Is Google DoubleClicking its way to dominance?

Rarely do Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo! (YHOO) join hands on an issue, but when the firm on the other side is Google (GOOG), they are more than happy to do so. Ever since Google announced the $3.1 bn takeover of DoubleClick, the two software giants have been crying foul over the control it will give Google over Internet advertising.

While Microsoft - who also wanted to buy DoubleClick - is playing the role of the peeved loser pointing to anti-trust violations (no stranger to being the target of anti-trust accusations themselves), Yahoo seems more concerned about the future of advertisers on the web. To paraphrase, both companies are running scared of Google's latest attempt at dominating the webosphere, where it already holds sway with search (paid or organic). The fact of the matter is that Google’s purchase of DoubleClick would combine the two largest online advertising distributors from two dominant advertising channels (search and display ads) and thus substantially reduce competition in the advertising market on the Web - a shrewd move indeed by Messrs Schmidt, Brin and Paige.

Having spent the best part of the last two years on internet marketing analytics and having worked with both Google and DoubleClick, I can clearly see this being a seminal move. Here are the reasons - Google is the 800-pound gorilla in online advertising (It owns 56% of the core U.S. search market; Microsoft - 12%; Yahoo 23% - as of July 2007) and this merger doesn't change that. But at the same time, this deal clearly has the potential to ignite Google's efforts in the display ad market and down the road gives them the opportunity to create a platform that marries search and display ads in a way that it will be hard to fathom others imitating. Even the sky high price may be less a function of DoubleClick's current worth and more about what it can strategically provide for Google—and what it could have done for Microsoft or Yahoo!

Google seems to be following the most successful adage in business - "If you can't make it, buy it". Google's display efforts to date, like its attempts to expand outside of search in general, have been marginally successful at best. So in a lot of ways, it had to do acquire a company like DoubleClick. But what was surprising to me was the aggressive approach taken by Google towards dominating the industry - while it could have easily and conservatively sat on its riches from search, it decided to expand its horizons and give it rivals something more to think about.

As the legal battles and corporate counter-strategies unfold over the next few months (Microsoft has since announced the $6 bn purchase of DoubleClick's rival aQuantive), I can but only sit and admire a company that simply doesn't want to lose anything - not even a market share it doesn't have!

East or West, India is a land of snake charmers at its best

I saw two ads on cable TV today (Vitamin Water & Tanqueray Rangpur) on different channels within a span of 20 minutes and interestingly enough both featured India, symbolized not by the Taj or the Himalayas, not Gandhi or Aishwarya (supposedly the two most recognized Indians in the world) and definitely not the sprawling IT corridors of Bangalore or Hyderabad. India was proudly represented by the antediluvian images of snake charmers and their pets showing off their latest moves. I would have had a good laugh had the ads shown a call center in Bangalore or Noida.

So what is it with the West and its perception of India as a land of magic, swamis, snakes and most bizarre of cultures and spiritualism. Is the West oblivious to the developments that have taken place in the country over the last 20 years, from becoming the services hub of the world to housing R&D centers for global leaders like GE and Intel and becoming the twelfth largest economy in the world in that process (with a GDP growth rate of 9.4% in 2006-07)? Or is it just a blurred vision of a few that keeps reinforcing the stigmatic images of the country that was made popular by BBC shows and the Indiana Jones adventures? A third possibility is that though the West has embraced India when it comes to recruiting its brilliant engineers, setting up its latest product centers or accepting the importance of Yoga and Karma in their day today lives, it continues to market the country to its common man as it has always done - deliberately choosing to ignore the sublime growth of a new nation, perhaps as a result of the inertia to preserve the mystique and exoticness that has been long associated with the country. Having spent the last 6 years in the US, my personal opinion is that it is the listless work of a few that continues to project India in such deprecating ways.