Top 5 things the media gets wrong about Google

Another day, another round of media pundits pumping out quick articles detailing how Google is falling behind and Apple is the chief innovator of the technology world.

So what is a reader or investor to do about all this news? Take it for what it is: a great way in determining which journalists you shouldn’t be reading.

A recent article queued up on my Umano app discussing all of the failings of Google and how the Mountain View giant is becoming aged and worn out. The problem? None of the points the author made warranted being labeled as failures or completely lacked a full perspective of the matter.

Let’s take a moment to hit on some of these points.

#1: Google Glass

If you think Google’s attempt to bring information to an optical, head-mounted display has ended in failure, then you don’t understand what Glass was to begin with.

Google launched Google Glass in April 2013 with a purchasable prototype available only to a select few, dubbed “Glass Explorers”. It has, to this day, never had a public release.

Where a lot of people who just skim the news, but fail to actually learn something about the prototype, get hung up on is the recent news that Google is folding the Explorer program.

That’s not where the news stops, though. Glass graduated from the Google X labs and the team was given its own business unit, still ran by Ivy Ross, all under the purview of Tony Fadell. Fadell is the man in charge of Google’s Nest Labs.

If one had been watching Glass the whole time, one would know that there was an area that Glass really shined in: the business sector. Is that not the point of an Explorer program, but to find a role where something fits in best?

Sorry Glass didn’t appeal to the guy or gal going to Starbucks to buy a cup of coffee. It’s such a shame that doctors and surgeons found a much better use for it instead. That’s a total failure, right?

Furthermore, Google is still allowing developers to design Glassware apps. I imagine these apps will be more focused on enterprise and service solutions instead of camera apps for taking the best pictures of your cat.

#2: Google+

I cannot say enough how much I love Google+. The ability to categorize people into different “Circles” is unmatched by any other social media service, and the ability for me to follow meaningful science and technology related news is without comparison. Plus, my mother isn’t on there… (Just kidding, mom, love you.)

But I’d be lying through my fingers if I didn’t say that Google really thought more of Google+ than what it is. There was a time where Google wanted everything about its company to revolve around the Google+ social media platform.

One of the best things that came out of that failed attempt was the creation of a Google services-wide account for users. Originally it was all linked up to Google+, but now it is just a simple Google Account. This feature allows you to be linked into all the Google products without having to login to each of them individually, over and over again, unlike other “innovative” companies.

And let’s not forget to mention one of the most powerful features that came out of Google+: Hangouts.

In many ways, Hangouts is now its own beast to be reckoned with. Starting from a simple messaging service, Google Hangouts is now the video conference service to beat. Used globally for live events, business meetings, or communicating with your loved ones who are away from home, Hangouts has long surpassed the likes of Skype or Facetime.

To Microsoft and Skype’s credit, both they and Hangouts are working on bringing real-time translation to video calls. And that is nothing short of groundbreaking.

#3: Google Wallet

Ever since Apple Pay was unveiled, I have been plagued by people talking about how either it’s just “so innovative” or “Apple beats Google in mobile payments” or “Google doesn’t offer anything like this”.

What a hefty, steaming load of garbage. I’ve been wowing store clerks for over a year now by being able to pay with my Nexus 5 at the registers using the Google Wallet app.

I don’t know what people are thinking Apple Pay is going to do for them that Google Wallet hasn’t been doing for a while now. The only good thing to come out of Apple Pay is that the Apple cult will demand more NFC terminals at registers, which benefits me as well.

So good job, Apple, you have breathed new life in the eagerly waiting Google Wallet giant.

And Google has been waiting and planning accordingly.

Further reading: Google rumored to be purchasing Softcard

#4: Google’s hold on all things search dropping

There has been a lot of talk lately of Google’s main bread-winner, search, and how they’ve lost a few percentage points in the search market. The numbers are along the lines of a 4% drop (from 79% to 75%), according to Bloomberg.

Who cares? That 4% drop is a smaller variance than what we see during the United States election primary seasons.

A lot of that change went to Yahoo, who recently closed a deal with Mozilla to have Yahoo Search as the default search engine found in Firefox.

Internationally, we see Google facing some opposition in the European Union (EU) with the whole right to be forgotten along with some other anti-trust legislative actions. Whatever happens, Google will adapt to EU regulations as it always has.

The media also likes to point out that Russia and China prefer to use their home-grown search companies. What the media fails to point out is that many of those countries’ citizens are forced to use those search engines because those governments heavily monitor the results and taint many results to spread disinformation. Google has no ability to really change this situation so it’s outlandish to claim that Mountain View is under siege in this topic.

Additionally, I’ve been running the Windows 10 technical preview for a few weeks now. (I absolutely love what Microsoft is doing with the Windows platform.) I can tell you that the percentage points in the search market for Google are going to take a little more of a dip because Windows 10 is very Bing-centric.

Front and center on the taskbar is a Bing search box and, to this point, I’ve yet to figure out how to change that to Google’s search engine.

Also heavily featured in Windows 10 is Cortana, the Google Now and Siri rival. Again, as far as I know, she comes married to Bing.

But this brings up another point where Google is doing just fine, and that’s with Google Now. The app is deeply integrated in Android, straight to the core, along with all of Google’s other services. Digging from your account in Google’s wide range of services, combining it with the power of the Google search engine, Google Now is delightfully creepy and unrivaled. At no point in the future will I expect Siri or Cortana to match it.

In conjunction with Android’s indomitable market share and Google Now’s breathtaking utility, I foresee Google Now becoming an active selling point for Google. This will more than ensure that Google remains top dog in the search market.

#5: Lack of innovation

It’s such a sad state of affairs that I even have to include this point. What can I do, though, when there are still people out there who claim “only Apple has managed to innovate after becoming so big”?

Apple has done nothing innovative in years and for all of the latest love-fest over Apple CEO Tim Cook, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s a copypasta artisan. This is fine, Apple was going to have to play catch-up at some point, but let’s call it like it is.

Despite the above points I’ve mentioned being a rebuttal to this claim in and of themselves, there’s still plenty of other areas Google dabbles in that negate this point of view.

Let’s talk about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) and Google’s newest employees, Ray Kurzweil and Geoff Hinton.

Google is putting together what one DeepMind investor told Re/Code “a Manhattan Project of AI”. Between Google’s purchase of Boston Dynamics and Nest Labs, Google’s eyes are square on the future.

We’ve already seen a glimpse of where Google is wanting to take us, sometimes literally. Driver-less cars have been one of the most talked about prototypes to come out of Mountain View and Google recently discussed a wearable bracelet that will detect cancer cells.

If one were to take a macroscopic view at Google’s work over the past few years, ranging from Google Now to driver-less cars to Project Tango, it’s plain to see that what puzzle Google is piecing together. It’s obviously headed down the path where humans live in a Jetsons-like age, with Google at the helm.

Take Project Tango for example. The prototype device is able to map its surrounding environment in three dimensions and has already successfully been applied to current robots, like those used by NASA on the International Space Station. I can see this as a clear first step towards vision processing for autonomous robots.

For all the talk of innovation, I only see one company really doing so, and it’s not Apple. You might say, “We’re talking about phones, though!” You can keep your smartphones, I’ll take whatever Google is selling in the next decades as a result of all of its hard work.

In conclusion, whatever may happen between now and that day, whatever journalists and bloggers might say, you shouldn’t worry about the big G. It’s doing just fine and will continue to do so. Armed with that knowledge, you’ll be able to measure the real validity of what you might read on the Internet about Google’s demise.

Those that don’t pass the metric? You can easily just unbook- well, you get the idea…

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