The difference between 'keeping up in a fast-changing market' and 'failing to focus on your core market' is often only obvious with hindsight.
Google's launch of Google+ to keep up with Facebook was a huge waste of time, resources and goodwill. It had nothing to do with their core search and e-mail products, except for sharing ads/tracking.
On the other hand, Google's acquisition of Youtube was a genius move that's massively paid back, even though it had nothing to do with their core search and e-mail products, except for sharing ads/tracking.
So you don't just need to change to keep up - you need a specific type of change and it's not always easy to know what that is :)
> Google's launch of Google+ to keep up with Facebook was a huge waste of time
They had Orkut, they could have used it to compete with Facebook instead of creating a new service. Its the same thing with Googles multiple chat apps.
Google's launch of Google+ to keep up with Facebook was a huge waste of time, resources and goodwill. It had nothing to do with their core search and e-mail products, except for sharing ads/tracking.
On the other hand, Google's acquisition of Youtube was a genius move that's massively paid back, even though it had nothing to do with their core search and e-mail products, except for sharing ads/tracking.
So you don't just need to change to keep up - you need a specific type of change and it's not always easy to know what that is :)