---
title: "You Know You're Just Another Media Company When..."
date: 2008-04-03T16:57:19Z
modified: 2008-04-03T16:57:19Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/you-know-youre-just-another-media-company-when/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 1472
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2008-04-03T16:57:19Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

[EMI is poaching your people](http://link.ft.com/r/6NPSBB/HS3J6/BMVTY/XGO4T/EX7KT/36/t).

[You purchase another media company and immediately lay off 25% of the workforce](http://link.ft.com/r/6NPSBB/HS3J6/BMVTY/XGO4T/EX7KQ/36/t).

When rumors fly around you’re buying other major firms such as [Skype](http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2006/08/talking-with-skype.html) and [Expedia](http://www.originalsignal.com/article/35125/don-t-think-google-will-buy-expedia-think-again.html).

When you [miss your numbers](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/01/google_q4_2005/) and the share price feels the pain.

When you buy cool [startups](http://www.jaiku.com/) that suddenly disappear.

This post was originally supposed to be ironic. Of course Google has some characteristics and IP that set it apart from the pack. But the myth of exceptionalism _is_ slowly being debunked (shining company on the hill…) Google is frankly awesome, and is only just getting started in many respects. But it is just another company – it has to manage growth, ship product, keep its people happy and so on. New growth areas will be [enterprise apps](http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2007/02/23/google_apps/), [cloud computing](http://www.folknology.com/blogs/default/2008/04/01/1207046700000.html). There is still plenty of upside in search. And special props to the Google team behind the [contact management API](http://googledataapis.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-2-1-contact-api-has-landed.html) – you people are fantastic.

I think the industry will be better off as Google matures. I meant to be ironic in the title and intro but then point out all the goodness at Google. But in writing the blog I can’t help thinking jaiku’s placeholder homepage is really pretty embarrassing.

![jaiku](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2157/2385663968_a15623c5c8.jpg?v=0)

bous update link: it seems BusinessWeek is thinking similarly, with a story entitled [What Goes Up](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_15/b4079021321853.htm?campaign_id=mag_Apr3&link_position=link19).

disclosure: RedMonk runs Google Docs.