May 29th, 2007

Google: $3.1 billion DoubleClick date with the FTC?

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 4:55 am

Categories: Advertising, DoubleClick, Google, Google Software Applications, Internet Data, Privacy, Search

Tags: Google Inc., Merger, Data, DoubleClick Inc., FTC, Donna Bogatin

May 29, 2007:  In “NY to Google: Stop Trapping Consumer Data, or No DoubleClick Merger” (story below) I report and analyze the concerted effort underway by New York’s Governor Spitzer administration to require Google to come clean on how it “tracks the habits of millions of Internet users. ”

In a letter to the FTC, the New York State Consumer Protection Board asked the FTC to halt the Google DoubleClick merger pending satisfactory consumer privacy protections and safeguards on the part of Google.

The FTC has now opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into the $3.1 billion Google DoubleClick deal, according to “sources” cited by the New York Times. 

MAY 10, 2007: Has Google CEO Eric Schmidt finally met his match in New York state Governor Eliot Spitzer?

Schmidt feigns scant concern over Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit claiming “massive copyright fringement” following the Google $1.65 billion stock buyout of YouTube. Will the chief Googler also “dismiss” the efforts of Spitzer’s administration to call for a “halt” to Google’s planned $3.1 billion cash buyout of DoubleClick?

If so, it would be foolhardy.

In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the New York State Consumer Protection Board (CPB) is asking the FTC to halt the 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.

In her letter to the FTC, Chairperson Bockstein wrote:

Your intervention is necessary to ensure that safeguards are in place to protect personal data and avoid the chilling effect that unrestrained data collection could have on the Internet. This would likely occur if consumers become mistrustful of using the Internet for fear of identity theft, the dissemination of incorrect information, and embarrassment, for example.

The CPN has also issued a consumer alert, urging New Yorkers to “take action to protect your privacy”:

Goggle, Inc. plans to buy DoubleClick Inc. This merger presents significant privacy implications. The combination of DoubleClick’s Internet surfing history generated through consumers’ pattern of clicking on specific advertisements, coupled with Google’s database of consumers’ past Internet searches, will result in the creation of “super-profiles,” which will make up the world’s single largest electronic repository of personally and non-personally identifiable information. Without appropriate safeguards, this database could, for example, be made available without consumers’ knowledge or consent to secondary users, including vendors of personal data, as well as made public as evidence in litigation or through data breaches.

New York is asking consumers to write to the Federal Trade Commission to:

Voice concern regarding the privacy implications of the DoubleClick and Google merger (and) to require Google to protecty the security and integrity of our private data, including by allowing consumers the ability to access, edit and delete personal information contained withinthe database, and to opt-out from being listed in the database.

As I have oft said, despite CEO Schmidt’s public exhortations, Google does indeed “trap” user data.

Google’s Privacy Policy pages reinforce that while Google may tout data “portability,” the Google user data Cloud remains, for all practical purposes, impenetrable for users. Google may allow users to manipulate their data offline, but it does not put forth any absolute guarantee that users are able to modify, correct and/or permanently delete their data from the Google systems.

WILL THE SPITZER ADMINISTRATION SUCCEED IN REQUIRING MEANINGFUL GOOGLE PRIVACY REFORM?

ALSO: Google zeal breeds more identity theft risks
Google user data cloud: Do you trust it? and
Google vs. Google on privacy, or not and
Google plots server farm land grab in Europe and
Google, YouTube double down on user tracking: DoubleClick next up and
Google to tag users across Web: Privacy Boomerang? and
Google scary now? Personal Health Records, sponsored by Google, next and
Google Analytics: Should Google be minding YOUR Web business?

May 13th, 2007

Google Gmail: Hot, hip or third place player?

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 10:58 am

Categories: Gmail, Google, Google Software Applications, Internet Data, Metrics

Tags: Google Inc., MSN Hotmail, Google Gmail, Internet, Yahoo! Inc., Hitwise, Donna Bogatin

Hitwise is aptly named: It creates Internet hits, courtesy of its “Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs”! 

The blog of LeeAnn Prescott, Research Director at Hitwise, solicits prospective clients to use its: “competitive insights to maximize online marketing programs.” 

Prescott’s latest “competitive insights” posted at her blog concern Gmail, asserting:

Users of Gmail are a different breed than the average Yahoo Mail and Hotmail users, which closely resemble the online population in terms of age and socioeconomic status.

