Google Sees Mobile as Key to Extend Search Might in 2010

Google rivals Yahoo and Microsoft Bing would love to sniff Google's definition of "very successful" in search, but those companies will only account for 28 to 30 percent of the search market if they succeed in joining forces later this year. ComScore last week put Google's U.S. search share through December 2009 at 65.7 percent.

While Microsoft and Yahoo wait for regulatory clearance of their search pact, Rosenberg noted that Google plans to accelerate its search efforts in 2010. One key to Google's continued success is improving its time to result, or delivering users Web pages, maps, videos and other Web services to users faster than any other search engine on the market.

Google also plans to fortify its social search offerings. That doesn't mean Google is going to launch a social network to challenge the likes of Facebook or MySpace. Instead, Rosenberg said Google will move to make all of its existing products more social.

"We think you're more likely to trust a restaurant or a movie review from a friend of yours than from a stranger," he said. Google has already established a base here, albeit in its Labs, with Google Social Search, which surfaces reviews, blogs and other content from friends and contacts within Google's user base.

Google will also look to leverage location-based search and e-commerce along with its social search efforts. The company launched Place Pages to better surface local businesses and other attractions online, and tried to buy Yelp to bolster its local search assets.

Mobile aficionados take note: Rosenberg also said Google will place a greater emphasis on mobile technologies in 2010.

"More users, both from search and other products, are accessing us from mobile devices, and with all of the capabilities these phones that are coming out have -- GPS, cameras -- we think there is the potential to actually make this mobile Web better than the PC Web."

Smartphones based on Google's Android mobile operating system, such as Google's Nexus One, paired with mobile search, applications and advertising seem like a fine way for Google to extend its search dominance from the desktop to the PC.

Expect Google to wield mobile technologies as a weapon versus Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple in 2010.