June 5th, 2007

Salesforce for Google AdWords: Promoting human welfare?

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 6:10 am

Categories: Culture, Google

Tags: Salesforce.com Inc., Google Inc., Google AdWords, Donna Bogatin

What is philanthropy?

Goodwill to fellowmen; active effort to promote human welfare (Merriam-Webster).

In Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft last week, I dissect how Google.org, the “philanthropic arm of Google,” does not present as really being about do-good philanthropy at all.

Google does not accept funding requests, Google.org underscores. Why a “Google Grants” program then?

To “donate” AdWords, often in repsonse to a court order to do so.

Google, in conjunction with Salesforce.com, is now touting its “free online advertising” for “selected nonprofits” in the PR pitch for its new, very much for profit, AdWords distribution deal with Salesforce:

Another common thread that brought salesforce.com and Google together in their global alliance is their commitment to corporate philanthropy. In July of 2000, salesforce.com launched the Salesforce.com Foundation, which operates under the company’s innovative 1/1/1 Model — a commitment to deliver 1% Time, 1% Equity and 1% Product to nonprofit organizations and, most recently, to be “one” with the earth.

Since its launch, the Salesforce.com Foundation has donated their product to more than 2,000 nonprofits. Similarly, Google has also given free online advertising to selected nonprofits through its Google Grants program, supporting more than 2,500 nonprofit organizations in 16 countries to date. The Salesforce.com Foundation and Google are now teaming up to donate the new Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords to each other’s nonprofit grantees. These selected nonprofits will be able to gain access to the same integrated sales and marketing success (online software?) that is available to the private sector at no cost. Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords will also be made available to additional nonprofits within the next quarter.

Google defends the philanthtropic “ROI” of its no cost to Google “donation” of AdWords campaigns:

Room to Read, which educates children in Vietnam, Nepal, India and Cambodia, attracted a sponsor who clicked on its AdWords ad. He has donated funds to support the education of 25 girls for the next 10 years.

Salesforce has a philanthropic effort in place that combines the personal efforts of its employees with the Salesforce in-kind “donations” of its Web-based CRM service. Salesforce finds “meaningful activities for salesforce.com employees to use their six paid days off a year devoted to volunteerism, and promoting a culture of caring.”

Google’s $158 billion market cap is almost 30 times that of Salesforce. What’s more, Google’s supposedly do-good “mission” to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” is driven by ”rocket scientists.”

Should Google not change its corporate culture tune from one of free lunches at the Googleplex and personal birthday masages for Googlers to a real corporate do-good philosophy?

Perhaps following in the Salesforce mold of supporting employees to really do something meaningful, for others, would be a good start.

SEE: Salesforce.com plays Google ad sales game: Big tease? Big letdown!

June 5th, 2007

Ask.com wages Google search war, NOT AdWords battle

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 1:39 am

Categories: AdWords, Google, Search, Search Advertising

Tags: Google Inc., Advertisement, Ask.com, Google AdWords, Google Search, Salary, Donna Bogatin

Ask.com goes 3D in a big effort to one-up Google’s recently debuted Universal Search.

Why then, does it not solely go the Ask.com ad sales route as well, instead of continuing to rely on arch rival Google for its revenues?

Just weeks ago, in Ask vs. Google: Can $100 million buy IAC search happiness?, I reiterated: I have been asking if Ask will finally bite the who needs Google bullet and NOT renew the Google sponsored advertising links deal this year?

IAC Ask.com corporate parent CEO Barry Diller has promised to act within the coming months. Will he do the right IAC thing?

Jim Lanzone, Ask.com CEO says it is time to move beyond (Google’s) “ten blue links.” Isn’t it time as well then to move beyond Google’s “Sponsored Links”?

SEE Google showdown: Can Barry Diller win IAC search advertising war?

Ask.com now on its touted “truly new way to search”:

Today, our search experience is taking a consequential leap forward in making all that information accessible in a coherent way, with the launch of Ask3D, a completely re-engineered version of Ask.com. No, you don’t need red and blue glasses to see it. 3D stands for the three dimensions of searching - query expression, investigating results, and digging deeply into content. You used to have to visit three different pages or websites to see and search through each dimension. With Ask3D, you can now get everything you need on one page…in many cases above the fold.

