takes Facebook to launch a local business page format, coupled with a more robust transaction facility
- How long Amazon takes to give small businesses a platform they can use with their own branding (think “Powered by Amazon” vs. actually on Amazon.com)
If I was running a small web shop, I would be thinking hard about my point of differentiation. Small businesses will always need help, just not in the ways they need it now.
