2007 In Numbers: iGoogle Google's Homegrown Star Performer This Year
2007 was another big year for Google with the company growing to become America's fifth largest listed stock (by market cap) whilst continuing its march towards world domination. — According to figures …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is a year-end scorecard that closes the loop on the predictions made for Google at the end of 2006: the company ended 2007 as America's fifth-largest listed stock by market capitalization, with iGoogle named its homegrown standout product of the year. The ranking is the financial expression of a run that included a November survey showing search share climbing even higher.
The balance sheet behind that market cap was built through the year — Battelle flagged an $11B pile of liquid assets back in March — which is what makes a consumer-facing homepage gadget being crowned 'star performer' notable: Google could afford to let non-search products mature without monetizing them immediately.
First-order effects
- iGoogle's status as the year's standout gives Google a personalized start-page asset competing directly with Yahoo's My Yahoo and Microsoft's Live.com properties for default browser real estate.
- Fifth-place market-cap ranking hands Google acquisition currency and investor patience that smaller portal rivals cannot match going into 2008.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft and Yahoo!, who spent December jointly settling U.S. claims over past gambling advertisements, now face a rival whose search-share gains and start-page traction squeeze both their ad inventory and their distribution.
- Google Apps Premier Edition customers publicly requesting Calendar sync and task management shows enterprise demand outrunning the product roadmap — pressure to staff up against the very Office incumbents the market cap is measured against.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Google's structure — dominant search funding patient, unmonetized consumer products — becomes the template competitors must reorganize around, with Android's promised 'new era of wireless' as the next front where that balance sheet gets deployed.
The trend: Search dominance is compounding into balance-sheet dominance, letting Google fund personalization products like iGoogle and platform bets like Android from a position no portal rival can match.