This isn’t just about getting more information; it’s also about getting the right information. Accordingly, Ask3D literally morphs with each query you enter. No two searches are the same, so why should all search pages have the same stuff in the same order? We customize each page for each different query, based on relevance, but also based on what previous searchers on Ask found valuable for that query (or one like it).

Some people who see Ask3D may initially be taken aback. It looks different than other search engines (which look curiously like they did a decade ago). Some might say there’s too much going on. We feared the same thing. That’s why we tested Ask3D for nearly 6 months with 5% of our 25-30 million monthly users. Simply put, these people came away happier with their experience than “regular” Ask.com users - they had lower abandonment rates, higher pick rates, and higher frequency of use.

There are also fewer ads on Ask.com than any other major search engine.

Fewer ads perhaps, but STILL Google derived ads!

Ask.com will NEVER beat Google at the search game, unless it has the guts to wage war against Google on the entire search front, the (winning?) search and search advertising battlefield.

SEE: Google bets billions to lock-in search dominance
Why Google Search will NOT rule the Universe! 

June 5th, 2007

Salesforce.com plays Google ad sales game: Big tease? Big letdown!

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 12:05 am

Categories: AdWords, Google

Tags: Game, Salesforce.com Inc., Google Inc., Intuit Inc., Advertisement, Google AdWords, Donna Bogatin

What does Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff have in Google store, after all?

Google piggybacks on Intel: What about Intuit? I underscored when Intel announced a not so “groundbreaking” collaboration with Google last month; I compared the Google Intel AdWords resale deal with the not so fruitful Google Intuit AdWords resale deal. 

Upon the Wall Street Journals’ tease a few weeks ago of a “major” Google Salesforce.com alliance, I predicted Google partners up? Salesforce.com deal NO Microsoft killer. I speculated a possible Google-Salesforce.com deal would also be inspired by the Google Intuit deal.

Moreover, contrary to the grandiose visions projected by WSJ, ““Google, Salesforce.com weigh alliance to battle Microsoft,” I also underscored, just three days ago in Salesforce.com CEO: Google is good, very good, the existing Salesforce.com-Google AdWords connection, which has been in force for quite a while.

This past Friday, I wrote about the ongoing Salesforce.com Keiden AdWords collaboration: Salesforce for Google AdWords debuted last year, designed as a for fee program, based notably on technology obtained with the Salesforce acquisition of Kieden Corporation, a third party search marketing company.

I aslo warned, however, that the Google-Intuit Web-based “alliance” announced many moons ago with much fare should NOT serve as a best practices for Salesforce.com emulation.

Apparently though, even the CEO Marc Benioff best of them finds it difficult to not be swayed by Googley charm.

Following perhaps one of its biggest recent teases, Salesforce.com now offers a big letdown: Salesforce.com and Google “are expected” to launch a “combined Web site” today that is designed to allow the online customer relationship management software maker to act as a reseller for Google’s AdWords.

Google, Salesforce.com YAHOO? NO! (Not so) BIG DEAL!

While the “deal” may be hailed as representing  a “market opportunity” of 900,000 Google AdWords customers and a pool of 20 million small businesses, neither Google or Salesforce.com shareholders ought to be uncorking any big future revenues champagne.

It seems that Benioff did not reach out to CEO peer Steve Bennett, regarding the non-event that Intuit’s AdWords resale deal with Google CEO Eric Schmidt resulted in.

I projected a big Googley letdown for Intuit, from the get go, upon the Google Intuit announcement last August.

“We haven’t seen a huge lift” is how Bennett has subsequently evaluated the supposed QuickBooks-AdWords mutual booster.

I aptly predicted last August: Google QuickBooks 2007: Death of Yellow Pages, local newspapers? NO 

I said of the Intuit-Google AdWords resale deal upon its announcement in 2006:

Google has been unsuccessful to date in capturing the small business advertising market on its own and in collaboration with a direct sales partner; Its alliance with Intuit does not present itself as a sure fire way to improve its track record.

