drall - 3:42 am on May 12, 2010 (gmt 0)

"Google just lost one of its three major growth engines"

"Google still has yet to find another major product to pick up growth where the search business leaves off"

[businessinsider.com...]

Could be the reasoning behind some of the heavy handed changes that have been reported the last few months.

...in the biggest and most important market on earth (responsible for almost half of Google's revenue), Google's share gains have flatlined. A year ago, Google had 65% of the US search market. Last month, Google had 64.4% of the US search market. This after an amazing decade in which Google gained about a point of share per month. Most Google bulls expected Google to eventually own considerably more than 65% share of the US search market. As Google's competitors collapsed, it seemed Google would eventually be able to gain the 80%-90% share that Google has in many other countries worldwide. Based on Google's flatlining in the past year, however, this incremental 15-25 point market share gain now seems like wishful thinking.