October 27th, 2009

Stunningly poor quality predictions about the future Internet from Google's CEO

Posted by Tom Foremski @ 5:55 pm

Categories: Google

Tags: Google Inc., Web, Eric Schmidt, Distribution Distinction, Time Information, Internet, Channel Management, Social Networking, TVs, Tv & Home Theater

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb writes about Eric Schmidt’s predictions about the future of the Internet, delivered at a Gartner conference.

I’m rarely impressed by Mr Schmidt’s predictions or analysis of Internet trends. Even though he is CEO of Google, his position seems to fail to provide him with anything insightful to say about the future Internet.

Take a look: Google’s Eric Schmidt on What the Web Will Look Like in 5 Years

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May 12th, 2009

How will Google monetize the "meaning" of a search?

Posted by Tom Foremski @ 5:15 pm

Categories: Disruptive, Google, Search

Tags: Google Inc., Keyword, Search, Tom Foremski

I went to Google’s Searchology event Tuesday morning, which is where it unveils it’s latest search technologies.
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May 7th, 2009

Google is really bad at monetizing content: $302m in 2008

Posted by Tom Foremski @ 11:55 pm

Categories: Google

Tags: Revenue, Google Inc., Internet Search Advertising, Advertisement, Tom Foremski

Google is about as bad at making money from content as the newspaper companies its CEO Eric Schmidt loves to lecture.

The numbers are hiding in plain view, and its astounding that no one has picked this up.
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May 5th, 2009

GOOG's dirty little secret . . .

Posted by Tom Foremski @ 4:50 pm

Categories: Business strategy, Google

Tags: Google Inc., Data Centers, Search, Strategy, Storage, Hardware, Data Management, Management, Tom Foremski

Google is great at developing the technology to power Internet search, in terms of its algorithms, the design of its data centers, and the hiring of the world’s top engineers.
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September 11th, 2008

It's time GOOG dropped the beta on GMail . . . seriously

Posted by Tom Foremski @ 6:47 pm

Categories: Google

Tags: Google Gmail, Beta, E-mail Providers, Internet, Tom Foremski

My GMail has been acting up all day today, which is a pain. But, I guess I shouldn’t complain because it is still in “beta.”

I came across this article dated April 1, 2004 on ZDNet.co.uk:

The company has launched a test with about 1,000 invited guests to try out a new email service called “Gmail”.

The company is wary of announcing a launch date for the service until beta testing is complete, but according to Kate Burns, managing director of the Google UK’s Ad Sales business, it will be widely available to consumers in a matter of weeks rather than months.

“My feeling is that we have already done an awful lot of testing, so it will be a limited test period — a matter of weeks,’ said Burns.

How come it is still in “beta” more than four years after launch?

Beta has come to mean: “don’t blame us if the service is crappy because it is in beta.” This is taking things a bit too far, imho. Drop the beta and take full responsibility Google. That is if you want people to take you seriously, and if you seriously want to be more than just “a search company.”

September 2nd, 2008

GOOG's Chrome is all about Wall Street . . .

Posted by Tom Foremski @ 6:17 pm

Categories: Business strategy, Google

Tags: Google Inc., Payment, Apple Inc., Web Browser, Mozilla Corp., Operational Accounting, Finance, Tom Foremski

Google’s launch of its browser Chrome seems to be less to do with running web applications quickly, than it is about its rapidly growing traffic acquisition costs.

Google pays a lot of money to third parties for traffic directed to its search sites. Mozilla is the largest beneficairy, it receives a payment for every Google search made by a Firefox user. Mozilla received revenues of $66.8m in 2006 and $52.9m in 2005, about 85 percent came from Google. Apple also receives payment for traffic directed to Google from Safari users.

Those traffic acquisition costs were about $87m a year ago. In its most recent quarter they had soared more than 77 percent to $154m.

With its own browser, Google can capture more traffic and reduce its payments to third parties such as Mozilla, and Apple, by tens of millions of dollars. This can have a dramatic effect on boosting its profitability and its share price.

Mozilla has repeatedly said that it can easily survive without Google. It will be interesting to see how this move will affect Apple. Industry insiders have told me that Google’s payments to Apple have helped fund a large chunk of Mac OS X development.

Will Apple launch its own search service? I think it might.

Please see: If Black is the new search why not branded search?

August 12th, 2008

Is Google a media company?

Posted by Tom Foremski @ 2:42 pm

Categories: Disruptive, Google

Tags: Media Company, Google Inc., New York Times Co., GOOG, Advertising & Promotion, Marketing, Tom Foremski

The New York Times recently wrote an article headlined: “Is Google a media company?”

The article was mostly about Knol, Google’s Wikipedia-like service, but it wondered if this meant Google was a media company because it owns content sites such as Knol, Blogger, and Youtube.

A Google spokesperson was quoted saying: “We are not interested in owning or creating content.” That statement is not true and it seemed to be designed to say that Google is not a media company.

But whether Google owns content or scrapes its content off of the Internet, is a red herring, imho. The facts are that Google publishes pages of content with advertising around it. That’s what a media company would do. How is Google not a media company?

GOOG thinks of itself as a technology company and not a media company, and that is how it wants to appear to the world. But what technology can you buy from Google?

I can buy microprocessors from Intel–that’s a technology company. I can buy operating systems from Microsoft–that’s a technology company. What technology can I buy from Google?

It is vital to Google that is not be viewed as a media company because it could jeopardize billions of dollars in revenues. Large media companies such as the New York Times outsource their online advertising to Google. Would the New York Times outsource its advertising to a media giant such as Tribune or Gannet? No, it wouldn’t. But Google is a technology company therefore it’s OK to do that.

