Entitlement Generation Wins
March 20, 2009
Sarah Perez has an interesting write up in ReadWriteWeb.com. Her story “Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web” here explains why Google is a big threat to companies who don’t see Google as much more than a Web search company peddling ads. On the surface, her story is about 13 to 31 year-olds. I am plagued by these folks but that’s normal. Old age home candidates face a big hurdle when understanding those a half century younger. I don’t want to summarize the characteristics of this cohort. Read her list first hand.
My view is that Google and Googley things are part of the this cohort’s environment. This means that it makes no difference what I and those like me have as information behaviors. The Googley groups are going to make social computing, cloud computing, pervasive computing, and other types of computing the norm. Companies that think Google, Twitter and similar services are not in their business or mildly disruptive are going to be in for a jolt. Big changes coming. And fast.
Stephen Arnold, March 20, 2009
A Darker Shade of Azure
March 19, 2009
Joe Panettieri’s “Microsoft’s Windows Azure Cloud: Dark for a Day” summarized the outage for Microsoft’s cloud service. You can read the article here. The most interesting comment in the write up was:
But 22 hours of darkness doesn’t inspire peace of mind in cloud systems. And I’m starting to think that Amazon.com — backed by loads of open source applications — is the cloud to beat.
Google has converted Gmail into Gfail. Now Microsoft has stumbled. Maybe Mr. Panettieri’s analysis is dead on?
Stephen Arnold, March 20, 2009
AWS and the Coming Search Price Wars
March 18, 2009
Amazon Web Services is not about search. AWS is about “sucking the air out of the room”. Translating this phrase used by the world’s smartest man (Jeff Bezos) is beyond the addled goose. I think it means buying the market so competitors will die from lack of revenue. You can read an interesting discussion of price changes at AWS here. The article is “AWS “Sucks the Air Out of the Room.” Cuts EC2 Costs by 50%” by Jonathan Siegal. There are some interesting tables, which suggest that moving certain services to the cloud make sense, save money, and minimize the need for expensive in house systems professionals. Mr. Siegal correctly points out that AWS is not for every organization. I agree.
Stephen Arnold, March 17, 2009
Google OS: Nightmare in Redmond
March 16, 2009
ComputerWorld’s Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reported here “Google OS Will Be on Netbooks by Year’s End”. Google has insisted that it does not have a Google operating system. I believed what I was told and used the phrase “Google operating environment.” Now it seems that I was dead wrong, if Mr. Vaughan-Nichols’ report is accurate. He wrote:
I predict that by December [2009], we’ll see not only Asus selling Android-based netbooks, but at least a half-dozen other vendors doing so as well. In bad times, businesses have to be smart, and Android on netbooks is a smart move indeed.
Google, of course, remains inscrutable. The company provides the Lego blocks. Google lets others in the playroom build whatever they want. A Google OS would add to Microsoft’s revenue concerns. If this ComputerWorld report is on the money, a nightmare in Redmond may await–low cost, search, contextualized ads, and good enough software with the cloud as a big fluffy cushion.
Stephen Arnold, March 15, 2009
Searching Microblog Content
March 16, 2009
The disruptive force of the flakey Twitter service continues. In case you have been hanging out with the goslings in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, Twitter is the somewhat unstable, rapidly growing, money losing micro blogging service. A micro blog is a text message that is short, less than 140 character if my addled goose memory is working this morning. Who cares about Twitter? Young people and the young at heart have tons of fun firing out text bullets in real time to anyone with a Twitter account. Unlike email which in theory is sort of a one to one communication, Twitter is spam fortified. Any post gets blasted to anyone with a Twitter account. To filter the stuff, one can “follow” a Twitter user. Dozens of utilities ranging from the silly to the stalker inspired are available.
I found the March 13, 2009, article “Microblogging Will Marginalize Corporate Email” here quite interesting. The idea is that microblogging is a disruptive technology. Over time, its utility will increase, particularly for “notifications” and certain types of marketing functions. I don’t disagree. If you are a Twitter watcher, you will want to save a copy of “I’m Not Actually a Geek’s” article. Ignoring Twitter as a source of useful intelligence is an oversight. The challenge of searching and generating knowledge from a Twitter stream remains an interesting challenge. I don’t think Twitter has a solution. Further, I don’t think any of the vendors whose software I monitor has a solution. Big opportunities in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, March 15, 2009
Google and World Domination
March 13, 2009
Ryan Singel’s “Google Voice Speaks of World Domination” here gave me a wake up call. Google’s prowess in telephony has been a topic that I long ago accepted. The company has had telephony and communications on its agenda from 1998. When we ran around the country in 2007 doing briefings about Google’s communications systems and methods, the attendees were eager to deny the Googlers’ cleverness in voice search (a Brin subspecialty) to cute ways to replicate a wireless infrastructure with low cost, low power gizmos and lots of innovation in between.