How so? Prescott’s stated backup:

Gmail users are much more likely to be young, high income, and in the early adopter segments. For the four weeks ending 4/28/07, 54% of visits to Gmail were from users between 18 and 34, compared to 42% for Yahoo! Mail and 44% for Hotmail. 18% of Gmail's visits were from those with average annual household incomes between $100,000 and $149,999, compared to 15% from Hotmail and 13% for Yahoo! Mail.

How can Hitwise be so sure? 1) The stats on their face are not overwhelmingly convincing of any particular Gmail "strengths" and 2) How were they derived? 

After all, Internet measurement competitors comScore and Nielsen/NetRatings have been issued a “Audit Challenge” from Interactive Advertising Bureau President Randall Rothenberg, calling for submission to “third-party audits of their measurement processes.”

Hitwise on its “measurement processes”:

Hitwise has developed proprietary software that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use to analyze website usage logs created on their network. The anonymous data sent to Hitwise from the ISPs include a range of industry standard metrics relating to the viewing of websites including page requests, visits and average visit length.Hitwise is also able to combine this rich ISP data with region specific demographic and lifestyle information across thousands of website that are reported on every day.

In Web 2.0: What does Pew really know? last week I dissected the validity of The Pew Internet & American Life Project’s definitive assertions about the online behavior of the totality of the American adult populace.

Last August, I asked YouTube, MySpace, Digg stats: Web ‘tabloid’ tease?, citing, among others, a Hitwise July 11 press release hailing MySpace “meteoric rise” defying “Internet laws of gravity.”

Commercial Internet data shops—comScore, Hitwise —and self-serve Web traffic tracking applications—Alexa, Google Trends—supply the blogosphere with continuous fodder for tabloid style headline stories, I noted.

The present Hitwise post on Gmail is not itself of overt “tabloid” style, but it nevertheless inspired the likes of Mashable’s “Gmail users are younger, richer, good in bed” headlined post, which concluded “As for performance in the bedroom - well, we kinda lied. In fact, the stats show that solitary Gmail users are far more likely to Google themselves.”

Really? Even if Hitwise’s data is accepted as an accurate reflection of usage of Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail, definitive differentiating characterizations of Gmailers vs. Yahoo Mailers and Hotmailers are not a given.

Precise traffic numbers are not stated; “Market share” as reported by Hitwise:

Yahoo Mail 13 times that of Gmail
Hotmail 6 times that of Gmail

Gmail users are much more likely to be young, high income, and in the early adopter segments, is the Hitwise assertion, but derived only from comparisons of widely differing absolute usage, with only minimally differing demographic segmentation.

The Hitwise headline is “Gmail Traffic Up 17% Since Opening Up, Still Early Adopter Appeal.”

Yes, AND in the competitive email scheme of things, Google remains solidly in third-place behind Yahoo and Microsoft, despite its supposedly being a magnet for the young, rich and hip.

ALSO: Google vs. Microsoft Office? NO: vs. Open Office (.org)!
Google aims to usurp campus email systems

April 27th, 2007

Google to acquire NBC Universal? Why not!

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 3:37 pm

Categories: Content, Copyright, Google, Internet Data, Profits, Radio, Television, Video, Wall Street

Tags: NBC, Google Inc., Donna Bogatin

Will John Battelle have to eat his Google words, AGAIN?

In a typically Battellesque headline today, he responds to Bloomberg reports of calls for a General Electric spin-off of NBC Universal to the Googleplex by declaring: 

Google-NBC: Very dumb idea.

How so? Battelle’s assessment: 

Analysts are saying that there is no "synergy" between NBC, a GE Unit, and the conglomerates' other units. So the analysts suggest selling it. That is nothing new, this kind of stuff is tossed around all the time on Wall St. But what is new is the suggestion that the best buyer might be Google. 

Such a move would be a monumental error. Google is not a company that wants to or probably even knows how to own a major media company. Also, it has outlined a strategy that positions the company as a Switzerland of sorts with regard to major media companies. Buying one of them would kill that strategy. 

Google, a Switzerland to media companies, as in neutral third-party, safe-haven? One billion dollar copyright infringement plaintiff Viacom would undoubtedly beg to differ. 

Costa Rica would be a better country analogy regarding Google’s big media strategy.

Why? Costa Rica is a venue of choice for Internet companies seeking refuge from U.S. online restrictions, on gaming. 

