Silicon Valley Watcher - reporting on the business of technology and media: Google [GOOG] Archives

Google muzzles the press: a report from inside the Googleplex holiday media party

by Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher.com

I'd like to tell you about the party; but it was all off the record! Damn. I picked up so many great stories that it hurts not to write about them.

I think Google made the party off the record because it was Cindy McCaffrey's birthday (head marketing honcho at the big G), and she didn't want us reporting the number of candles on her cake (16).

Secret photo of Google ice sculpture--taken with Treo 600
(Jochen, our photographer, had to surrender all his kit).
It's difficult to see, but there are two "ice" penguins cunningly disguised as waiters. It's obviously a thinly-disguised salute to Linux--and a poke in the eye to Microsoft, which has ambitions in search.

Continue reading "Google muzzles the press: a report from inside the Googleplex holiday media party" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on December 27, 2004 6:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Web analytics heats up as Google buys Urchin; NetIQ spins out WebTrends for $94m

Two large deals in the web analytics sector were announced Monday as Google bought San Diego-based Urchin,and NetIQ sold WebTrends to its management for more than $90 million. Google did not disclose the purchase price but industry analysts estimated the deal at about $30m.

[We had the tip that the Google/Urchin deal was in the works but couldn't confirm it in time...]

Eric Peterson, who watches the web analytics sector for Jupiter Research, said that the deals show how hot this space has suddenly become. Peterson noted that tag-based analytics -- in which JavaScript page tags are used to capture information about user behavior -- "are very much in vogue." Venture capital has been flowing into web analytics startups. "There is intense interest in tag-based analytics," he added.

While Peterson hasn't heard any specifics from either Google or Urchin, he believes there are several possible scenarios for how Google might proceed.

Continue reading "Web analytics heats up as Google buys Urchin; NetIQ spins out WebTrends for $94m" »

Posted by Richard Koman on March 29, 2005 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (3)

Mark Jen, fired Google blogger, helps Plaxo draft a blogging policy

Bloggers with jobs were all a twitter when Mark Jen, the "Google blogger," was fired from his job because he posted some complaints about Google's compensation package, compared to his previous employer Microsoft. Mark has landed at Plaxo, a privately held company that offers electronic address book updating services.

Mark is taking the lead on drafting a blogging policy for Plaxo, the current draft of which has been released for public comment. "We want community comment," Mark told me in a phone call. "One of the draws of blogging is to connect directly to the community and open lines of communication. If companies want to use our policy or modify it, that's great."

Continue reading "Mark Jen, fired Google blogger, helps Plaxo draft a blogging policy" »

Posted by Richard Koman on April 1, 2005 3:44 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (3)

Watcher "offices," via Google Maps

Posted by Richard Koman on April 8, 2005 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Gmail baits phishing spam, demonstrating there is a public good in email scanning

Google has been testing phishing detection in Gmail. I just noticed it tonight but SVW reader Eric Pederson comments below that he first saw it a few months ago. In their battle of one-upmanship with Yahoo Mail, phishing detection is a huge advantage.

Presumably they can do this because they're scanning the contents of your mail. While this drives privacy advocates nuts [The Register], that fact provides them a lot of power to deliver features that users need. Email providers have a moral responsibility to try to protect their users, and now that Google has shown a way to identify phishing, could other providers have a legal responsibility to offer similar protections?

Posted by Richard Koman on April 10, 2005 7:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Scoop! Is this a sighting of the Google browser?

By Nick Aster for SiliconValleyWatcher

Speculation has swirled for months that Google was working on a browser. The company has hired browser engineers from Microsoft and Firefox. The BBC reported last year that the search giant owns the domain name gbrowser.com. None of that ultimately proves anything, though.

Checking out SiliconValleyWatcher's browser stats this morning, however, I noticed that, oddly, a few visitors are using a browser identified as "Google 0.X".

We know our readers are on the cutting edge, but this is too cool. Drum roll please? Is anyone else seeing this in their logs?

Posted by Nick Aster on April 20, 2005 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (13)

Google Browser? Maybe Not

By Nick Aster for SiliconValleyWatcher

There's a reason I'm an MT expert and not a stats analyst. Avid readers have pointed out that the fine print dosn't add up to what the browser stats displayed. Alas, I knew it was too good to be true.

