Google, Netflix & The Power of Focus

Netflix - a video delivery company - is all about focus — it wants to transition from being a company that dominates a business that is being calcified (DVD) to a brand new kind of business model — delivering atomized content to many devices via the network. It is doing so by focusing and having a strategy that helps it walk down the razor's edge without bleeding. It is that focus that has helped the company to become a preferred partner for Hollywood studios. Today, Relativity Media is the first production house to eschew cable and instead opt for Netflix. Netflix's focus on turning their service into a platform is winning them fans and imitators in unlikely places, such as the management team at Skype.

Google, on the other hand, is a company that is still searching for a revenue engine beyond search and advertising. In their domination, they seem to have antagonized a few nations. It is great to see the company seek new markets but they are facing a new reality: their core business of search is coming under pressure from the likes of Facebook, which is intent on changing Internet behavior away from ten blue links.