The legality of online betting is a complicated matter of some dispute in the United States. The government asserts that the federal Wire Act prohibits all Internet casinos, but the courts have been divided. (as reported by The New York Times, “U.S. Steps up push against online casinos by seizing cash”) 

The legality of unauthorized online uploads of copyright video at Google’s YouTube is, of course, also a complicated matter of some dispute in the United States and parties are divided over the Google DMCA fueled business model. 

Moreover, a prospective Google interest in acquiring NBC Universal is not “dumb,” or even far-fetched.

Just last week I challenged Google to step-up to the plate for a big time media acquisition. SEE: Why is Google afraid to buy Clear Channel?

If John (The Google Search) Battelle does have to eat his words on this NBC Universal call, it wouldn’t be his first Google miss.   

Upon the Google-DoubleClick announcement, Battelle found himself in a hungry state of mind: He had to eat his (prior) words:

My sources told me that Google was building its own, now it's clear it wanted the relationships which came via a market leader. And to force me to eat my post, which I will do Monday when I can get home to a printer (yum).

And I will eat my post before where I said they would not… 

The feast was undoubtedly, brief, just like his original discussion:

Google might buy DoubleClick after all. But…why? Oh wait, now I know. To push Microsoft to spend even more for it. If Google buys DoubleClick, I'll eat this post.  

Another Battelle Google miss, earlier this week, was corrected by Steve Langdon of Google, rebutting Battelle’s analysis of an SEC required filing by Google of an internal company meeting transcript.

Why? In a post entitled “Goodness,” Batellle began “Sometimes, sounding arrogant isn't intentional. It's just in the bloodstream, or it's casually tossed off without thinking how it might sound” to introduce his take on a Google employee briefing, citing a third party report, not the source SEC document.

Battelle quotes "a very interesting Merc story on Google's internal communications regarding stock options":

Technically, this is an e-mail that informs all 12,230-plus Googlers that the in-house market for transferable stock options has been shut down. In reality, it means something really, really big is about to happen to the company that could affect the stock price.

"For example, if Google decides it wants to buy Yahoo, that's a really big deal," said David Sobota, Google's senior corporate counsel. "We wouldn't want to disclose that to the world the first time Eric Schmidt comes to a handshake agreement with Terry Semel about it, because that could disrupt the negotiation process.

Read that last quote again. ""For example, if Google decides it wants to buy Yahoo,"…. I can't imagine how that sounds in the halls over at Yahoo. Youch.

Subsequently, Google to Battelle:

I think you've read far too much into this imaginary illustration that was offered as a way to help explain a complex program….To help explain what kinds of things would suspend the program, the attorney offered an imaginary illustration that would be easily understood — it was intended to be humorous and the audience clearly understood that it was made tongue in cheek.

Will Battelle soon be eating another one of his posts? STAY TUNED!

ALSO: Google DoubleClick merger: Who wins, who loses and
Google DoubleClick: The REAL big time payoff and
YouTube: Why Google is running scared and
CBS Radio to Google, YouTube: No thanks, we built TargetSpot! and
Google plots server farm land grab in Europe

April 25th, 2007

Google demands more tax breaks for server farm rule

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 3:34 pm

Categories: Google, Internet Data, Microsoft

Tags:

Google really is number one, in more ways than one.

For the first time, Google has surpassed Microsoft as the world's most visited Internet property. Online measurement firm comScore Networks found that Google had just over a million more unique users in March: Google had 528 million unique visitors in March, up 5 percent from the previous month, according to comScore. Microsoft had 527 million visitors during the same month, up 3.7 percent.

Of course, comScore measurement skills are debatable, just ask the IAB! SEE Click Fraud Audits: What is IAB’s dog in the fight?

Nevertheless, an insightful academic, Geoffrey Bowker, executive director of the Center for Science, Technology and Society at Santa Clara University, underscores: "At the moment, everything that Google is touching turns to gold," as cited by The San Francisco Chronicle.

If so, than why are cash-strapped state governments lining up to make Google even richer, at the expense of their own taxpayers?

In February, I reported “Google surprise? Google strong-arms government officials in North Carolina:

Google’s near fanatical obsession of deeming its standard business operations to be of “top secret” status has led the $150 billion market cap corporation to strong-arm local government officials in the course of attempting to negotiate favorable real estate development terms.

In Google defends $165 million ‘few strings attached’ tax breaks I discuss how such Google tactics came under fire.

Has Google since become a more collaborative corporate citizen in dealing with state governments in its never ending quest for server farm rule, tax breaks included? Apparently not.