After digging manually through the log files, it seems that the stats program was interpreting "GGLD:2005-09" as Google, which is correct in the sense that it's probably either the googlebot scanning the page or something funny going on with someone's Google toolbar, but most likely this is NOT a Google browser.

It was exciting for a few hours, but ultimately proof that information that gets posted will quickly be fact checked by people who might know more than you do. Score one more point for the wisdom of crowds.

Posted by Nick Aster on April 20, 2005 4:28 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Advertising booms for Google, as they report earnings of $1.29 a share

With cofounder Sergey Brin proclaiming their advertising model, "very powerful," Google announced the results of a successful first quarter today. Net income was $369m or $1.29 per share, compared to $64m or 24 cents per share a year ago. The search giant had net revenues of $1.2 billion, a whopping 93 percent improvement over a year ago.

"Our advertising model is a beautiful thing; and we're certainly going to extend it as far as we can," Brin said in the quarterly conference call.

While the numbers were stronger for Google's own properties (which made $657 million in revenues, a 166% boost over year-ago numbers), the AdSense numbers ($584 million, a 75% increase over last year) are nothing to sneeze out.

Continue reading "Advertising booms for Google, as they report earnings of $1.29 a share" »

Posted by Richard Koman on April 21, 2005 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google execs look ahead and see even more more from their powerful business model

I've transcribed my notes from the analyst conference call Google held today to discuss their earnings. It was a pretty interesting conversation, I must say. I believe they really care about providing great user experiences. Ultimately, I think they're mostly interested in the improvements that also allow a rich stream of data to flow back to Google, from which they can figure out better ways to sell advertising and targeted marketing. I don't think it's any more nefarious than that; but I do think it's the basis of their ability to monetize user patterns as brilliantly as they do.

OK, here's the conversation, at least the part that I managed to take notes on.

Q: Can you talk about monetizing some of the non-search products, such as Google News and Froogle?

A: We don't think about it that way. Many of our products are integrated into the main search product. These products improve our core products and the core products enhance our ability to monetize the other products.

Q: Are you going to extend the advertising content to support graphical ads/more brand-oriented ads?

A: There are a number of efforts to make advertising more graphical which will be rolled out in coming months. We're also working on doing more targeting, which is pretty minimal right now.

Continue reading "Google execs look ahead and see even more more from their powerful business model" »

Posted by Richard Koman on April 21, 2005 4:09 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Exclusive interview with Google video platform director Jennifer Feikin

When Larry Page announced at the national cable convention a few weeks back that Google would start allowing users to upload digital video, he described it very much as an experiment. "We're not quite sure what we're going to get, but we decided we'd try this experiment," he said.

The video project really did start as an experiment at Google, originally developed on "20 percent time," the well-known Google policy of letting engineers spend a fifth of their time working on projects of personal interest.

Now that Google's been accepting uploads for a few weeks, I popped down to the Googleplex for lunch with Jennifer Feikin, director of video.

Continue reading "Exclusive interview with Google video platform director Jennifer Feikin" »

Posted by Richard Koman on April 27, 2005 8:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (2)

GooglySpam - unwanted, untrusted uninfo

In a piece for Media Post's OnlineSpin newsletter, Shelley Palmer of Palmer Advanced Media, is waving a red flag about "GooglySpam" - sites created (and ironically often hosted on Google's own Blogspot service) to monetize on AdWords/AdSense click payments. She writes:

Because the best way to drive traffic is through a relevant search result; and, because keyword advertising pays anywhere from pretty well to very well on click-throughs, a cottage industry has emerged: GooglySpam. GooglySpam is not a real word, it's not even a good word, it just describes a new kind of extremely annoying spam -- fake microsites pretending to be relevant search results.

Continue reading "GooglySpam - unwanted, untrusted uninfo" »

Posted by Richard Koman on May 5, 2005 12:14 PM | Permalink

Google releases Accelerator app - beta of course

Road Runner.gif
Google released yesterday the beta version of Google Accelerator, software designed to speed up web browsing. It only runs on Windows. According to the FAQ, the product:

sends http requests through Google servers, along with standard client information;
caches the cookies clients send to the websites being visited;
pre-caches websites on users' hard drives.

