Google as A Cat D-9
January 1, 2010
VentureBeat’s “Nine Startup Dreams and Industries Google Crushed in 2009” was a fresh take on Google’s disruptive force. The premise of the write up is that Google is putting some industry sectors under considerable pressure. The examples are fascinating. I can’t list the complete run down, but I can highlight two of the examples that I found interesting. Of course, I want you to read the original article and form you own opinion.
First, Google’s impact, according to VentureBeat, is considerable on real time search. I have been following real time search for a few days, and I thought that incumbents had a head start. VentureBeat said:
Then in December, Google unveiled its work, showing real-time search results that streamed down the page, Friendfeed style.
The implication is that incumbents have been sent scrambling.
Second, the collision between Rupert Murdoch and Google is a potential “crush” experience. VentureBeat said:
He [Murdoch] tried to kill the messenger, but Murdoch’s posturing and threat to remove News Corp. content from Google indexing only amounted to a few cosmetic concessions from the search giant. The company changed its first-click free program, which lets you read a page of walled content for free if you click through in Google search results. It now limits how much non-paying subscribers can access even more.
The use of the word “crush” strikes me as not what Google is doing. In the case of real time search systems, I think Google is adding features, and it is not gunning at a specific real time search incumbent. The incumbents are innovating, so I see the Google move as a positive one. The idea that Google is going to “crush” the News Corp. is also an overstatement. Mr. Murdoch is taking a hard line with Time Warner and Google. News Corp may have an innovative play to reveal which is a positive for me. If a compromise is reached, it is business as usual.
To sum up, Google is a disruptive force, but it is not a giant earth moving vehicle smashing with abandon. Google seems reasonably circumspect in my opinion.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 1, 2010
Full disclosure. A freebie. I am telling the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) because some of the information in this brief write up point out orphan ideas.
ChaCha Dances to Its Own Revenue Tune
January 1, 2010
I think that the TechCrunch articles arrive at the Washington Post via some set up. I spotted the headline “ChaCha Makes ITs Crazy Business Model Profitable” and concluded that the DC paper could not [a] have written a jazzy headline and [b] known about ChaCha search because Indianapolis in not Annapolis by a long shot. I was right.
The key point in the story is that the human powered search system is making money. The most interesting observation in the article was:
ChaCha also made another smart move. They started archiving questions and answers on their website in January 2009. 300 million of them are now published on their website ¿ you can view and search them from the ChaCha home page. Those pages have lots of ads generating revenue, and the search engines tend to rank pages like these highly. The company serves just under a million page views to answer pages per day, they say.
Some services discard historic queries; others bury them. ChaCha makes these generate ad revenue. In addition SMS ads are generating revenue as well.
Useful information in my opinion.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 1, 2010
Oyez, oyez, I wish to disclose to the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation that ChaCha did not pay me to write this. ChaCha has cut a new channel for revenue.
Quote to Note: Extreme Journalism Management Advice
December 30, 2009
My hard copy New York Times ran a story on page B1 with a jump to B2. The article was “Adding Fees and Fences on Media Sites”. By the time you click the link, the article may be a goner unless you pay. That’s the summary of the write up, which continues the News Corp. global push to make life tough for their kids. Those “kids”, by the way, are the ones abandoning traditional media. I am not too interested in the write up, but I read it and wrote down a quote that is a keeper. Here’s what I noticed as important:
One of the problems is newspapers fired so many journalists and turned them loose to start so many blogs,” Mr. Mutter [pundit and blogger]. “They should have executed them. They wouldn’t have had competition. But they foolishly them out alive.”
The “they” are traditional publishers, I believe. Joke or regret? When I think about the publishing outfits for which I have worked, I am not sure. There was a fictional murder in a film. I am not too good at visual recollection but “Citizen Kane” comes to mind. I also remember writing a paper about newspaper wars. The phrase that comes to mind is “yellow journalism” and I associate that phrase with sensationalism and pros like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. As a result, I am not sure if Mr. Mutter was cracking a one liner or referencing what those sufficiently desperate may do to resolve a stressful situation. Anyway, this is a heck of a quote.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 30, 2009
I am not sure to whom to report that Tess licked my hand when I was typing. Technically that is a form of emolument and, therefore, must be disclosed. I suppose I report this fact to Jefferson County Animal Welfare Unit. When I walk my dogs, the officer eyes me carefully.