Google is playing its you need us more than we need you card with the Iowa state legislature, and seems to have a winning Googley hand. Not only has Google once again achieved its Google only special "top secret" government privileges, it has apparently succeeded in wooing a legislative representative to serve as a prime Google spokesperson, Senator Bill Dotzler, a Democrat from Waterloo.

According to Dotzler, the trend now is away from having a computer with all the bells and whistles — the software programs — and toward "server farms" which give computer users access to a wide variety of options they'd be hard-pressed to store on a single computer.

"YouTube is a perfect example of that where they have all that stuff sitting in servers and you can access it instantaneously," Dotzler says. The bill Iowa lawmakers are crafting would erase state sales taxes on the electricity used in such "server farms" and Dotzler says that would amount to a huge savings for a company like Google. (as reported by Radio Iowa).

As per Google's requirements, the bill doesn't mention Google. Dotzler, its main backer, said Google plans to invest up to $600 million at a center that would employ about 200 people. The bill would give Google a tax break on both the sales tax from utility bills and a property tax break for the site of the center.

The Senate approved the bill, 47-2. Approval is also expected from the House.

Dotzler has undoubtedly been well coached by Google: 

"Really, the biggest problem with these server farms is the heat that's generated in them. Just one server panel generates the equivalent of a seven-foot-high pile of toaster ovens, so can you imagine the amount of heat?"

What's the problem? Google seems to be able to reflect all heat!

ALSO: Google scary now? Personal Health Records, sponsored by Google, next

April 10th, 2007

Google's big, bad risk

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 6:49 pm

Categories: Advertising, Business Models, Content, Copyright, Culture, Google, Google Ads, Google Software Applications, Internet Data, Search, Search Advertising, Self-Promotion, YouTube

Tags:

The real story in Yahoo’s feather in the cap multi-year exclusive sponsored search and contextual ads agreement with Viacom Web properties announced today? 

No, it is not that it is a $1 billion YouTube lawsuit slap in the face to Google, it is that it puts Google’s entire raison d’etre at risk, but the risk is not a copyright infringement one, it is a risk unique to Google and it is a world wide risk.

The inexorable Google risk is the inevitable conflicts that Google’s real desire to own at once all of the world’s content, without paying for it, AND all of the world’s advertising breeds. 

CEO Eric Schmidt on his worldwide domination ambitions:

We said we are in the search business, so we need all of the information. We want to partner with people to get information so our search users can see it.

We're also in the advertising business, and we'd like to provide advertising services to people who have their own proprietary content. So depending on where we are in that spectrum, we either do an advertising deal or a content deal or a hybrid deal.

But ultimately our goal at Google is to have the strongest advertising network and all the world's information, that's part of our mission.

Google does not merely want to have its cake and eat it too, it wants to control and make money off of every iota of the cake’s life cycle: 

Google Scholar: Cake history
Google Apps: Recipe writing
Google Search: Vendor sourcing
Google Gmail: Factory communication
Google News: Union troubles
Google AdWords: Cake contest
Google AdSense: Website leverage
Google Checkout: Cake sales
Google Maps: Cake retail
Google’s YouTube: Cake video…

Every single man, woman and child, is a Google target user and/or partner and/or advertiser and every single school, government, organization and business is a Google target user and/or partner and/or advertiser.

Is such a scenario really tenable, all over the world, in every market?

Google’s heretofore unblemished track record in exploiting its monopoly like position via coopetition to its for very high profit advantage is being tested, as I discuss in Can Google handle search engine coopetition?

Viacom’s refusal to stand for the Google business model belief that it alone is not required to compensate others for the commercial use of their content has not only put Google’s $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube in jeopardy, it has exposed the inherent, unsurmontable conflicts of interest the Google world domination mission yields.

Goolge's big, bad risk is that its Googley modus operandi is not sustainable.

ALSO: How Google’s new ecommerce engine can mislead consumers and
Google aims to usurp campus email systems and
Google News is NOT newspaper driven: Zell vs. Schmidt and
Why Google IS afraid of Microsoft, big time

April 10th, 2007

Google trumps Microsoft in Seattle

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 11:24 am

Categories: Business Models, Culture, Google, Google Software Applications, Internet Data, Local, Marketing, Microsoft, Self-Promotion

Tags:

UPDATE: Kirlkland called, and a (Micro)Softie responded!

David Bennett, Microsoft Software Development Engineer, happily announces to the world at a Microsoft TechNet blog that:

I just accepted a position to work at Google up in Kirkland, so still in Seattle.  I will be starting there on the 30th of April, so not long now.  My first week will be down in Mountain View doing a orientation thingy.  So those people down in San Francisco, be nice to meet up again. I think this will be a good change and a fun job. 