In light of marketers' desire to do behavioral marketing, the idea of millions of users providing Google with tracking data is certainly interesting. Compared to the spyware developers, Google's approach is sure to be honorable.

Tracking user paths is hardly a new development. Amazon's Alexa has been doing this for years - and the aggregated information they've collected is undeniably valuable.

Still, users shouldn't think that running Google Accelerator will enhance their privacy. Since information that identifies you personally could potentially be cached on Google servers, your browsing history might be just a subpoena away from the nearest FBI office.

Posted by Richard Koman on May 5, 2005 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (2)

[ChatterWatch] What people are saying about Google Accelerator

Road Runner.gif
Last week Google released Google Accelerator, a Windows program that speeds up bandwidth connections by precaching websites and sending http requests through Google servers. Initial reaction generally characterized the program as a Trojan Horse that solved a non-problem (do bandwidth connections really need more speed?) while enabling Google to collect lots (more) data on users.

But eWeek reported on Friday that the program was breaking at least a handful of sites, in some cases displaying pages as generated for other users.

"It is an unfortunate problem, but it looks worse than it is," Marissa Mayer, Google director of consumer web, told eWeek. "We are caching those pages on the server side with the user name on them…You see it, but it's important to point out that you are not logged in as that user and you do not have the session cookies needed to perform operations as [that] user."

Mayer blamed the problem on the sites' mis-implementation of their HTTP cache-control headers. Accelerator ignores links in URLs that appear after a question mark, assuming the URL is performing some function rather than pointing to actual content. "It could be that our assumption around the question mark and the way sites comply with the standard is incorrect. If that is the case, then we'll have to redesign the prefetch algorithm," Mayer said.

Continue reading "[ChatterWatch] What people are saying about Google Accelerator" »

Posted by Richard Koman on May 9, 2005 11:31 PM | Permalink

Journalist blogger discovers Gmail and his world is rocked

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

I wake up early, it's nearly 10am, but I can't sleep anymore. I flip on the TV and catch a few minutes of the excellent Deutsche Welle news in English on channel 32. I wander over towards the shower, but make the mistake of popping into my office and checking email for any changes to my meetings that day.

I recently started using Gmail and it rocks. It really rocks. It is by far the best user experience I have had with a software application in a long time. It is well thought out, and as a committed tag-o-nista, I love the fact that you can tag anyway you want. And it is fast. And it is all server-based!

But I must make a plea:

Continue reading "Journalist blogger discovers Gmail and his world is rocked" »

Posted by Mike Faden on May 12, 2005 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Live from Syndicate: Red sky in the morning - Hearst News puts Google and news aggregators on notice

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

The "RSS and Advertising" panel at Syndicate was fascinating because this has become such a hot topic issue. Internet guru Dave Winer has recently been advocating ad-free RSS feeds and urging boycotts of publishers that pollute their feeds with ads. Google, Yahoo, Moreover and others are paying no attention - on the contrary, they are rubbing their hands with glee at the fat cash cow they see in mixing ads into RSS feeds.

On Tuesday Google launched its public beta of AdSense for Feeds at the show, saying it would enable content producers to make money and plough that back into generating yet more quality content. Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager for AdSense, called this a "virtuous cycle" that would enable the production of larger amounts of high quality content - and lead to a better society.

Continue reading "Live from Syndicate: Red sky in the morning - Hearst News puts Google and news aggregators on notice" »

Posted by Richard Koman on May 18, 2005 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (4)

Google Personalized Home Page Launches

By Nick Aster for SiliconValleyWatcher

UPDATE: Check out Richard MacManus' take at ionRSS.com: "[Google] will offer 'Universal RSS support' for the Personalized Homepage within 1-2 months, meaning users will be able to add any RSS feed onto it. Interesting that this comes out at the same time as Microsoft confirming it will integrate RSS across its MSN online services throughout the year."

It's evidently a cold day in hell, as Google's venerably simplistic home page will be supplanted (not forcibly replaced, mind you) by the new "Personalized Homepage". Here's a sneak preview.

It's part of a new push Google calls "Fusion," which is an initiative to combine the various popular Google tools with web content at a user's fingertips. It's not quite the Google Browsers, but it's getting close! The actual change is supposed to go live some time very soon; and should you decry the loss of the classic Google homepage, you can set your preferences to keep it around.

