Google confirmed Tuesday that it has promoted Marissa Mayer to a new position overseeing mobile and local services, a significant strategic shift.
An industry source close to the company also indicated that Mayer, who was previously vice president of search product and user experience, had also been promoted to the search giant's operating committee, the most senior management committee within Google.
Historically, Google has tended to operate in a "two-in-a-box" management strategy, one that Intel has employed in the past as well. In Google's case, a member of the product and engineering teams oversaw a given service. In Mayer's case, she provided the product knowhow for Google's search team; Udi Manber had overseen the technical aspects.
Now, Mayer will be given her own team. "Marissa is moving over to an exciting new role covering geo/local, which is crucial to our users and the future of Google," a Google spokesman said. "Marissa has made an amazing contribution on search over the last decade, and we're excited about her input in this new area in the decade ahead." It wasn't clear what Mayer's formal title would be. Manber will continue to oversee Google's search team.
Strategically, the move implies that Google believes that it has won in search, and can pull one of its star players in preparation for the mobile/local space, which faces much more competition. "I think the way you should read it is that Web search has significant challengers, who have tried to make inroads with minimal or negligible success," the source said. "The local and geo space is really up for grabs."
"It puts one of their star generals off a stable space and onto a space that is really promising," the source said.
In July 2009, Google launched Google Places, which allowed users to create a list of favorite restaurants, and allowed businesses to create their own "place page" and control their own information. Facebook also created its own Facebook Places in August, which established arguably a more direct link with users via an ability to "Like" a business, and rate it through third-party services like Yelp.
The source said that Google is looking to make Google Places much more of a mobile and local experience, with support for coupons for diners already out and about. "Somebody's going to do that well, and Google thinks that it should be them," the source said.
Mayer's new committee role also means that she now has the clout to make those things happen.
The operating committee includes a who's-who of Google senior management, including Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, chief legal officer David Drummond, president of global sales Nikesh Arora, and Susan Wojcicki, who developed Google's AdSense technology, among others.
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