Apparently, Microsoft does really believe in blogging transparency!

BTW: Post originally titled: Google vs. Microsoft in Seattle.

JANUARY 7, 2007: In “Are Google blogs just PR?” I muse about possible forthcoming “big” Google announcements in this new year: multi-billion dollar acquisition, Google Phone launch, YouTube compensation to content owners… 

Google’s first official public announcement for 2007 came via standard press announcement, as I report in “Google partners with China Mobile on WAP portal.”

The official Google blog has made three posts to date in this new year; Two of the three are promotional fare for its “Seattle-Kirkland R&D Center”: “Kirkland calling” and “A field trip to Google.”

“Kirkland calling” is a direct solicitation for engineers. Google seeks to attract:

The best talent in the Pacific Northwest — folks who are serious about their coffee and don't especially want to move to Silicon Valley…

 

So if you're an engineer, UE expert or product manager who loves coffee (not to mention the mountains and the sea) — and you want to have a great time while you're building world-changing products, please consider our Northwest outpost.

“A field trip to Google” pitches future Google (over Microsoft) engineers:

A group of Seattle-area high school students visited our Kirkland office. The point of such visits is to inspire teens to think about working in technology some day. Here's a firsthand report from Jenna Warman, a student at Lake Washington High School:

“I had no idea there was a Google campus located in Kirkland…We met some of the Google workers, who showed us their current projects they had been working on, such as Google Maps and Google Talk…After that they each grabbed a small group of kids and led us up and down the hallways showing us the different offices and mini kitchens. My tour guide explained that at Google the employees do not just sit in their offices all day — they walk around and visit each other…"

Google’s “Northwest outpost” in Microsoft territory is two years old. Google proudly notes its Seattle/Kirkland engineering accomplishments to candidates: 

Google Search: Real time Olympics results
Google Maps: Geostore for worldwide mapping data
Google Video: Video player & tools
Google Webmaster Central & Sitemaps: Crawling & indexing data and tools
Google Talk: Fast file transfers
Gmail Chat: Quick contacts
Google Toolbar: Google Toolbar for Firefox
Google Desktop: Google Gadgets
Google Pack: Google updater
Google Calendar: Mobile messaging

Google is currently recruiting about 50 positions for its “Seattle-Kirkland R&D Center”:

Engineering, Operations and IT, Product Management, Advertising Sales, Human Resources, User Experience…

There is such a thing as a “free lunch,” at Google. Google’s public facing Kirkland pitch attempts to lure engineers with a mouthwatering typical lunch menu:

Roasted turkey breast, chili red bean patties, scalloped potatoes, roasted cranberry & Satsuma orange salad, classic clam chowder, carrot and coriander soup. You really can't operate in the Seattle area without offering good food, of course, so we offer as much good fuel — fresh, healthy, and, whenever possible, locally-grown — as it takes!

Prospective hires may be hungrier for a large helping of GOOG, however. Google has that angle covered, too: “Google online auctions for employee stock options."

SEE: The new Google risk: Googlers

ALSO: Why Google IS afraid of Microsoft, big time and What Microsoft is telling Google about mobile search and Google CEO gets feisty over Microsoft monopoly  and Google’s high-speed battle with Microsoft and How Google SPIN trumps Microsoft PR

April 8th, 2007

Link risk: Free Web 2.0 is not a done deal

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 2:29 pm

Categories: Blogs, Business Models, Content, Copyright, Culture, Government, Internet Data, Legal, Marketing, ROI, Search, Self-Promotion, Web 2.0

Tags:

UPDATE: Rex Hammock wonders "Maybe I’m just missing something," in not getting that billionaire Sam Zell laments that newspapers are "giving it away," to Google, in particular.

Maybe he is. Perhaps all those cited by Hammock as backup–Jason Calacanis, Dave Winer, Doc Searls, Matthew Ingram, Collin Crawford–also maybe are just missing something. Here are some of the insightful contributions to the "conversation" cited by Hammock re "deftly ripping into" Zell:

Winer: "what he literally said makes no sense"

Ingram: "he's a complete ignoramous"

Crawford "bonus": "they will be joining the dodo"

Contrary to popular, blogosphere and Googley belief, linking is not a done deal on the Web, as a Federal judge in Texas reaffirmed just months ago. READ ON!

