Has Google lost focus? Or is it just bolstering its search business by expanding into hardware and social?

Everything new ties back to something old, some ties are just more sensible than others Owning the hardware platform is becoming crucial for software access so I think Glass is smart in the long run as wearable computing is definitely seems imminent. Q seems more extraneous, just a way to bolster Android as an entertainment and media base which I see as outside Google's core. Probably not worth it. To have competitive ad targeting google requires identity and the social, interest, and action graphs that come with a social network so G+ is an urgent need. Overall, Google has lost focus because it had too. The genesis of social and mobile means the Internet can't be won with 1 product anymore, even search.

Funny I just posted about this a little while ago...

I think the whole Google + adventure probably has long term costs and may be Google's biggest strategic mistake in their short history. But more generally it's wonderful when companies like Google try new things, IMO. See techcrunch.com, which I wrote when Henry Blodget criticized Google for experimenting with self driving cars.

I couldn't agree more - Google is doing what it needs to do on those cutting edge projects. There is a direct correlation between the cars and robots and all this other stuff they experiment with. The problem is they never talk about context as to why they do those experiments so people don't quite grok their long term impact. Google Glass is a perfect example - looks like a toy but it is the future of information retrieval.

Agree with Om that Google absolutely needs to give more context around what it's doing, but not sure of the efficacy of its long-term strategy, especially as it relates to Google+.

From the the outside Google currently seems like an octopus with many unruly, unrelated tentacles -- Each preventing it from heading in one coherent direction.

Conceptually, the idea of all roads (mobile, social, hardware) leading back to the advancement of search/knowledge is extremely compelling, but thus far no one at Google has done the job of providing a clear-cut product roadmap.

I have no idea whether this is a surface mistake (lazy PR) or the result of a deeper issue (lack of an overarching vision). I hope it's the latter.

When a company grows they've got to continue to find projects for their employees to work on. Literally anyone can come up with uninspired projects. It keeps people busy & it makes it look like everything is humming along! It takes discipline to say "No, we are not doing that." Today, Google is pursuing far too many projects in spaces it has no chance of being #1 in. It's a distraction for a company with their size and opportunity to enter a space and be anything but #1! Worse, the corporate culture encourages and supports being a loser. Only a small % of people in a company the size of a Google are capable of coming up with, and executing brilliantly on, something new & groundbreaking. They should acknowledge that and do less stuff better.

Is Google less focused now than 3-4 years ago? Not sure. Remember Google Lively, its ridiculous 2nd Life clone?

It's obvious Google is *just different* than laser-focused Apple, and that its corporate personality is going to be like its founders': Strange, a little erratic, but brainy and curious. There's huge potential in many of the industries it's goofing around in, so as search growth declines, one of these bets may actually pay off. So why not do crazy stuff others won't?

If there's anything to criticize Google about, it's quality and taste control.

Getting kicked off the iPhone could be a huge opportunity for Google: There's a sudden need to make great iOS apps, which is a much different exercise than making decent web software.