That's just one of three announcements this afternoon at the Googleplex.

Continue reading "Google Personalized Home Page Launches" »

Posted by Nick Aster on May 19, 2005 3:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Google's Secret Searchers

Hank van Ess reveals on SearchBistro.com that Google operates a secret worldwide network of search testers - humans not bots - to make sure that sites are properly placed in Google's search results. Does this mean that Google's vaunted algorithm is really a whole bunch o' clickmonkeys?

What is it? It's a lab of humans from all over the world (from China to The Netherlands, from Korea to Brasil) They are paid to check search results of Google every day. Most of the employees, called international agents by Google, were recruited through universities all over the world. The aim is to avoid spam, to get the right sites at the top of the listing and to test new features, not shown to the public yet. I call it Google's Secret Evaluation Lab, but the real title is less adventurous; 'Rater Hub Google'.

Posted by Richard Koman on June 3, 2005 3:53 PM | Permalink

Google CEO vows one right answer for every search and universal reach "we'll get them all, even the ones in the trees"

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

It might be unfair of me to pull that quote from Eric Schmidt's Charlie Rose interview Friday, but it was there so what could I do?

It was an interesting interview even though Mr Rose did not understand much of the answers, or, many of the questions.

The questions were predictable and interesting answers were left unexplored, or even cut off in mid sentence as Mr Rose flailed and ultimately failed, to engage Mr Schmidt in a debate on any decent hot topic issue.

Still, there were some very good nuggets:

Google is the greatest calling--working for world peace through search

Everybody searching Google should only have to get one answer and that answer should always be right. It is very important that Google succeed in only giving one right answer. There is no better calling in life, said Mr Schmidt.

Continue reading "Google CEO vows one right answer for every search and universal reach "we'll get them all, even the ones in the trees"" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 4, 2005 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Scoop! Smile for the Google 3D mapping truck

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Google plans to use trucks equipped with lasers and digital photographic equipment to create a realistic 3D online version of San Francisco, and eventually other major US cities.

The move would trump Amazon's A9 service, which offers two-dimensional photos of buildings on US city streets.

Continue reading "Scoop! Smile for the Google 3D mapping truck" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 8, 2005 3:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (45)

WSJ: Google Readying PayPal Competitor

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is getting ready to launch an electronic payment system to go head to head with eBay's PayPal. "It could be a pretty big negative for eBay if it happens," Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy, who follows Google and eBay, said. The AP story notes:

Expanding into online payments might make Google less dependent on advertising, which accounted for nearly all of its first-quarter revenue of $1.26 billion. The merchants who run auctions on eBay are major buyers of Google's ads, which appear alongside search results.

Posted by Richard Koman on June 17, 2005 8:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

GooPay makes sense for Google's shopping, video, premium content businesses

AP's latest report on the unconfirmed story that Google is starting a PayPal killer quotes a number of informed sources who think it's a real thing and some good thinking on where this takes Google next. Google used to be thought of as a search engine; now you just have to look at their balance sheet to change your conception to "advertising company." Google's advertising is a "beautiful thing," as Larry Page once said, but Google's vision is far bigger.

Continue reading "GooPay makes sense for Google's shopping, video, premium content businesses" »

Posted by Richard Koman on June 21, 2005 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Eric Schmidt speaks up on GooPay, denies Google wants to compete with PayPal

AP reports that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has denied that Google is launching a competitor to PayPal, even as he confirmed that Google is in fact readying some manner of payment system.

"The payment services we are working on are a natural evolution of Google's existing online products and advertising programs which today connect millions of consumers and advertisers," he said. That's not much to go on but I would guess that Google's payment system would allow them to manage a cost-per-sale advertising model, in which they can integrate advertising placements, clickthroughs, sellthroughs, and user behavior.

Continue reading "Eric Schmidt speaks up on GooPay, denies Google wants to compete with PayPal" »

Posted by Richard Koman on June 21, 2005 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

What's Google up to? It's going to become a wireless telco with its own fat backbone...

...a searchbox accessible from anywhere

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher
My colleague Richard Koman picked out a great discussion topic for our newsletter subscribers. It is about where Google is heading and what it plans to do with the $4bn it is adding to its war chest...