BTW, Original title of my post from December: "U.S. Capitalism vs. Web Democracy"

DECEMBER 22, 2006: In “Google AdSense + Google ‘fair-use’ = bloggers ripped-off” I put forth: “When money is at stake, imitation is generally the most insincere form of flattery.”

When money is at stake, a federal judge in Texas has deemed that it is unlawful to provide a hyperlink to a Webcast if the copyright owner objects to it, CNET reports:

The audio Webcasts are copyrighted by SFX Motor Sports, a Texas company that is one of the largest producers of "Supercross" motorcycle racing events. SFX sued Davis in February, noting that fans who go to its own Web site will see the names and logos of sponsors including wireless company Amp'd Mobile. (Anyone who clicked on the link from Davis' site, however, would not see the logos of companies that paid to be sponsors.)

In granting a preliminary injunction against Davis, U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay ruled last week that "the link Davis provides on his Web site is not a 'fair use' of copyright material" and ordered him to cease linking directly to streaming audio files owned by SFX.

Lindsay applied “content must be paid for” business logic, not “content must be free for the taking” Web 2.0 logic, in determining that third-party hyperlinking enabled by Internet technology does not override original content owners’ primordial financial interests:

Lindsay ruled that: "SFX will likely suffer immediate and irreparable harm when the new racing season begins in mid-December 2006 if Davis is not enjoined from posting links to the live racing Webcasts. The court agrees that if Davis is not enjoined from providing unauthorized Webcast links on his Web site, SFX will lose its ability to sell sponsorships or advertisement on the basis that it is the exclusive source of the Webcasts, and such loss will cause irreparable harm."

U.S. capitalism sometimes trumps Web “democracy.”

SEE: Why Google WILL pay for content and YouTube: Why Google is running scared

ALSO: Google blurs line between advertising and content, again and Google clients ‘frustrated’ by unprofitable AdWords buys and Google (will be) a monopoly and Does Google SEO success ’suck’?

April 6th, 2007

Google and Web 2.0: Alive and kicking!

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 6:50 am

Categories: Advertising, Google, Google Ads, Google Software Applications, Internet Data, Metrics, Profits, Search Advertising, Web 2.0

Tags:

Is Web 2.0 over? I asked last April Fool’s weekend.

Today, Om Malik declares the end of Web 2.0 innocence, underscoring Google’s MyMaps launch as a tipping point.

Malik: "The Web 2.0 story so far has been about taking APIs, mashups, low cost infrastructure and building applications that are then offered to customers for pretty much free, backed by an ad-supported business model."

WHO is supporting the Web 2.0 advertising business model, though?

Malik says now is a "pragmatic phase" with Google, the API distributor," taking control back; My Maps, case in point, where the company competes with its 'users', he says.

REALLY? Aren’t Web 2.0 “ad-supported businesses” generally GOOGLE ADVERTISING PARTNERS? (see graphic!)

Malik advises “innovators, entrepreneurs and even larger players have to take off the rose-tinted glasses, and worry about web giants’ ability to go from friend-to-foe almost overnight.”

GOOGLE NOT SO FOE, however. Platial and Plazes Web 2.0 mapping sites are not mere “users,” free ones, of Google’s API. They are ALSO Google AdSense network publishing partners proudly displaying (newly branded) “Ads by Goooooogle.”

(see Google blurs line between advertising and content, again)

Malik gets Web 2.0 romantic:

The current situation is no different than the dating process. The first few months of flirtation are full of romance, where all you choose to focus on is your partner’s best qualities. Three months into the relationship, the nose hair, shoe fetishes and other habits come as a bit of rude awakening. We all adjust, if we believe in the relationship. If not, we go looking for a new love.

HOW SO? Is the potential “new loves” connected Web dating pool overflowing with viable partnership choices?

Malik puts forth start-ups “can’t be wide-eyed about anything anymore.”

BUT, should they EVER have been?

Way back in July 2006 I put forth Web 2.0 monetization by Google AdSense, Where is the business model?

In January I underscored Google dependency is risky business.

When Google IS ‘The Internet’ and Google (will be) a monopoly INNOCENCE was NEVER a good option!

ALSO: Google: Any rain on My Maps parade?

April 2nd, 2007

Does Google SEO success 'suck'?

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 8:53 am

Categories: Amateur Content, Business Models, Google, Internet Data, Local, Marketing, Self-Promotion, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Web, User-Generated Content, Web 2.0

Tags:

Rich Skrenta has a love-hate relationship with Google, and the traffic it drives to the company he leads, Topix.