Contrary to Schmidt’s beliefs, savvy small businesses are not waiting impatiently for Google to give them a turnkey desktop icon enabling Google to fetch all of their company financial information to do what it likes with.

Contrary to Schmidt’s beliefs, savvy small businesses are not waiting impatiently for Google to give them a turnkey icon on their desktop so they can get sucked into the Google-centric AdWords raise your bid continuously auction scheme.

NEVERTHELESS, big-time CEOs, of big-time companies, continue to set themselves up for big Googley letdowns.

The latest, Benioff of Salesforce.com, via his “new” Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords. Not quite spanking new, the Group Edition replaces Salesforce.com’s entry level “Team Edition.”

The big innovations?: 1) Link to Google.com for buying Google AdWords and 2) Salesforce.com analytics enabled Google AdWords client landing pages.

As I oft say, Google love does not conquer all; Neither does the Google “brand.”

WHO WILL BE THE NEXT CEO TO “FALL” FOR GOOGLE ADWORDS SALES?

ALSO: Google OS? Why Microsoft STILL rules

June 4th, 2007

Google OS? Why Microsoft STILL rules

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 2:29 pm

Categories: Google, Microsoft

Tags: Google Inc., Operating System, Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Upon the announcement of Google Gears, I underscored: Google: Tough love for Microsoft.

Why? Google “owns” the Web experience, but to “improve” it, Google must go through the Microsoft-owned desktop, as I analyzed in Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop.

Does it gall CEO Schmidt to have to “Microsoft-enable” Google products? OR, does he get personal satisfaction in “using” Microsoft to achieve his Microsoft domination end-game.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, even if Google Gears is eventually fully realized, Google will not by default own anything particular, at the particular expense of Microsoft.

Google Gears is not ready for prime time and there is no way to know when, or if, it ever will be, especially in terms of consumer use. In the meantime, no company in the game will be standing still, Microsoft or any other player. No one can predict what the landscape will look like one year from now.

In any event, the Google Gears kills Microsoft stance is fundamentally flawed.

Michael Arrington trots out such a Microsoft is doomed thanks to Google argument, in defense of a Google buys Salesforce.com scenario.

Until last week it wasn’t clear exactly how Google would be competing with Microsoft’s dominance in the operating system and office space. But then Google introduced Google Gears…They’re bypassing the operating system (the browser is the new operating system) and their apps will now offer a real alternative to Outlook and Office. Small and medium sized businesses will no longer have just one real choice when loading (and paying for) software on their PCs. And when you combine all that stuff with Salesforce’s CRM apps and developer platform, Microsoft has a real problem. The future of software delivery is the browser.

Of course in the Google Cloud future vs. the Microsoft Desktop legacy battle, Google has a vested interest in pushing for the “future of software delivery is the browser.“ BUT, the browser is still accessed via the desktop, the laptop…which are run by operating systems. Usually, those operating systems are supplied by Microsoft.

Small and medium businesses today, and for the foreseeable future, will have the same (lack of) choice “when loading (and paying for) software on their PCs.” The operating system is often pre-loaded and it is typically a Microsoft OS.

Google will have an even harder time ruling the enterprise.

I spent this morning at the NYC Googleplex listening to the Google Apps Premiere pitch and heard the Google Enterprise pitch at the Enterprise Search conference last month.

Consumer-driven Google does not get the enterprise and it is unlikely that it will get meaningful enterprise customer business.

As I wrote Friday:

Microsoft dazed, confused and gasping for air? Google wishes. What big bad Google innovation is there that has escaped Microsoft?

Google is the undisputed leader in search and search advertising, for now. BUT the search game is the only one Google is winning, despite its endless efforts to diversify.

SEE: Google Office wins? Declares enterprise hierarchies ‘dead’
Do Google Apps really trump Nintendo Wii and Apple TV?
Is Google Enterprise Search a joke? 
Google to big business: Google love belongs in the Enterprise!