I think it is very clear what Google's strategy is, or rather has to be. I think it is getting ready to do a wireless telco buy. Because everything is rapidly being walled up into gated communities, and the gatekeepers are the cable companies and the wireless mobile phone companies (the land-liners are toast).

Those walled gardens can shut Google out, or put Google a click or two away....and on a mobile phone that might as well be Siberia, you are going to use the first search box you see and it doesn't have to be Google.

In context

Google is not interested in search. It is interested in connecting the dots in user behavior. My cell phone can tell Google a huge amount of information about my user behaviors. And as Om Malik at Business 2.0 GigaOm, rightly points out, location is a powerful thing when you are in the contextual ad business...

Search box reach

For Google, it is all about location, location, location. It wants a Google search box in front of every person at any time and in every place. Look around, I bet you can see one right now :-)

Eric Schmidt, on Charlie Rose, said the mobile phone is more important than the PC, because there are huge areas of the world where the PC-based Internet doesn't reach but wireless cell phone technologies can.

"We'll get them all, even the ones in the trees," he said, referring to the Amazon jungle and all the unwired-to-Google-searchbox-places still remaining in the world. Google will get a search box to them on a wireless phone that runs on bicycle-power recharging stations in the wilds....is my bet.

That's why Google has to become a wireless telecommunications company -- because the carriers are forming wireless walled gardens, and Google needs its own.

Wonderful vaulting WIMAX

The only other alternative is to hope that WIMAX can vault over the walled gardens and we can get access to nearly free bandwidth through public WIMAX/WiFi projects...then we can get a Skype mobile phone with a Google interface that knows who you want to call and the call is virtually free...now that's disruptive.

But there is way too much at stake for that to happen. The wireless telcos won't allow the PC-ization of their markets because they saw how Intel and Microsoft sucked in all the margin from the PC market, leaving PC makers with crumbs...and an open communications network, the Internet! Where is the money in that? Lots of user value, of course...

Proprietary cash

The wireless telcos have proprietary networks that are massive cash generators and new cash markets are right ahead. They won't give that up to WIMAX and public WiFi in a hurry.

That's why Google can't bet on WIMAX, (it would take too long anyway). It has to hedge its bets and it has to become a wireless telco. BTW, look at where Softbank in Japan is heading...

Posted by Tom Foremski on August 26, 2005 4:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Sun Microsystems will help Google build the world's largest computer with Sun's SPARC microprocessors....

. . .imho
By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher
Nothing there! Says perplexed tech industry and media on the Sun and Google pact announced earlier this week.

That was the consensus, but they were looking in the wrong place, imho.

Eric Schmidt and Scott McNealy were very likely talking about computer architectures. These are hardware geeks not software. Sun knows how to build highly scalable massively parallel SPARC microprocessor based systems.

Free Google computers

Sun understands 64-bit microprocessor design and the total system design of large IT systems very, very well. Oh, and before I forget, Sun also has a lot of IP in the client/digital gadget side of things...

Within a year we'll see a Google consumer computer announcement, and it'll be free, and cheap to make and made from inexpensive chips because the machine processing power moved into the big computer in the ether(net).

Google and the price of oil

I know for a fact that Google has bought large Intel Itanium systems in the past. And I know it will need massive amounts of computing power over the next couple of years.

Building everything with PC boards is massively inefficient and incredibly electric power hungry. A big Sun system uses far less electric power per microprocessor cycle than that generated by racks of PC servers.

Jet Blue to JFK

I wouldn't be surprised if Mr Schmidt shows up at Sam Palmisano's office in Armonk next to order some IBM POWER systems. Like Sun, IBM has tremendous expertise in the microprocessor PLUS IT system design that Google needs.

And this doesn't mean Itanium systems are being replaced--by SPARC or POWER.

Google is not concerned with either/or, it is concerned about more!

Posted by Tom Foremski on October 5, 2005 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

GOOG and AOL? It's probably the comms...