Skrenta decried to the Wall Street Journal just weeks ago that as Topix is 45% dependent upon Google for its visitors, moves by the number one search engine can yield “catastrophic” impacts on Topix revenues resulting from potentially lower Google SERP rankings.

In Skrenta vs. King Google, sometimes last week, I discussed how Skrenta has been all over the Google map this first quarter 2007.

Skrenta followed up on my analysis of his Google stance with his own post citing my reporting of his “apparent inconsistenencies” in his blog posts over the past four months, saying:

Credit to Donna for actually noticing and calling me on it.

The Skrenta-Google SEO dance continues. Skrenta headlines his explanation for the just announced “reinvention” of Topix “What do you do when your success…sucks?” and begins:

We took a hard look at ourselves at Topix last year. We had built up a strong local audience on the site, but a lot of it was SEO, and while users were clearly getting some value out of our product, we hadn't made something that people really cared about.

Why is Topix reinventing itself now? Skrenta on key insights gleaned:

The first was that users arriving at our site had no idea who we were or what the site was about. "Who the fuck are you guys?" was the question our site needed to answer for vistors, according to the brandologists. In person, and even on our corporate blog, we apparently came across as passionate about what we were doing. But none of this showed through on the site itself. "News untouched by human hands" was what we were actually delivering, and it wasn't working.  

The second problem was sort of a structural flaw with our news pages. They didn't conform to any standard web page metaphor. 

Google SEO lessons learned translation? While appealing, SEO fueled “free” Google search traffic does not a sustainable business make on its own. 

Skrenta and his team engaged in “therapy sessions with brandologists” to pinpoint ways to improve the Topix user experience in order to develop more branded, direct destination traffic with repeat visit loyalty.

Topix Reinvention, as of April 2, 2007, as described by Skrenta:

1) The part of our site that was growing like a weed were the locally-oriented forums. Our new product would emphasize people over the machine. 

2) Fix the local pages by making them work like community-edited blogs. Strictly obey the blog metaphor, with chronological posts, and all of the associated visual cues which tell you that you're on a blog, and not on, say, a Google news search result. 

3) We would run the show just like DMOZ, although borrowing some subsequent innovations from Wikipedia. This was a reliable model, we had done this before with 75,000 volunteers, but no one had done it for news yet. We needed to build an editorial system that could provide a umbrella quality filter around thousands of daily contributors.

4) Anthropomorphize our existing technology into the roboblogger. It simultaneously solves three problems: a Booting up a new city — you need posting activity to draw the first editors. The roboblogger would give us that. But he is shy and gets out of the way if humans show up and take over a page. b) If the community editors go on vacation, the roboblogger can step back in and take over while they're gone. c) People know when a robot is editing the page vs. a human. His profile icon is a picture of a little tin-can robot.  

5) Kill the home page. It should be an "enter your ZIP code" box. Putting national news on this page created too much confusion with our main mission, which has always been local. 

6) Streamline the experience. Most our users are not bloggers, they're not fans of some Silicon Valley Web 2.0 startup. They just want to talk to people in their town. We had to make the experience simple for them.

The official Topix corporate position on its “reinvention”:

Readers reboot local news with Topix

Topix, the largest news community on the Web, today unveiled a new site that gives its established community of millions the power to find, report and edit local news. Topix’s pioneering platform addresses the pent up demand for local news in towns and cities across the country where traditional news media alone can’t cover enough of the hyper-local events and issues that matter most to neighbors.

As part of the launch, Topix also moved its domain to Topix.com to support its continued growth as a major Web destination.

The Topix.com move follows a $1 million purchase of its .com domain.

Topix equity investors Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune upped their financial comittment to Topix by $15 million late last year.

While Google SEO traffic is theoretically "free," Topix is betting its future, and its sharholders' millions, that greater ROI will be had from branded, direct navigation.

ALSO: Google, LookSmart power Ask.com advertising and Google: Sergey Brin on ad revenue knob and Google's Ten Commandments

March 26th, 2007

Google vs. MySpace: Is YouTube doomed?

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 6:37 pm

Categories: Advertising, Amateur Content, Content, Copyright, Google, Internet Data, Legal, Metrics, ROI, Search, Search Advertising, User-Generated Content, Video, YouTube

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Jeff Jarvis ordained $150 billion market cap Google “God,” last week, no joke. In January, he publicly thanked YouTube, for “changing the world and society,” in the guise of a Chad Hurley interview at the Davos World Economic Forum.

