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Does anyone else think Google is over-extending itself?

Knol. OpenSocial. Android. Gears. Chrome.

Google’s got a lot on the go, and a lot of it is floundering. Knol is dying on the vine. OpenSocial is a non-entity, and Gears is rocky - at best part of HTML 5 in some unspecified future.

And, GMail is still in “beta.” Wait, so is Blog Search, Scholar, Google Finance, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. And those are just the options that hang off the front page. Click “Even More” and you’re deeper into the Beta Zone. Meanwhile, Google Labs, which should be their beta ghetto IMHO, looks more and more like where projects go to die - look at the update dates: of 14 projects listed, 11 haven’t been touched since 2006.

And: let’s not get into Google’s habit of letting acquisitions languish until their staff quit en masse.

So - is anyone else alarmed that Google is tackling mobile phones and web browsers while many of their supposed core web properties seem woefully under-invested? What’s going on in their board room? I can’t really believe that Eric S. is sitting there suggesting that the AdSense cash factor gives them the leeway to go completely crazy, but at the same time, as I’ve maundered about before, there doesn’t really seem to be anyone at the helm and Google’s obscure corporate politics and lack of transparency exacerbate the sense of directionless-ness. I suppose on some level tackling the mobile market could be said to contribute to their “index everything” mission, but they’re reaching.

Unsolicited Suggestion: Slow down. Over-extension leaves properties vulnerable to the same meteoric rise of a better mousetrap that allowed Google to take over the search market.

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