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher.com

Why would GOOG be interested in AOL? That's a bit of a puzzle and here is Citigroup's Mark Mahaney and Tom Berquist's flash thought summary:

It is being reported that Google and Comcast are in negotiations to take a minority stake in America Online for as much as $5B. We don't have a definitive read on the likelihood of such a deal, but here is our take. * Depending on what the stake would be in, the implied valuation could appear reasonable. AOL generated $631MM in H1:05 advertising revenue. Assuming a 50% margin, that's an EBITDA run rate of...$631MM. Assuming a $10B valuation, that's 15.8X EBITDA. That's reasonable given comps. * What's in it for GOOG? Possibly a spoiling action vs. MSFT, which has reportedly been in talks with AOL. Either GOOG ups the price for MSFT or guarantees the 2.6% of its net revenue that comes from AOL. * Other rationales for GOOG? Accessing content, demographic information that could be used to target search, and IM interoperability. We're skeptical on these, however.
http://www.citigroupgeo.com/pdf/SBD73350.pdf

I think that this report, from Nick Shelness at Ferris Research might provide a better clue as to what GOOG might be interested in...

A recent briefing from AOL's instant messaging (AIM) division indicates that it might finally be getting its act together to offer capabilities beyond presence and typed text. AOL's intent is quite breathtaking. AIM plans to own the place, the computer application and screen real estate from which consumers access, initiate, and control all forms of interpersonal communication. This communication will include:
* A multi-device address book.
* Multi-device presence.
* A multi-device calendar.
* Email.
* Instant messaging (typed text).
* Text messaging via the SMS.
* Voice and Video over IP (VoIP) to and from other AIM users as well as, where appropriate, to and from the PSTN.

Posted by Tom Foremski on October 13, 2005 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Reverse the Google pay per click model--the rumble begins

I was delighted to receive the following note from one our readers. It refers to a recent podcast for Sam Whitmore's Media Survey. In the interview, Sam picks up on a recent comment of mine that I'm concerned that the old media might die before the new media can walk.

I'm also delighted that others are spotting what I have maintained all along, that content-will-be-king. I have the dotcom name to prove it:-)

Content harvested by machines and algorithms is cheap and gets cheaper all the time. People-generated content is expensive to produce and will become more valuable

It's the age of the technology-enabled journalist/editor--the media engineer. imho.

Here is the podcast: http://m2.slapcast.com/mp3/SWMS/SWMS-2005-10-10.mp3

Here is a list of other podcasts by Sam.

http://slapcast.com/users/SWMS

Here is the email note from Andy Evans, Net Communities:

Continue reading "Reverse the Google pay per click model--the rumble begins" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on October 18, 2005 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

GOOG-AOL misfit doesn't matter--it's a win win strategy

Google and AOL don't seem to be much of a fit, especially in their culture mismatch. But those two companies don't have to be a good fit in order for Google to be able to monetize the AOL traffic better than any of the other suitors.

If Google doesn't get AOL, that's fine, because it has likely increased the bids to investment levels that are more challenging to recover. This is an increased burden on a competitor and integration issues are a distraction.

It's win win for Google--the planet's computer, and its most scalable platform.

Here is a USA Today story:

Posted by Tom Foremski on October 18, 2005 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Google database is an attempt to accumulate a massive amount of content for free--just as the balance of power is shifting towards content owners

. . . the Google database will devalue all content

GOOG is devaluing the value of content by insisting the only value is in aggregation. People dump content or free into GOOGbase, but GOOG monetizes the index.

That's like saying the value of a book is in its index, not the content it points to.

That used to be the case on the internet because we couldn't figure out the business models online. But we are figuring that out--and that is not good if you are just an index. The balance is shifting to the content-owners, because search and scraping is easy to do and thus of little value. Creating content is hard, but the human labor expended results in something of value.

Dumping content into the GOOGbase and making it free devalues the labor of people and rewards machine-based content production: Google's index pages. imho.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/rumor-of-day.html

Posted by Tom Foremski on October 27, 2005 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

The SEA change: Microsoft "Live" is Microsoft the follower and this time around that strategy won't work...here's why

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher.com

The announcement of Microsoft Live seems a couple of years late. Of course, Microsoft has done well over the years by following others that pioneered markets and then cleaning up because of its scale. But following a company like Google won't work for Microsoft this time, because by the time MSFT figures things out the market has moved on.