June 4th, 2007

Google Office wins? Declares enterprise hierarchies 'dead'

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 12:32 pm

Categories: Enterprise, Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications

Tags: Google Inc., Information Technology, E-mail, Donna Bogatin

What a difference six months makes? Apparently in the Google Enterprise (sales) world!

In Google Enterprise strategy: ‘Death to the hierarchy’” last November, I reported Michael Lock, Director of North American Sales for Google Enterprise, exhortation at the NYC Googleplex,

“Death to the (Microsoft) hierarchy”:

Given the “explosion” of unstructured data in the enterprise, “old methods of information management don’t work,” Lock asserted. He also offered a remedy: “Death to the hierarchy!”

Lock put forth personal anecdotes to proclaim “you don’t put email in folders” and declared GMail the victor over Outlook.

Lock spoke of the old (pre-GMail) Outlook days when he would “look forward” to his transcontinental commutes for six hours of time to “categorize email.”

Lock entertainingly, but pointedly, emphasized that Google solutions do not demand what he portrayed as labor intensive and inadequate user categorization via hierarchical folder structures. Lock then used his own GMail account to illustrate what he believes is the superiority of implicit organization via a single, intuitive search box, a Googley one. Lock proudly concluded that he has left behind hundreds of Outlook folders.

At the time, I asked Lock for a projection of when Google will succeed in bringing “Death to the hierarchy.” Lock offered that forward thinking enterprises are moving away from hierarchical data organization, but no specific date for an absolute demise of the “hierarchy” was provided.

Nonetheless in his return visit to the NYC Googleplex this morning, Lock said in the affirmative: “Hierarchies are dead.”

“Data has changed and it doesn’t come in columns and rows,” Lock underscored.

Lock provided the diverse audience of NYC professionals at the “Google @ Work” enterprise sales pitch with three key takeaways, “lessons that enterprise IT can learn from Google:

1) Fast is better than slow,
2) Simple is better than complex,
3) Assume chaos and deal with it.

Lock asserted the now familiar Google Enterprise rallying cry: Enterprise IT is in a sad state of affairs, but consumer friendly Google is to the enterprise rescue.

Lock on the antiquated enterprise way of doing IT business:

Define all requirements,
Buy vs. build,
Issue RFP,
Select vendor,
Do bakeoff,
Define implementation plan,
Customize application,
Build end-user training plan,
Deploy application.

The world has sped up, but how IT deploys has not, Lock deplored.

Why so enterprise conservative? Lock suggested. After all, Google is not so worried about getting things just right. Lock: “We put the product on the Internet before it is ready.” Why? “Fail quickly and learn from it,” Lock proclaimed.

Current delivery models have “insane” complexity, Lock warned. Take email, as a case study in bad enterprise business. Lock lampooned what current enterprise email operations entail:

Operating system,
Email servers,
security servers,
Backup storage servers,
Spam filer,
Content repositories,
Tape back-up,
Mobile delivery server,
Database to support content repositories.

The Lock ace in the hole: “Then there is that ‘Patch Tuesday‘ by some big vendor.”

What is the enterprise solution? It couldn’t be more simple, five letters is all it takes; GMail.

Lock nevertheless acknowledged there is still some enterprise reticence against “letting my email on someone else’s servers.”

How silly, though, Lock indicated. After all, he said, you are not afraid to put money in a bank are you?

To make his point Googley clear Lock showed a picture of a mattress, and then one of an ATM.

ALSO: Do Google Apps really trump Nintendo Wii and Apple TV?
Is Google Enterprise Search a joke? 
Google to big business: Google love belongs in the Enterprise!

June 4th, 2007

Do Google Apps really trump Nintendo Wii and Apple TV?

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 4:07 am

Categories: Google, Google Apps

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Apple Inc., TV, Apple TV, Nintendo Wii, Donna Bogatin

Google baked itself a luscious cake Friday to give itself a rich pat on the back, and is showing off its self-indulgence to the world.

Why is Google so proud of itself? In sugar-laden frosting, Google announces Google Apps is #1!

