Google : The world's largest web hosting company?

Is Google planning to become the world's largest web hosting company?

Google is already 'web host' to at least a million bloggers. Probably at least half of them wish they could switch to a provider with more options and get a personal domain name. But the reason they signed up with Google's Blogger in the first place was because it was so easy to start blogging. And they fear jumping ship and starting over with the unknowns of other blogging software.

Wouldn't it make sense for Google to cash in on this huge growing base of bloggers? Google need only offer these people an option to move up to a higher-end package including their own domain name. Would not hundreds of thousands of Bloggers jump at the chance to pay a few bucks a month and upgrade painlessly?

With Google Base, Google is enticing even rawer newbies to have a web presence. We can expect millions of people worldwide to try selling something (or promoting their skills) effortlessly on Google Base within the next year or two. Might Google have plans to be there for the next step these people will want to take after they get their feet wet with their first online presence?

Everyone says web hosting is a low-margin, unsexy business. But Google's got so many synergies to propel this into something greater that it could single-handedly change the nature of web hosting. The majority of new bloggers are young people. Bloggers will make wonderful and loyal life-time customers if Google seduces them at the front-end.

Google has just raised another four billion for spending money. Could they be thinking of using some portion of this to buy one of the better web hosting companies with domain registrar capabilities?

Google is also said to be investing heavily in power-line internet access options and in what some people think is a plan to build a private internet network. Could becoming the world's largest web-hosting company be the alternative but actual plan?

Almost everyone is online these days. But it's still a tiny minority that have their own website. This is bound to change in the next five to ten years. Everyone will soon have a website, even if very basic, just as everyone now has a telephone listing. And would not Google be there, at the base, to help people jump on and pay along?