What's keeping Google up at night?

• This is not a post about Google+
• How do you leverage social media for SEO?
• Ignoring social media just stopped working
• Google needs its own social network

I think it's good that Bing is fighting the good fight. With someone finally posing a real threat, Google is forced to get back to doing what made them who they are--innovation. It's hard to stay competitive when there is no real competition. Once Google gets going again, I'm sure they'll come out swinging.

I hear what you're saying but it seemed inevitable. If i can use an example it would be Twitter (which isn't a site originating on its own but for examples sake lets imagine it is). Somewhere a company is thinking "Hey that's a great idea,lets take twitter,rearrange the layout and add something new".

It's basically what Bing did, I just think that Google was really lucky to have kept its position this long.

Adversity is good anyway,it drives each company to bring out something better,faster and more accessible for its clients, ensuring great service.

Great article, I haven't noticed it, but after reading your post I definitely agree with you.

Dear Google,
Thanks for abandoning very new application you build. Google Wave, Google Video and so on. What's next? Google Knol? Google Buzz?

So even if you build the next Facebook killer, I doubt there will be any takers. How in the heck can you expect anyone to adopt any NEW Google applications when you are establishing a history of early bailout for same?

They might seem worry free but trust me, with the amount of failures they have had trying to enter very important spaces they have some things to think about. With Eric Schmidt stepping down it is clear that things need to change. The fact that they have not been able to enter the social space stronger than they already have a sign that they are having troubles. Google might be big but if they don't enter some of these key areas very soon they might miss the boat.

Google has gotten almost arrogant. I'm glad Microsoft is giving them some competition. Competition keeps the power in balance.

I think the competition from Bing will only be a good thing for all users in the end. It will force Google to keep improving and will also make Bing stay at this level (or above as well). Spam is an issue but I think the search engines do incredibly well considering how much content there is on the web.

I think there is still a long way to go for Bing though. In the UK for instance we are still receiving 90% of our search engine traffic from Google so Bing has a lot to do to compete against that.

Finally I don't agree with the point that Google may have forgotten how to innovate. Yes they do buy a lot of technologies but they are also do create there own innovations (they still have a car driving itself around the world!).

All good points, Mark. I was not trying to say that I think Google has lost its ability to innovative--I was trying to say that Larry and Sergey might feel that way, because they look at their company through a different lens than we do.

While we are all obsessed with Google the real change will be from a company that we don;t yet know of. Someone will come along , like Facebook did, and appear out of nowhere with an innovation that will shake up the search market. I don't think it will be Bing.

I think google have done an ok job of innovating so far, with the exception of some notable misfires. For the most part I think they have done well to stay ahead of their competitors.

Everyone is worried about something, withier your the President of America, The Queen of England or the guy on state benefits something will always bug you.

For me its my IM business how to improve provide quality (not just unique) content that is useful to the end user and keep providing for my family.

Google i think is more aware of Bing since the Yahoo merger and Microsofts rebranding and marketing on Bing.

I think of recent times Google has done really well especially with the latest panda update a few months ago. It did wonders for my sites as they climbed high in the rankings virtually over night when all the rubbish results were filtered out. I'm sure there are things that worry them but given the amount of money they have, they will find the solution to them to stay on top.