Industry analysts predict Google's next move

21st December 2007

Following the announcement that Google conducted two-thirds of all US searches in October a number of analysts have forecasted this dominance is set to grow next year.

Reported by ITBusiness Canada, industry experts' predictions include Google giving out mobiles, internet access and even computers free of charge in return for advertising viewers.

The search engine may buy an advertising agency or acquire a television network, according to Rob Enderle, principle analyst at Enderle Group.

"With the amount of money that Google's got, they could probably do it," he said. "Google is positioning itself as an uberagency anyway; I wouldn't be surprised if they bought an ad agency."

Peter Hershberg, managing partner at Reprise Media, anticipates an increasing usage of Google applications such as the impending gPhone.

Further predictions included proposals to target social networks and also improve local search content.

Hitwise figures show that Google's industry lead is followed by Yahoo! which performed 21 per cent of US searches in October and MSN which conducted seven per cent.