But Google is a media company and in many ways, a competitor to the New York Times and many other large media companies.

Why are large media companies partnering with a competitor, and a competitor that has a far more efficient business model–it gets its content virtually for free. The New York Times and other content producers can’t compete against that business model.

That’s why online advertising is so cheap–it’s value is largely set by the business model of Google and other companies with similar business models–publishing pages of nearly-free content with advertising around it.

The New York Times and other traditional media companies create content using legions of people. Google plugs in another bank of servers, and scrapes the content off of the Internet or harvests it from users of Youtube, Blogger, etc. That’s a much more efficient media business model.

That’s why Silicon Valley’s media industry is thriving and New York’s is in the dumpster.

Is Google deliberately mischaracterizing itself as a technology company? It seems that way.

June 14th, 2008

Build a better search engine then what?

Posted by Tom Foremski @ 5:36 pm

Categories: Google

Tags: Monetization, Google Inc., Search Engine, Search, Tom Foremski

If you could build a better search engine than Google what would happen to Google?

Nothing.

GOOG can monetize search better than anybody else. That’s what the recent YHOO/GOOG deal is about.

Google has the best monetization platform for search not because it has the technology, it’s because it has the infrastructure: people and offices. It’s about sales and relationships not about ad servers. That’s what MSFT needs to realize.

And that’s what makes Google tremendously difficult to challenge.

June 11th, 2008

GOOG CEO says "Don't Be evil" is misunderstood

Posted by Tom Foremski @ 11:30 pm

Categories: Google

Tags: Eric Schmidt, CEO, Tom Foremski

This is interesting. Take a look at this story in which Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, says the company’s mantra of “Don’t be evil” is often misunderstood.

Reuters’ Eric Auchard: Google CEO talks of good, evil and monopoly fears

In an on-stage interview with writer Ken Auletta of the New Yorker magazine, Schmidt said “Don’t be evil” is meant to provoke internal debate over what constitutes ethical corporate behavior, rather than representing an absolute moral position.

“We don’t have an ‘Evilmeter’ we can sort of apply — you know — what is good and what is evil,” Schmidt said. . .

What is there to misunderstand? I would have thought determining what is good and what is evil is quite clear.

Mr Schmidt seems to be saying that being “evil” is open to debate.

Maybe GOOG will adopt the following changes:

- Don’t be quite so evil

- Don’t be really really evil

- Don’t be evil-ish

Anyone have any other suggestions? (Or moral pointers?)

May 19th, 2008

Google Health most significant GOOG business launch since AdWords

Posted by Tom Foremski @ 8:05 pm

Categories: Google, Search

Tags: Google Inc., Google AdWords, Health Care, GOOG, Vertical Industries, Benefits, Healthcare, Enterprise Software, Software, Human Resources

I was at the Googleplex Monday morning for a briefing on GOOG’s improvements in search, and more importantly, the official roll out of Google Health.

Google had invited representatives some of the largest medical establishments and medical service providers to talk about the service.

The approach is very interesting and it solves several key problems in being able to integrate health data from multiple sources. The solution: have the individual do it.

The current regulations are designed to protect people’s privacy so sharing medical data is very difficult. But if the individual does it and then allows others access to it, much of this problem is solved. Plus Google Health users can share and send their data abroad. Anyone for MyIndianMD.com?

Some of the MDs at the event said Google Health could reduce health care costs because tests won’t have to be repeated. And individuals could choose not to have expensive and ineffectual procedures just because their doctors are trying to cover their legal asses liabilities.

One problem with this approach however, is that the individual is being asked to make choices which their doctors would be best at making but because of legal and other issues, they cannot. Similarly, Google has to be careful not be providing medical advice. GOOG says it provides users with “choices and options.”

I spoke with Martin Harris, M.D and Chief Information Officer at Cleveland Clinic, one of the beta test partners for Google Health. He said that one problem was that computer literate users would be the first to benefit. “It’s part of what I call the Internet divide,” he said. “Ideally we should be able to let people access their Google Health accounts through their TV set top box or through the phone. That will come soon.”

I spoke with a couple of people on the Google Health team and they said users would in the future be able to designate “delegates” to administer their Google Health records on their behalf so that the elderly could have their families help them.

The potential business opportunites for Google are enormous.

Pharma is already pumping billions into marketing drugs on TV and radio and magazines. On Google Health it can target those ads like never before. Will pharma pass on its savings in marketing to customers? Probably some savings would be passed on but it could get away with keeping most of the rest especially since the companies have limited monopolies on key drugs.

Then there are the billions of dollars spent on a variety of medical services, which Google can help target to those people that need those services. Pharma and the rest of the healthcare business is a massive business opportunity for Google.

And there will be probably be some good opportunities for a range of third party business services to be built on top of Google Health because of it’s open API. Google for example, is offering an application that allows people to monitor how much they walk and it will give $100k to charity as an incentive.

I can think of linking gym machines to my Google Health record, what I ate that day, even what I ate at a restaurant automatically uploaded with calories and vitamin info. How much I slept, etc. This could become many people’s home page.

I can think of social problems too if insurance companies or employers seek permission to view health records and discriminate against those that don’t provide access. What about potential spouses opening their hearts . . . and their Google medical records to each other?

All in all, Google Health is GOOG’s most significant business launch since AdWords/AdSense text ad links, imho.

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Please see: Google Health launches; Read the terms of service