To be frank, slapping chat, SMS, and Skype-type comms into a Google “container” or service is not rocket science for Google. Sure, the company has to make sure that dependencies don’t befuddle its system or a line of code ruin a Googler’s lunch hour. The work is not invention; these are slipstreaming type features.
The title of the article–“Google Voice Speaks of World Domination”–was striking. The author Ryan Singel did a good job of explaining Google Voice, the “new” service that has the Twitterworld aflame. For me, the most important comment in the article after the title was:
Google Voice also threatens to disrupt voice-to-text startups like SpinBox, with built-in support for turning your voicemail messages into searchable text. Voice-to-text is one of the cornerstones of Google’s drive into mobile search. Google already uses the same technology to power GOOG-411 and the voice-activated search app for the iPhone. Getting even more samples — from messages left for users — will only help tune the algorithms for more lucrative ventures.
This paragraph makes clear the integration of the Google comms service and its disruptive potential, not just for smaller firms but for the big, telco dinosaurs. I say this with some affection since I was a Bell Labs’s contractor, worked on the Bellcore billing system for baby Bell charge backs, and also the USWest Yellow Pages service. Google is not a telco. Telco is just an application running on the Google infrastructure, what I call the Google infrastructure or Googleplex in honor of the buildings off Shoreline Drive.
Should you care? Yes, if you want to reduce for the short term your telecom hassles. Should the telcos caer? No, in my opinions telcos missed the train, and I don’t know when another will drop by Bell Head Station again. Should regulators care? Maybe. But regulators have a tough time understanding cable versus satellite TV so there’s a knowledge gap to fill. Should the blogosphere care? Absoltutely. Those who get it will carry Google type services to the future as the “obvious way” to perform certain functions.
Is this world domination? Not by Google in my opinion. The “legacy” of Google is that it shows the way cloud based services will supplant more widespread methods. Google’s legacy is that the company is a trail blazer. Others will follow and then go further. If this sounds like an interesting premise for a book, check out my 2005 The Google Legacy. This is the story I followed between 2002 and 2004 when I did my primary research. Old stuff to the addled goose. Just not world domination. That’s a reach in my view.
Torrents of Money
March 12, 2009
Check out the meager revenues from some of the dead tree crowds’ online services. What about Twitter revenue? Not much there. Now click here to read the Ars Technica story “Torrent Search Engine Mininova Earning €1 Million a Year.” You may be able to locate a link to Mininova with a Google search. I am not comfortable putting a link to the site on the addled goose’s blog. What is evident that users of torrent sites will pay money to locate data indexed by a torrents’ system. No big surprise. For me, the most interesting comment in the article was:
Even a casual glance at the site will confirm that a huge percentage of the .torrent files it hosts (Mininova, like The Pirate Bay, does not host actual content on its own servers) infringe copyright, but Mininova isn’t quite The Pirate Bay. While the Bay used to delight in posting—and then ridiculing—takedown requests from copyright owners, Mininova claims to comply with all such requests and has a prominent page on its Web site providing information on the takedown process.
I liked the Ars Technica write up. My hunch is that as legal eagles get more knowledge about torrents, the number of legal challenges will increase. Mininova may have the dough to fight today’s battles, but repeated, contentious, and prolonged legal battles will kill the company. Interesting challenges for the parties to the matter. Older folks have difficulty explaining why torrents may be problematic. The children of these individuals have zero problem understanding the benefits of a torrent site, finding them, and using them. Not much chance of a quick change in this pattern in my opinion. Search is a gateway to information. A link delivers the information object. The children of legal eagles may ask their parents, “What’s the big deal?” No quick or easy answer yet.
Stephen Arnold, March 12, 2009
Google Software: A Glimpse at the Future of Google Applications
March 11, 2009
In my analyses of Google Patent documents, I documented the number of inventions that have applicability to online advertising. This makes sense. If your $20 billion in annual revenue depended on online advertisers bidding to get in front of potential customers, you would invest in ad R&D as well.
Most of the 40 percent of Google’s inventions have an ad hook. But some of the wizardry operates beneath a digital kimono. Few outside of the GOOG itself get to see the hidden charms that Google’s billions have purchased.