Google even flaunts that Apps is a “winner” over Nintendo Wii, Apple TV, and the Slingbox Pro, and has the proof, so Google believes.

Kevin Gough, Apps point man, at the public Google Enterprise blog on why Google wants to: “Have our cake…and eat it to”:

On Friday at our company-wide TGIF, we celebrated PC World naming Google Apps Premier Edition #1 on their list of The 100 Best Products of 2007. Google Apps beat out the Nintendo Wii, Apple TV, and the Slingbox Pro, further reinforcing the convergence between business and consumer technology. Internally, Google Apps is a collaboration between Google enterprise and consumer teams. It’s great to see that it’s paying off.

The Google chef apparently got his or her recipes mixed up. The PC World “honor,” is not one with much “meat” to it, as I analyzed when it was announced last month.

SEE Google declares Google Office victory.

Just as Google does not seem to be paying much attention to what Google Apps users are really saying about Google Apps, Google does not seem to have paid attention to what PC World actually said about Google Apps!

How does PC World back-up its Google Apps is Number One claim? By pointing to a February review by Harry McCracken which itemizes all the reasons organizations ”aren’t going to switch to Google Apps”!Who needs Google Apps reasons cited by PC World include: NOT for power users, NOT for companies proprietary about their data… Even Google’s own rationale for Google Apps presents as a double edged Apps sword, touting its desire for a Googley consumerization of the enterprise.

June 3rd, 2007

Google bets billions to lock-in search dominance

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 10:47 am

Categories: AdWords, Content, Copyright, Google, Microsoft, Search, Search Advertising, Wall Street, Yahoo

Tags: Google Inc., Google Search, Donna Bogatin

If Google is to continue to be not only the darling of the search world, but the toast of Wall Street as well, it must withstand not only Yahoo and Microsoft head-on competitive search and search advertising initiatives, but up-start Google wannabes, to boot, claiming they are the next big thing in search.

Google, of course, is on the case, big time.

The Googleplex is spending billions not only investing in engineering R & D to “optimize” its SERP ranking algorithims, but, perhaps more importantly, to build-out its “massively scalable infrastructure” around the search world.

In the first quarter of 2007 alone, Google spent $597 million in Capital Expenditures, the majority related to IT infrastructure invesments, including data centers, servers and networking equipment. In 2006, Google invested $1.9 billion in CapEx.

Saul Hansell, the New York Times today touts he was “allowed” inside access to the Google search engineering team who “explained more than they ever have before in the news media about how their search system works.”

Perhaps the Hansell assertion is correct that Google never before “explained” to the “news media” about how Google search “works,” but that does not mean that the Google “secret” search sauce, as presented by Hansell, has not already been understood, presented and analyzed by some in the media, without need of “special” access to a sanitized Googleplex meet and greet. 

While interesting, Hansell’s article serves to confirm Google search operations modus operandi, rather than uncover any spanking new Google search ground.

SEM Beware: Google deals blow to search engine marketing I underscored upon the announcement of Google’s much ballyhooed Universal Search last month. I wrote:

In one fell Universal Search swoop, Google has wreaked havoc not only on searchers and Websites, but on the entire multi billion dollar search marketing industry.

Think the almighty Google PageRank was an impossible organic nut to crack? Even fearsome Matt Cutts won’t be able to finessse his way through the Sisyphean search engine marketing challenge that will be the “new and improved” Google.com.

The Hansell “conversation” with top Google engineer Amit Singhal, at “the top of a bright chartreuse stair case in Building 43″ of the Googleplex, supports my contention.

Google, and Hansell, seek to present an image of Google perpetually “tweaking” its “ranking algorithm” to optimize in a “frantic quest for perfect links”:

The search quality team makes about a half-dozen major and minor changes a week to the vast nest of mathematical formulas that power the search engine.

Not only does Google continuously change the manner in which it determines SERP ranking, Google may weigh “more than 200 types of information” in determining Google search rankings.

I characterize such an ever moving Google search organic ranking target as Sisyphean, Hansell dubs the Google organic search maze a “magical, mathematical brew.”