IBM Replays Its 1982 Audiotape, We Are Right
December 29, 2009
Lesie P. Norton’s “Smart Play” contains what I call a Microsoft moment. (Note: this link may go dead as part of Rupert Murdoch’s vision for the Web. Subscribe as I do.) I refer to IBM’s licensing of Bill Gates’s outstanding disc operating system. This decision set off a chain of events that involved a possible suicide, the reshaping of the computing industry, and the shift at IBM from a technology company to a technology consulting company. (Just my opinion, IBM PR professional. Please, don’t call me for a briefing.) Now “Smart Play” seems to have documented another interesting point in IBM’s competitive assessment heartbeat. Here’s the passage that caught my attention:
Google paranoia: “Is Google [GOOG] going to become the computing platform for the enterprise? Is a bank going to run itself on Google? Is an airline going to run itself on Google? Is IBM going to run its supply chain on Google? Is Bharti Wireless going to run themselves on Google? Is the banking system of China that we’ve built going to be on Google? Is the Russian Central Bank [network] that we’re building going to be on Google? No. The exchanges we’re building? No.”
No. Got it. Should I outline the conditions under which any of these outfits will shift from IBM to another vendor? No, I don’t need another IBM PR call. I will add this quote to the folder that contains the letter I received that suggests IBM knows exactly what Google is doing. Like pressed flowers in a year book for me. There is a post from SearchEngineLand.com, but that misspells IBM’s top dog’s name. Well, spelling is for dweebs , right? Details, details.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 29, 2009
I was not paid to write this. I must report this fact to the Securities & Exchange Commission when everyone returns to work on Monday, well, maybe Tuesday. If there’s snow, maybe next year?
The Nook Hook: Not Knowing What You Do Not Know
December 28, 2009
Short honk: I don’t have a Nook. I read Engadget’s “Nook Fails to Communicate, Download Purchased eBooks”. If true, this Barnes & Noble adventure is another example of folks not knowing what they don’t know. Barnes & Noble runs gift shops with some books in them in Louisville, Kentucky. The idea that a retail outfit can manufacture a consumer device is an example of the “lateral thinking” that Edward DeBono advocated in1970 when technology was different in its reach and scope among book store management. Clicking a hyperlink in a browser makes information technology child’s play. Live and learn that information technology is complicated. I will not include a reference to Google’s investment in technology to permit scaling. I will not toss in a comment about Amazon’s and Microsoft’s investments to achieve a similar end. I will just ask that you read the Engadget post and think about those book lights, notebooks, and greeting cards where books once filled shelves. I am looking forward to other dedicated reading devices from other outfits into the consumer electronics market.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 27, 2009
Okay, I want to be upfront. I was not paid to write this news item. I will report this fact to the Government Printing Office, an outfit still in the paper business and on top of publishing innovations.
What Did Google Learn from Dodgeball?
December 27, 2009
Short honk: Google tried to interest Yahoo in a game tie up four or five years ago I heard. Then Google bought Dodgeball and watched the deal get lost in MOMA’s big tummy. So what did Google learn from its dalliances? Time to invest in SCVNGR? Will this play work out? It is an arm’s length deal. It uses geolocation? It seems to mesh with the broader Android apps play. More information appears in “SCVNGR Raises $4 Million from Google Ventures.” Games is one area where Google has not had much success. The Google keeps trying. If you want to see some of Google’s game thinking, read US7460863.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 27, 2009
Oyez, oyez, no one paid me to write about Google’s game missteps. I must report this to the Bureau of Reclamation. Just keep reclaiming old land. Something may grow or develop… like Google games.
Social Search Misses a Top 10 Spot by a Country Mile
December 26, 2009
To see how far search has fallen, read Mashable’s “10 News Media Content Trends to Watch in 2010.” Lots of social stuff but no reference to search. What’s that mean? In my opinion, the focus on content represents a shift in how the up and comers view information. The implication is that if you are part of the in crowd, you can get your pals to tell you where information you need is or what to accept as high value information. In this world, content is king. Search may be nothing? We’ll see.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 26, 2009
Wow, I am baffled. I don’t know which high powered oversight entity cares about social content. Maybe I will spam any contacts I have at Health and Human Services Department (HHS).
