Google - Under pressure?

Google has been getting a lot of bad press since they came out with the Q4 results. I don't care much for the Wall Street consensus estimates. But there are few interesting things that Amr Awadallah (a Yahoo employee) discussed in his blog that make me wonder if things are getting tough for Google from a growth standpoint.

There are a few interesting patterns:
1. Pressure to maintain growth - This is indicated by the increase in the number of sponsored results above the search results. Now there are three instead of their historical two. Also, according to Amr, they have increased the font size of the ads. Google now sets a min for keyword bids instead of letting the market dictate the price, This could be as simple as optimization of pricing mechanism. But it could also indicate that Google is infact feeling the heat to maintain growth.
2. Competitive pressure on Adsense - It is difficult to predict the success of YPN but it is sure to put pressure on one of the main revenue streams of Google. Adsense had a virtual monopoly is this space with revenues close to $2 Billion coming from this offering.
3. Weak product/feature pipeline - Well, "weak" is too strong a word. Google has not be able to come up with new ways of monetizing content and diversifying their revenues. I read a blog posting somewhere that was criticizing Google for coming up with a feature to save bookmarks. Not too much should be read into this but makes you wonder what is in the pipeline.

All said and done, Google is still a great company and I believe that it will continue to innovate and come up with good products. The challenge would be in monetization. I will wait for at least 6 more months before I form an opinion on Google.