Undoubtedly NOT so magical, though, for those SEMs seeking to know what is actually brewing at the Googleplex, in in order to optimize client Web properties for ranking within the golden top SERP threesome.

After all, as Hansell dutifully spins, “what Google does is akin to ‘rocket science.’” How can a mere search marketer compete wth a Googley rocket scientist!

Search markters will not be the only ones frustrated by Google’s big Universal Search changes, though. In making Google SERP results even less of a known quantity, Google runs a big risk of alienating its core search audience.

In Why Google Search will NOT rule the Universe! I make a case for why Google’s new Universal Search SERPs will meet the fate of the now infamous Coca-Cola threatening New Coke fiasco.

Just as Coca-Cola used millions of dollars worth of market research to justify turning its back on the 100 year old strong secret Coca Cola formula for success and ended up back peddling and drowning in New Coke tears, the new Google.com will regret it ever fiddled with the successful, but unadorned and unimaginative, Google.com.

Hansell also makes a big search deal out of 1) Google’s copying and caching of “the entire Internet”  in its “huge, customized data centers” and 2) The Google search results “freshness quandry.”

Neither Google issue is a new one.

I have written extensively about Google’s server farm build out, SEE: Google plots server farm land grab in Europe.

Google Web page caching? It has been subject to “fair-use” lawsuits. SEE: Will Google pay for content?

Google SERP (un)timeliness? Upon Universal Search, I wrote: Google Search: Big, bad multi-billion dollar sandbox on just that notion, and how it serves Google AdWords purposes quite well:

If Google was indeed a public service, its sandbox could theoretically be disallowed due to age discrimination!

I have oft underscored that Google’s exclusionary “sandbox” results in automatic “banning” of perhaps the most relevant Web pages for a given search query, based simply on Googler-derived arbitrary notions of “aging.”

Will Google really change its aging tune, though? As it stands now, the Google sandbox assures all the more need for a new Website to buy AdWords, if it wants any Google love!

It is not news that Google SAYS it will be more open to Website “youngsters.” SEE: Google’s Matt Cutts SERP quality scoring patent? What it means.

Time will undoubtedly NOT tell, given the more Google “tweaks,” the less anyone knows what is really going on in the Google search world.

One thing will always be a given, though: Can’t “get in” Google? No problem. Google AdWords will be happy to take your Website, if you bid high enough, that is. 

ALSO: Google Universal Search $25,000 query in Jeopardy
Google gets defensive, all over the world
Google defends $165 million ‘few strings attached’ tax breaks

June 3rd, 2007

EMI Music spins Google YouTube song and dance

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 5:56 am

Categories: Copyright, Google, Music, Video, YouTube

Tags: Google Inc., EMI Group Plc., YouTube Inc., Music, Donna Bogatin

Just as Internet Kings Chad Hurley and Eric Schmidt were on stage last week at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital conference spinning YouTube is (still) working on video copyright protection tools, so no need for multibillion dollar (Viacom) infringement claims, Hurley was also unleashing a we’re copyright owners friends combo pitch in conjunction with YouTube’s latest “partner,” EMI Music.

I analyzed friday YouTube: What MySpace can teach Google about copyright asking rhetorically: Why is the top social networking play, MySpace, run by “old media” News Corp. able, and willing,  to protect the copyright of the content of others, BUT the top video sharing play, YouTube, run by GOOGLE, insists it is stuck in the copyright protection “tools” mud.

SEE: MySpace polices video copyright: Where is Google YouTube?

The Google YouTube royal management team apparently will say anything, anywhere, disingenuous or not. Not only was the Google YouTube All Things Digital spiel an inaccurate portrayal of their true copyright protection stance, the YouTube EMI joint press statement released almost simulataneously is in contradiction with the Hurley-Schmidt our copyright tools would be to Viacom’s rescue, (not so) soon.

While the YouTube EMI Music “milestone partnership” press release is a typical study in unclear, evasive Google YouTube speak, it clearly sugggests YouTube HAS copyright infringement protection tools, contrary to the Schmidt Hurley protestations at All Things Digital, and EMI Music gets them:

EMI Music will use YouTube’s industry-leading content management tools which feature a content identification and reporting system that will help EMI track and monetize its content and compensate its artists. YouTube’s content management tools also give EMI Music the ability to request the removal of EMI’s copyrighted content from YouTube.