Is the Google-YouTube Kool Aid spiked?

Apparently not: “Did Murdoch just KO Google?” Robert Young asks.

Google is not God and the Google-News Corp. fight is just in the opening rounds.

Young on “Google’s incredible success to date, and what they did so right“:

The obvious answer will likely involve an explanation of the brilliant technologies that make up PageRank and AdWords.

Not so obviously brilliant, however. I debunk the PageRank mystique in “Google search PageRank excludes relevant Websites” and in “Scoring Google on quality: C” I dissect the costly Google search advertising Pandora’s box that continuously increases in complexity, opaqueness and Google centricity.

Despite Young’s confidence in Google‘s “brilliance,” he reports looking “under the hood” to unearth a Google vulnerability that he deems elder statesman Rupert Murdoch is in the process of exploiting, big time, thanks to the News Corp.-NBC Universal video distribution JV:

What happens in a future where video, not text, is the fundamental element of the web? If Google cannot translate and convert the advantages it had in a text-dominated web into a future web of videos, Google is in trouble.

Young says he “looks under the hood” to find a “not-so-obvious reason” critical to Google’s success: “The fact that the web has been predominately comprised of text.”

Is Google’s for (massive) profit manipulation of the Web's text really “not so obvious”? No looking under the hood necessary to see the “Ads by Goooooogle” AdSense column along several paragraphs of the text of Young’s post at NewTeeVee!

Young’s case for Murdoch trumping Google CEO Eric Schmidt is based on several faulty assumptions.

YOUNG: "In a web comprised of text, Google could dominate the market in terms of aggregation, search, and distribution without the need to strike one single agreement with content owners. All Google had to do was crawl and index."

Google may believe it has no need to “strike one single agreement with content owners“ because it can easily “crawl and index,” but the Association of American Publishers and the Copiepresse European press group say otherwise and they are telling Google so via legal actions in courts throughout the world.

YOUNG: "But, in a web comprised of video, Google must deal with content owners and strike licensing and distribution agreements, as neither its technologies nor current copyrights laws enable it to autonomously automate the aggregation of a video library without the explicit consent of content owners."

Doesn’t YouTube continue to “autonomously automate the aggregation of a video library (via unfettered YouTuber uploads) without the explicit consent of content owners,’ even following its $1 billion copyright infringement Viacom induced cold shower?

Young concludes: Murdoch “will be the only one that ends up owning both content (via the new joint venture) and distribution (via MySpace) in any material and meaningful way."

Oddly, the other JV partner of News Corp., NBC Universal, does not seem to matter to Young in the Google-YouTube vs. News Corp.-NBC Universal equation.

Is Google really doomed?

After all, Google believes it is in the DMCA high ground at YouTube, regardless of Viacom’s $1 billion legal statement to the contrary.

If Viacom loses its lawsuit against Google, YouTube will be strengthened. Additionally, in a MySpace vs. YouTube smack down for video sharing destination leadership, YouTube would undoubtedly emerge victorious.

Moreover, Google’s video strategy is not wholly dependent on YouTube. Schmidt believes he has an unbeatable one-two video punch: Google Video and YouTube.

Google, in fact, is setting the Internet online video stage to dominate that market as well, in terms of aggregation, search, and distribution, for a Web comprised of VIDEO, in addition to text.

In Google’s own Googley words:

Google AdWords supports click-to-play video ads, ads that combine the power of sound and motion with the precision of Google to provide users with a relevant and engaging advertising experience. Video ads join our lineup of text, image, and flash ad formats and will be displayed on sites that are part of the Google network.

Young, nevertheless:

Using Google as the red herring, Murdoch may actually have succeeded in rallying all of his competitors to join forces by contributing their combined digital video assets into one pool (which he has significant control over). But through his ownership of MySpace, Murdoch is in a very unique position relative to all his big media brethren.

Owning the whole value chain has always been a strategy that has served him well, and by the looks of it, he’s going to continue enjoying such advantages. Not only that, Murdoch could very well have out-maneuvered Google by positioning MySpace to ultimately become what YouTube was supposed to be.

But, if anyone has done the “out-maneuvering,“ it may very well be Google over MySpace.

Murdoch can not be deemed to own the whole value chain. MySpace, after all, is dependent upon Google for serving up search advertising to MySpace‘s friends, $900 million worth!

ALSO: Google wants Presidential candidates and their money and Google disconnects Google Phone chatter and What Microsoft is telling Google about mobile search