You can glimpse some of the technology by exploring what Google calls its “Agency Toolkit”. You can locate the page here, but I am not sure if you have to be an authorized Google-holic to access the tools. My own goslings wrought the necessary magic for this addled goose. Your goslings may vary in capabilities, of course.
Here’s what Google said about its Agency Toolkit:
We know how busy you are planning, creating and measuring success for your clients. That’s why we’ve created this site: your one-stop shop for Google tools to make your job a little easier. Build effective advertising programs, optimize your performance, and uncover market insights using the resources outlined here. And each of these free tools is easy to use, helping you to efficiently support your clients.
What’s on offer? Quite a few interesting services and functions. I don’t want to spoil your fun when you work through the 18 tools and links for training on the Web page. Let me highlight two:
- A placement tool. Google described it this way: “Find and choose websites, RSS feeds and other placements in the Google content network where you want your clients’ ads to run. Identify placements by URLs, topics, or demographics.”
- An SEO troubleshooter. The Google wordsmiths wrote: “Find and choose websites, RSS feeds and other placements in the Google content network where you want your clients’ ads to run. Identify placements by URLs, topics, or demographics.”
The toolkit is important for three reasons:
First, it is making powerful functions available to non programmers found in advertising agencies. In my opinion, this approach to what once were script based tasks makes Google a potential disruptive force for information contractors
Second, the metaphor “tools” implies that the ad exec or you if you are your own ad agency you can pick and choose the right tool for the task at hand. Unlike the notion of tools used by Microsoft or Oracle, Google wants its tools to be used by “regular” people, not techies who have passed tests to prove they are worthy of the secrets that unlike the usefulness of software.
Third, the tools themselves are pure Google. That is clean with just enough eye candy available for those client presentations. Don’t believe me. Refresh your memory with http://trends.google.com, which is one of the tools in the kit.
Google is one of the leaders in making arcane and technically complex operations easy and, for some, interactive. Whether to tools provide the amount of control a user assumes he or she gets, the perception of control is what is important. Think of tools as an never ending supply of ice cream and snacks for the Mad Ave type Google customer. The process is so much fun, in my opinion, that is is easy to forget that those are real deflated dollars one is spending. Not even a newspaper’s haggard, desperate ad rep can match the Google Ad Toolkit for fun and results.
Stephen Arnold, March 11.009
YAGG: Gmail Down
March 11, 2009
If you are a Gmail user, you don’t need the Beyond Search Web log to point out another Google glitch, what I call a YAGG (yet another Google glitch). You can read the story here. If accurate, the ComputerWorld headline tells the tale: “Gmail Down; Outage Could Last 36 Hours for Some.” If that link is dead by the time you read the addled goose’s write up, you can find tons of fun at this link to Google News‘s own coverage. So what? Not much to add to my earlier comments. The vaunted technical prowess of the Googlers is not that vaunted. Organizations trying to call Google to license its enterprise solutions may well find that Google will put in place humans who will promptly and eagerly field calls and explain why an potential customer should put its information on Google’s cloud systems.
Stephen Arnold, March 11, 2009
Amazon Out Googles Google… Again
March 10, 2009
This is like watching reruns of Batman. Every week (well, maybe not that often), Amazon announces another cloud service or technology breakthrough. On a shoestring, compared to Google’s and Microsoft’s R&D and infrastructure budget, Amazon continues to out maneuver these arch rivals.
The most recent example I saw was this story “How Amazon Builds the World’s Most Scalable Storage” by Robin Harris. The wonderful thing about this type of publicity is that only readers privy to the story secrets of Google, Microsoft, and others know whether the assertion is accurate or a bit of flexible reality. Please, read the story here and make up your own mind.
I am less interested in the technology Amazon used to get an indulgence from the sins of its storage past and more interested in the way in which Google looks a bit slow. Don’t get me wrong. My research suggests that Google has a more sophisticated data storage and data management system than Amazon. I have read enough Google open source technical papers to know that Google has some next generation storage and dataspace technology moving from the lab to user. Technology is not the issue. Public relations and marketing are.
For me the most interesting comment in Mr. Harris’ article was: “Amazon Web Services will dwarf their products business within a decade.” Wow. This means that Amazon’s present revenue and its growth projections will be a small part of a far larger revenue stream. I can relax my mental turnbuckles and read into this bold assertion that Amazon will be the big cumulus in the cloud computing sky.
Say this type of big idea enough times and it is possible a self fulfilling prophecy could take place. Will Google respond? Will Microsoft? I don’t think either company will do much, which concedes the assertion to Amazon. That’s how one might create an impression of technical superiority without providing fungible evidence.
Stephen Arnold, March 10, 2009
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