What IS the deal then? The YouTube EMI Music deal? In typical Google style of fanfare without the substance, there does not appear to be any specific deal.

As as been the YouTube “partner” modus operandi, Googgle will call the EMI Music shots because YouTube has the fans, all of them. The bottom “milestone” partnership line simply appears to be that EMI agrees to be Google and YouTube fan friendly: EMI Music accords YouTube its copyright content and agrees not to sue Google.

What does EMI Music get in return? Nothing guaranteed:

EMI Music has agreed to work with YouTube and Google to develop business models in which the YouTube community will be able to access user generated content featuring EMI-owned and copyrighted audio and video works.

Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group, said: “Working with YouTube under this agreement meets EMI’s objectives to offer consumers the best possible entertainment experiences, to create new ways to connect our artists to fans and to enter into innovative business models that will generate revenues for our business and our creators. YouTube has quickly established itself as a stand-out fan favorite because it’s a site that taps into what people want and also consistently delivers a good experience.

And YouTube, Google, EMI Music are to live happily ever after.

What about Viacom’s copyright ownership rights? Viacom doesn’t “get it,” so it doesn’t get the “tools,” if YouTube actually even has them, or not.

READ MY EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Google at Risk: YouTube class action lawsuit changes DMCA copyright game

June 2nd, 2007

Welcome to Google: The friendly monopolist

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 4:23 pm

Categories: DoubleClick, Google, Microsoft, Privacy, Search, Search Advertising

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Google love is tough to shake. What about Google monopoly power though?

Following the Google Feedburner deal, “My soul, and ten other things that Google owns,” Adam Ostrow notes.

YES, but it isn’t Feedburner that tilted the scale. Upon the first rumors of Google-DoubleClick, I headlined “Google (to be) a Monopoly.” When the deal was officially announced, I updated my story to headline: “Google: $3.1 billion cash for Web monopoly!”

I reported the Feedburner acquisition yesterday: Google gets Feedburner and in the Web’s private business.

It actually has been a Googley given for some time that Google is determined to CONTROL (NOT ORGANIZE) ALL the world’s information, and profit from all the world’s advertising.

So what? Would sum up the world’s reaction.

I opined earlier this week (before Google Gears):  Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft, underscoring that Google has learned a thing or two from Microsoft, NOT in a good way.

I wrote:

Microsoft’s “Evil Empire” financial success was derived from cunning ecosystem manipulation and brutal industry intimidation aimed solely at creating and extending Microsoft monopoly pricing power.

What really sealed Microsoft’s monopoly fate, however, was a no holds barred, take no prisoners modus operandi. Thanks to Bill Gates’ dogged persistence and shrewd maneuvering, Microsoft achieved the industry domination he sought, no matter who or what tried to cross Microsoft en route to unrivaled economic power and world glory.

Today’s technology power house, ”Do No Evil” Google, is no different, in desire or effect. In fact, Google power is even more insidious, because Google has the “consumer” on it side.

Just one day after I pitted Google’s intentions against those of Microsoft, Google announced Google Gears: The world then immediately came tumbling down, overwhelmingly against Microsoft and near unamimously cheering for Google.

I (no surprise to readers of this Digital Markets Blog) had a different take on things.

SEE: Google Gears: NOT a Microsoft killer

What gives now, post Feedburner?

Ostrow starts out appropriately noting “are there any parts of our online lives that don’t reside somewhere within the Googleplex?” So what though, it seems from the Mashable post.

Ostrow goes on to point out a few Google services he uses, and that’s that. Ostrow provides neither Google outrage, nor Googley cheer; In fact, he doesn’t offer any conclusion or summation whatsoever.

What are we to conclude then? Google owns our souls, and that is a good thing?

