Google Needs to Remain Synonymous With Search

Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion posted on some silliness over at the Google blog where the Google folks only want you to use the verb "google" if you're using their search engine.  In other words, it's incorrect to say you're googling someone on Yahoo!  Google wants to be synonymous with search, like Kleenex is for tissues, but only if you're using their products. 
Don Roll, Alacra's MD for Europe, is giving a presentation next week in Amsterdam and asked if I could update some slides for him that I used at a 200 Club meeting in London in July.  I went back to the slides and just 4 months ago I said Google was becoming less synonymous with search:  In July they were nowhere in vertical search, blog search, video search and people search.  Four months later they've bought YouTube, the most trafficked video site; stepped on a handful of potential vertical search providers through the launch of Google Custom Search Engine and have made moves to increase the usage of Google Blog Search, by adding a link to Google News.  And while Google News Archive has been a disappointment, improvements are coming.  So while Google's stated corporate mission is to organize the world's information; their marketing mission is to remain synonymous with search and they're willing to pay and invest to achieve this mission.