Mr. Google Woos State Governments
December 26, 2009
If you have been watching the Google waltz with the Obama administration, you have missed the action in the cloak room. Mr. Google has been quite successful out of the public eye. Mr. Google has been making new friends and I for one have not noticed. I found “Our Google Government” interesting indeed. The main point of the article is that 60 percent of US state governments have fallen in love with Google. Of course there are degrees of love. Some states love Mr; Google quite a bit. Others are simply in lust with Google. What’s remarkable is this comment:
In other words, according to Google, United States state governments have literally handed over our public data to be held and managed by a private company which has well-publicized partnerships with other governments such as China. The data is physically stored in Google’s buildings, on Google’s servers, managed by Google’s employees. This means Google now controls our government’s access to its own data.
I don’t know if this statement is spot on. The article includes a list of states that have gone Google.
Alaska
Connecticut
Washington, DC
Illinois
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Michigan
Montana
North Dakota
Nebraska
New Hampshire
Ohio
Oklahoma
Minnesota
Pennsylvania
South Dakota
Utah
Wisconsin
Strong stuff. And there’s more in the source document.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 26, 2009
What a conundrum? This is a freebie, and it is about the US government. I have to disclose that I am working for zip to a Federal watchdog. To which cracker jack agency? Oh, I remember—the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission. IBM, Oracle, and Unisys contacts may be flying from states after Googzilla arrives.
Usage Trends for Late 2009
December 25, 2009
I receive an email from ClickZ every week. On December 21, 2009, the email pointed me to the “Most visited Web Site and Most Search Term in 2009?” I assumed that the terms were the sanitized lists that proliferate at year’s end. I did focus on the following table from the Web page with the helpful name 3635954:
Several observations came to my addled goose brain.
First, MySpace.com under the stewardship of ace monetizer Rupert Murdoch seems to have lost the map to King Midas’ treasure room. The site dropped a couple of spots in the midst of a boom in social network usage. Facebook.com, like a field runner with stamina for the long race, moved to the number three spot. MySpace.com, if these data are accurate, may have to rethink its approach or the service will follow in the footsteps of Web sites that had oomph once and then lost when challenged.
Second, the Google is number one. No big surprise to me. What is interesting is that YouTube.com has moved from the tenth spot to number six. When combined, Mr. Google seems to be doing quite well in the traffic department. That’s in sharp contrast to both Microsoft and Yahoo. Despite the hype, Microsoft and Yahoo have not made significant inroads in the all-important Web search sector. It is encouraging that Yahoo Mail holds down the number two spot, but more is going to be needed in 2010.
Finally. Poor eBay.com. Looks like the company continues to flounder. Has Amazon figured out how to hobble eBay or is eBay just a victim of digital arteriosclerosis?
Interesting table at lunch with the goslings today (December 24, 2009). We don’t do holidays. Honk.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 25, 2009
Oyez, oyez, a freebie. I have to report this to the Legal Services Corporation. Those legal types don’t take holidays when there are billable hours to be had. Oops. This is a quasi-governmental outfit. Holiday! Sorry. I will report after the 25th of December. Silly goose that I am. I thought humans worked on the 25th of December.
Social Search Degrades Productivity
December 24, 2009
The article “Social Networking Sites a Drag on Productivity” struck me as one of those obvious professional journalist write ups. I did find the data in the article potentially useful. I think most of the social network hype is the shock wave of the present economic crisis. Let’s face it. Social networking for professionals often means a job hunt or a search-and-capture campaign to land a contract for services. In the personal realm, most of the social networking is an extension of normal human interaction. I think I know what that means for an old timer like me: making it to the doctor without driving into a culvert. For the younger set, I think there may be more frisky goals.
For me the key passage in this write up was:
“Close to 12.5% of productivity of human resource in corporate sector is misappropriated each day since a vast majority of them while away their time accessing social networking sites during office hours,” industry body Assocham said in a survey. Almost each day, on an average, a corporate employee spends an hour, glued to various social networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook, Myspace “for romancing or otherwise driving some satisfaction out of it,” the chamber said.
The time spent on Facebook and similar sites may be fun or rewarding in some specific way. I pay someone to be me on Twitter and other social sites. I wonder who I am. I suppose I could look but that would not be particularly productive in my opinion.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 23, 2009
Oyez, oyez, Bureau of Labor Statistics, I was not paid to write this short item. I have to be productive; otherwise, this goose would not eat. In fact, another of those goose eating holidays is approaching. Scary. Post that on Facebook.
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