Seemingly. The first commenter to the post, Kevin Keating, cheeringly affirms:

Sounds good to me! I also tell Google where I want to go on the internet, and let them remember where I’ve been so I don’t have to. And I’m more than okay will ALL of this because what’s private to me is and will always be private. And that, my friend, is the secret love I harbor for…

Oh, I totally almost gave it away.

WELCOME, MY FRIENDS, TO THE GOOGLE WORLD, WHERE THE “FRIENDLY” MONOPOLIST RULES (in a not so friendly fashion).

SEE: Google security alert: Universal Search scarier than Google Maps

June 2nd, 2007

Google security alert: Universal Search scarier than Google Maps

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 12:52 pm

Categories: DoubleClick, Google, Privacy

Tags: Google Inc., Associated Press, Google Maps, Security Alert, Donna Bogatin

If the Associated Press joins in on the Google Street View is “icky” bandwagon, does that make it true? NO.

GOOGLE SECURITY ALERT: Ongoing user tracking by Google Search is WAY SCARIER (to put it in the vernacular) than Google’s new mapping service, “Street View” which, in fact, does not represent a new product at all, it is a knock-off of “Block View” by Amazon’s A9, which did the exact same thing years ago. 

BUT, if AP headlines that Google is “icky” than it must be so? After all, AP claims it is the “backbone of the world’s information system, the largest and oldest news organization in the world.”

It is not surprising that AP would headline with the Google “ick” factor,” despite that its editorial policy is to be “the essential global news network, providing distinctive news services of the highest quality, reliability and objectivity with reports that are accurate, balanced and informed.”

Maybe, but sensational headlines sell, or in the AP case, garner attention.

But AP is simply “reporting the facts,” the company would undoubtedly retort, as the headline”quotes” a targeted interviewee, Kevin Bankston, Electronic Frontier Foundation, who apparently said ”There is a certain ‘ick’ factor here.”

By choosing to make that emotive word from a single source, an advocate for a particular position to boot, its headline, AP nonetheless goes the tabloid route, and seems to take a side, as well.

AP also writes:

Google is hoping to elicit “oohs and ahhs” with Street View, which was introduced on its maps for the San Francisco Bay area, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami earlier this week.

While the emotive “oohs and ahhs” are in quotes, AP does not reference who or what is being quoted, if anyone or anything in fact is the source of AP’s noted “oohs and ahhs.”

Why such universal media concern over Google “Street View,” but not regarding the ongoing high risks inherent with daily use of the number one search engine itself?

Because, contrary to the nitty gritty, down and dirty analysis required to flesh out the real personal security risks at Google.com, flashing pretty photos of innocent cats and employing mass-media friendly “terminology” such as “icky” is easy, and crowd pleasing.

The truth of the security matter though is that even if Google were to be “shamed” into taking down “Street View” (highly unlikely), the real Google.com security danger would persist, as I persistently report and analyze.

In Google: $3.1 billion DoubleClick date with the FTC? I cite New York Governor Elliot Spitzer’s Consumer Protection Board (CPB) solicitation of the Federal Trade Commission to halt the Google DoubleClick merger “until questions are answered about how Google tracks the habits of millions of Internet users.”

The CPB also wants to know what will happen once the merger allows Google to collect even more information.

People may not realize it, but Google already collects and retains an enormous amount of personal data about the specific websites and advertisements that are visited by millions of people, said Mindy Bockstein Chairperson and Executive Director of the CPB.

The CPB is urging the FTC to require Google to make full and public disclosure of its current data collection practices and contemplated data collection practices post-merger and establish a publicly disclosed, clear and conspicuous data collection policy, including:

• a plan to protect Google’s database from cyberthieves;
• consumer access to the personally-identifiable information in Google’s database and the ability to delete or edit inaccurate information;
• an opt-out mechanism that would allow an Internet user to prevent Google from tracking and storing information about the websites visited by an individual computer user; and,
• remedies in the event of a data breach or failure to comply with a consumer’s opt-out request.

New York State has its consumer privacy priorities straight and is on the Google case, the real scary Google Search user tracking case.

FOR MORE SEE: Beware: Google’s big, bad privacy risks