Google was missing at Gromedex - Google had no presence whatsoever - and I noticed that Google is also scaling back on the parties at Search Engine Strategies and Webmasterworld.  I wonder why?  Could it be the tech gient is spread too thin?

"Thinking back on the last two days of Gnomedex and I am wondering “where was Google?” I don’t remember meeting a Google employee (I just looked through my stack of more than a hundred business cards and didn’t find one from Google)."

"….But at 2006 Gnomedex? Not a thing. Not a logo. Not an employee."

"….Even Google senses something wrong. Watch Seth Godin presenting at Google and listen to a Google employee wondering why Google Maps isn’t getting better market share numbers in areas other than search. (That part is at 43:13)."

I had watched the Seth Godin movie a couple of months ago

And BusinessWeekONline had something interesting to say:

"It’s a role once filled by IBM (IBM ) and later by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ). Today, tech’s 800-pound gorilla is Google Inc. (GOOG ). A mere mention by one of its executives of a potential new product is enough to send shivers through competitors and drive analysts and the press scurrying to sift through the ramifications. When Google launched an instant-messaging program late last year, tech watchers buzzed over the looming confrontation with America Online (TWX ), Yahoo! (YHOO ), and Microsoft. Google’s launch of online spreadsheet software in June was deemed a shot across the bow of Microsoft Excel. And when Google prepped for its June 29 debut of Google Checkout, an online payment system that will compete with eBay Inc.’s (EBAY ) PayPal, several headlines blared: "Google Readies PayPal-Killer."

Let’s face it - it takes a different mentality to create something than to maintain and expand it and Google is good at the first but not so much at the second.