Is Coca-Cola ever going to move away from brand advertising? Is Bud Light? Is McDonald's?
There are too many products where value comes from building a lifelong relationship with the customer, rather than directing a single purchase. That's stuff only branding can do.
Sometimes the most important thing about a new product isn't the product, it's the go-to market strategy. Google hasn't proven it can conquer that last hurdle.
? The author specifically mentions companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Plus the point isn't that one company will replace Google, it's that Google isn't positioned to take advantage of the next wave of online advertising - digital brand advertising.
And Google is not 3M. They have not proven to any significant degree that any of their research projects will provide lasting value to the company. In fact, almost all of their successful non-search products were acquisitions, not the result of internal R&D. Android was an acquisition; Maps was an acquisition; Docs was an acquisition.
On my laptop, it's only about 4 seconds before all the above the fold content renders.