I spoke with one of MSFT's lead engineers recently and he was telling me about the fantastic search technology that they have in the labs. That it is better than GOOG's. But the conversation has moved on: it's about Search-Enabled Applications now, it really is a SEA change (and the apps are AJAX).

Rebranding some MSN stuff and adding layers of subscription based services is not going to get MSFT very far.

MSFT can live off the fat of its enterprise market but that won't last forever. And it cannot compete against GOOG's low operational costs--GOOG is much more New Rules Enterprise than MSFT. And it will be MSFT's legacy culture and thinking that will sink the company.

BTW, GOOG does not see itself as a MSFT competitor. The fact that it added a few programmers to help out OpenOffice is not significant.

The New Rules business mantra is: just focus on making sure you execute in your own business--the competition will take care of itself.

GOOG just needs to make sure it is always a step ahead of MSFT (and anybody else)--MSFT will take care of itself. Its legacy burdens will see to that.imho.

Cnet's story on Microsoft Live launch:
Gates: We're entering "live era" of software

Posted by Tom Foremski on November 1, 2005 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Google hires squeaky clean human rights/ corporate responsibility lawyer as PR chief: Is GOOG expecting more trouble ahead? Will Mr Schrage spearhead GOOG's attack on China's human rights abuses?

. . . where is the Google Foundation chief?

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher.com

It has taken about ten months, but Google has finally hired a PR boss, Elliot Schrage--as the new VP of global communications and public affairs.

Mr Schrage replaces Cindy McCaffrey. He is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and was a senior VP at Gap.

The a

Silicon Valley Watcher - reporting on the business of technology and media

Former Financial Times journalist Tom Foremski and team reporting on the business of technology and media . Silicon Valley is becoming a Tech Media Valley.

Google [GOOG] Archives

December 27, 2004

Google muzzles the press: a report from inside the Googleplex holiday media party

March 29, 2005

Web analytics heats up as Google buys Urchin; NetIQ spins out WebTrends for $94m

April 1, 2005

Mark Jen, fired Google blogger, helps Plaxo draft a blogging policy

April 8, 2005

Watcher "offices," via Google Maps

April 10, 2005

Gmail baits phishing spam, demonstrating there is a public good in email scanning

April 20, 2005

Scoop! Is this a sighting of the Google browser?

Google Browser? Maybe Not

April 21, 2005

Advertising booms for Google, as they report earnings of $1.29 a share

Google execs look ahead and see even more more from their powerful business model

April 27, 2005

Exclusive interview with Google video platform director Jennifer Feikin

May 5, 2005

GooglySpam - unwanted, untrusted uninfo

Google releases Accelerator app - beta of course

May 9, 2005

[ChatterWatch] What people are saying about Google Accelerator

May 12, 2005

Journalist blogger discovers Gmail and his world is rocked

May 18, 2005

Live from Syndicate: Red sky in the morning - Hearst News puts Google and news aggregators on notice

May 19, 2005

Google Personalized Home Page Launches

June 3, 2005

Google's Secret Searchers

June 4, 2005

Google CEO vows one right answer for every search and universal reach "we'll get them all, even the ones in the trees"

June 8, 2005

Scoop! Smile for the Google 3D mapping truck

June 17, 2005

WSJ: Google Readying PayPal Competitor

June 21, 2005

GooPay makes sense for Google's shopping, video, premium content businesses

Eric Schmidt speaks up on GooPay, denies Google wants to compete with PayPal

August 26, 2005

What's Google up to? It's going to become a wireless telco with its own fat backbone...

October 5, 2005

Sun Microsystems will help Google build the world's largest computer with Sun's SPARC microprocessors....

October 13, 2005

GOOG and AOL? It's probably the comms...

October 18, 2005

Reverse the Google pay per click model--the rumble begins

GOOG-AOL misfit doesn't matter--it's a win win strategy

October 27, 2005

The Google database is an attempt to accumulate a massive amount of content for free--just as the balance of power is shifting towards content owners

November 1, 2005

The SEA change: Microsoft "Live" is Microsoft the follower and this time around that strategy won't work...here's why

November 2, 2005

Google hires squeaky clean human rights/ corporate responsibility lawyer as PR chief: Is GOOG expecting more trouble ahead? Will Mr Schrage spearhead GOOG's attack on China's human rights abuses?